Google Chromecast 4K

5owners with an opinion

40%of verdicts positive

0/2positive/negative since 2024

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use and portability; criticized for performance.

What people wrote

Doesn’t like it

I was watching stuff on my Chromecast 4k or whatever. That occasionally stutters or frameskips, so I moved to my PS5 pro. The PS5 pro has plenty of horsepower. Fewer problems, but I see it occasionally skip or freeze slightly when playing back from some providers. I've read Apple TV somehow has this figured out, and since I expected a new model I've been waiting for this one. It's not cheap but I want to be able to stream TV/film without any of those issues. I'm not quite ready to go the super premium route by getting a kaleidescape. I also want to use the bluetooth functionality from time to time.

Doesn’t like it

I had Chromecast 2 for a couple of years. For some time now when you cast YouTube it shows this TV "app" (instead of a static image) that urges you to log in. But you can't, because Chromecast 2 is not supported. I pay for YouTube Premium and if I would use the interface as they present they will show me ads and pester to log in, when they know it doesn't work. I bought a 4k projector a few months ago and bought Chromecast 4k thinking it is just a Chromecast for UHD, but the Google TV thing in it is something I don't like. The remote is also silly, because it is too symmetrical. It often happens that one grabs it upside down and wonder why it doesn't work. The remote doesn't support my soundbar, so the volume buttons do nothing instead of just doing software volume as before. If it could at least learn the codes. Now I start to feel that the best experience for me would be to use a ChromeOS device (i.e. a Chromebox) and create an Android app that would appear in share menus for URLs and Chrome extension, that would open sent URLs. There could be a bit more goodies to that. ChromeOS supports Android apps, but also Linux apps and services so it can run emulators, Syncthing and different media servers. At the same time you can watch Netflix on full quality. The only thing it doesn't support is optical media. ChromeOS devices can be cheap and good enough, so the EoL dates (which they prolong quite often) are not scary. ChromeOS so far is one of the things from Google which keeps…

Likes it

> I warned people not to buy games on Stadia. I got a full refund for the Stadia games and hardware - which I got to keep (free 4k Chromecast and Bluetooth controller!). The shutdown of Stadia could not have been handled better - if Google handled all their other service sunsets like they did with Stadia, I'd be more inclined to take a risk with Google. Packing a controller and a Chromecast was the epitome of traveling light, and served me very well when I had to travel a lot for work. I could resume my games on hotel room TVs, or even on an underpowered laptop. Stadia's UX was frictionless - the couple of times I tried Nvidia's streaming, it felt a lot clunkier

Likes it

Have you tried Chromecast 4k, though? I’ve bought one, as my LG TV’s webOS became so sluggish that it became pretty much unusable. I have an Apple TV 4k in the living room and it’s great, but I find myself drawn to the Chromecast experience way more. Apple TV is more refined, but Chromecast’s remote is far better than ATV’s (1st gen, at least) and Google’s voice assistant is obviously far smarter (especially if you’re multilingual).

Doesn’t like it

Is there any way to make a newer chromecast (the 4k/newer model with remote) behave like the old ones? I.e. completely skip the apps interface and simply work like a casting receiver? I have zero interest in using apps, I just want to cast stuff from my phone. My old (non-4k) chromecast switched to the correct htmi input and started the TV when I started casting to it. The new white one doesn't even show a stream if you cast to it when in the "app" interface which is its default interface. Instead you have to use the remote and leave the app interface first (go "out" to the photo/clock/screensaver interface which was default on older ChromeCasts), and only then you can cast to it? Am I misunderstanding something? Is there a configuration option to just make it a "dumb but 4k" chromecast, i.e. so that it boots up in the mode that accepts streaming?