Google TV Streamer arrives

Back in April, a new Google TV Streamer was announced. I saw more information about it in July and I wondered if I would get one. Spoiler alert: I did.

I wasn't sure at first if I would. I thought I would wait on the testing results from others, but I decided to not wait. I ordered one, and it arrived Wednesday afternoon. I set it up Wednesday night, and decided to spend what time I had available the next few days testing it myself. That's what I'm doing.

I will mention a couple of things I noticed immediately. First, there was not HDMI cable. That surprised me. It wasn't a problem as I had one, but I actually had expected one to be there. It was late before I decided to set it up Wednesday night, and if I hadn't had a spare HDMI cable I would have had to either stopped, or gone to the store late at night.

To be fair, on the Google Store page for the device, it does say "All you need is an HDMI cable and the Google Home app. HDMI cable sold separately." I had missed that. However, as even Roku includes a cable, I didn't expect that. Keep this in mind if you decide to purchase one.

Setup was easy as I expected, since the Google Home app walks you through it. It's really no different than setting up a Chromecast in that respect. Or any Google Home device. They do that well.

The next thing I noticed was the remote. It's larger than the Chromecast remote, and I like it much better. The volume control is on the front, not on the side, and I like that. That's really the only major change, but moving the volume control to the front takes up more space. That's actually a good thing in my mind, as the remote fits well in my hand.

The main menu screen has a sharper look than the Walmart Onn Streaming Device. That's really not a surprise. The Walmart device looks good, but the Google TV Streamer looks better. The Chromecast actually looked better than the Walmart device, so this isn't a surprise. I've not compared the Chromecast to the Google TV Streamer, but both look good.

Over the next several days I'll be testing the device, using it extenstively, and let you know what I think. My Streaming Life has benefited using the Google TV interface, and this new Google TV Streamer looks to continue that.