Chromecast with Google TV bridges the gap between the tech-savvy and everyone else.
Full disclosure: I’ve spent the last few days testing the new Chromecast with Google TV for our hands-on review – and I really, really like it. It’s going to sound so inane, but the simple addition of a remote and a user interface just make it, well, better than any of Google’s other streaming devices up to this point. It’s the kind of device that I could give to my parents or my less technically savvy friends and have them know how to work it – which is great – while still retaining the ability for me to come over and Cast content I want to watch. Chromecast with Google TV works for both types of users, and I think that’s the smartest move Google could’ve made with its latest streamer. When the first Chromecast came out, I considered it the pinnacle of streaming technology at the time. Casting from my phone and tablet felt futuristic, and Google had done a great job of figuring out how to get two devices to communicate with each other. And yet, as much as I loved the first Chromecast, my friends and roommates at the time hated it. I told them, repeatedly, that all they’d have to do to watch something on Netflix was to pull up the app on their phone, look for the Cast icon at the top and, boom, the show would pop up on the TV.
