I fear the release the this new Nexus Player portends we're not going to see an update to the Chromecast anytime soon, if ever. That makes me sad.<p>I guess I'm just not the average user, but the Chromecast handily beats what this (and other options in this genre, i.e., Apple TV / Fire TV / Roku) have to offer. I don't want another remote control. And making my phone the best remote control is an awesome solution. And the Chromecast doesn't take up any room in my living room / entertainment center. And it's only thrity-five-goddamn-dollars.<p>I guess the downside is that I can't play crappy games on my big screen. Darn.
What? A media-hub with NO wired ethernet? How am I supposed to take that seriously?<p>I don't care about what people saying about wifi having gotten "better". By every single measurable criteria, it is slower, is less reliable, has lower capacity and higher latency than wired gigabit ethernet and I doubt that will change anytime soon.<p>I demand wired ethernet on my devices, and I know a bunch of other who do too.
I wish this was a real Google TV replacement.<p>My 4-year-old Google TV box (Logitech Revue) -- with Android 3.1 -- is really showing its age. The app store is pretty empty and it only supports things like Amazon Video and HBO Go because Android still had Flash back then.<p>The missing key is an HDMI input. My TV is always tuned to the Google TV input whether I'm watching live cable TV, a Netflix movie or casting a YouTube video. I have a single remote control (the Google TV one) for all of them. It changes channels and settings on my cable box with HDMI CEC.<p>All these new boxes make you switch inputs and remotes all the time. I have too many remotes already.
I realize the controller is sold separately, but I did find it a little odd that the controller says "ASUS" at the top instead of "NEXUS" since it seems to be the official controller.
There is so little innovation going on in the apple tv-esque space. All of these devices look and act exactly the same (Fire, AppleTV, this thing, Roku, etc)
The lack of Ethernet is a deal breaker for me. Ethernet is the only thing my chromecast is missing. I don't want games or apps, just a stable internet connection.
I've had the pleasure of using one of these for the past month and it's been really great. I have a Chromecast that I used all the time before, but because I can cast to the Android TV (Player), I don't use the Chromecast anymore (I only have one TV).<p>The whole UI feels very snappy, and videos load very quickly.<p>The game pad feels great in my hands. No complaints there.<p>The selection of games on Google Play isn't huge (yet?). I currently see 16 games listed on it for download/purchase. My favorite so far is Leo's Fortune. I enjoyed it on my Nexus 5 when it came out, but after playing it on Android TV, I won't even play it on the phone anymore because I've experienced how much better the game is with a controller. I suspect that's going to be the case with a lot of games that come out for Android in the future. Touch interface only games have a lot of limitations.<p>Besides Netflix, you can also use Plex (PlexPass subscribers only right now) and that works pretty flawlessly as well.<p>I've been very happy with the whole setup and I'll be recommending it to all who are in the market for a set top box.
This is a legitimate question, not a troll. Are there actually any mobile games out there that you would <i>want</i> to play on your tv with a controller?<p>Pretty much every mobile game I have ever tried has been a cesspool of micropayment dark patterns, or else something that really just serves to kill time when there is nothing else to do (riding the bus, waiting at an office, etc.)
With the chromecast, I have no interest in another box that plays video content. Having a dedicate box to play casual android games on my tv isnt very appealing to me either.<p>Is there really a big market for this thing?
Now we need a $20 google audiocaster. It would kill the airplay speaker market for android devices. You can hack it with a $20 hdmi to 3.5mm audio adaptor, but then it becomes a $55 device.<p>I'm somewhat surprised there is no ethernet in this player. For some places, wifi just doesn't work in their environment.
I've been anxiously awaiting this. We're thinking of shipping an enterprise product on the Amazon Fire TV, but it's relative lack of control is quite limiting. Hopefully this is priced similarly.<p>I've tried nearly every android TV stick, and while they are pretty close to what we need, and infinitely customizable, we had trouble getting consistent hardware. It seemed like each batch would behave slightly differently.
This really looks just like a circular version of the FireTV. The remote looks very similar. To the point I'd assume they are the same design.<p>Is this just a case where Amazon got a reference implementation out the door before Google did?
I don't get this. I have a Chromecast + nexus 7 as a remote and its already my preferred way of watching Netflix etc. Much better than a clusmly remote.<p>I hope this doesn't mean there backtracking on Chromecast.
Google Cast sounds a bit too good to be true, just like the Chromecast was. I hated the Chromecast 'cause it simply didn't have enough content for me and the performance was terrible.<p>I'll have to wait and see how the performance for the Google Cast is. I'd like it to at least be as good as my ability to airplay HD MKV files to an Apple TV.
Shame it comes with a much weaker Atom processor instead of the new 64-bit Tegra processor, that's already in the Nexus 9 tablet. That decision doesn't make any sense to me, which shows once again that Google's Intel-related decisions are all political, and not technical.
Is it just me, or do the controllers (both of them) look <i>just</i> like the Fire TV's controllers?<p>I just don't get it. Does every company have to jump in head first to any emerging market just because the others are doing it?
Ah, this will replace my RPi with XBMC (for local playback) and Chromecast combo nicely - not having to use two devices will clear up some HDMI space on the receiver :)<p>The Android TV interface looks pretty sleek as well.
Feel quite certain we will see Apple announce 4th generation Apple TV tomorrow with a gaming capable A7 processor for Metal games, and voice capable remote control the same as Nexus Player.
"Start here, finish there" is one of the good features. However is not really new, I can do the same with Amazon Prime ( w/ App from Smart Tv and App on Tablet ).
Surprisingly not mentioned on the <i>fr_FR</i> main page <a href="https://archive.today/zYpBZ" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/zYpBZ</a><p>edit: ha... probably market limited.
>Get your apps on Google Play, or rent a movie if your app doesn’t have what you’re looking for<p>What? Are they exclusively targeting movie content with this? It doesn't make much sense to rent a movie if store apps don't have a feature I am looking for.