For all my sibs, I picked one up last weekend.
The device itself-really nice. Would I have preferred a black version? Yep, but Google aren’t going that route now so the white was the next best colour. Could see myself buying a pink one for my daughter at some point to match her Nest Mini.
Remote-awesome. Love the Netflix and YouTube buttons. In our house they are our two most popular apps so no complaints from me there.
Initial setup was nice and easy as you’d expect from a Google device. Most of the work was done in the Home app.
It recognised my Sonos Beam and B7 with no issues so the remote can do volume and turn the TV off. Nice.
Went through an update and then was good to go.
UI-fantastic. I’m a massive Apple TV fan but I have to imagine that what Google has come up with is what they envisioned for the ATV app. The fact they got Netflix part of it as well is a major coup IMO. The fact that I can just scroll through content that’s in the apps in the For You section and it will just load in what you’ve selected is awesome.
What I expect to do is load in our family account and use that account so we have a central hub of suggested content to choose from as opposed to merely my own.
Now this little dongle doesn’t come without issues....
The big one: No auto frame rate change. Which I’m sure has already been mentioned. I messed around with the various settings and currently have it setup at 4K/50. Everything appears to be ok(?), but I know this will be a deal breaker for some/most so if you’re likely to get annoyed about this then I’d stay clear. I hope that with their Android 11 update this is resolved.
UK apps-again, quite a big thing in that there is no All 4 or Now TV. Casting is available but for me, that defeats the point of having the UI & remote. I know Google signed that deal regarding Freeview Play but I don’t know if that’s geared towards actual TV’s as opposed to their streaming device, because the apps do exist on Sony TV’s with Android TV. So again, the prayers must go to the Channel 4/Sky gods and maybe they’ll pull their fingers out and make compatible apps for the Android TV streaming devices...
You won’t get Live TV playback from ITV Hub either-only catchup. iPlayer and my5 do provide live playback as far as I’m aware.
YouTube-don’t know if it’s something to do with my setup but the YT app seems to be a bit hit and miss with its playing of 4K content. Like a video is clearly flagged as 4K and then only shows it as 1080p. I select another video and the quality shows as 4K. Very strange and hope it’s merely a bug.
For full disclosure, this was bought with the intent to use it with Stadia once its rolled out in app form (or even as a section in the top bar?) to the new CC. I’ll definitely be flipping between this and the ATV initially, but given how intuitive the UI appears to be with me only having an hours worth of usage, I can definitely see me/us leaning towards using the CC going forward.
@TheOracle regarding your Nest stuff: Have you tried using the Assistant button to show you the camera you want to see? I asked to see the camera in our daughter's room and it pulled it up on the screen...
