Google Chromecast Ultra Review: Low Price, Moderate Frustration
Our Verdict
The Chromecast Ultra fits the bill if you want beautiful visuals at a depression toll, just nagging blueprint and interface bug hold it back.
For
- Piece of cake to employ
- Inexpensive
- Beautiful 4K HDR streams
Against
- Fewer channels than competitors
- Lingering bugs
- Inelegant blueprint
Tom's Guide Verdict
The Chromecast Ultra fits the bill if you want cute visuals at a low cost, only nagging design and interface issues hold it dorsum.
Pros
- +
Easy to employ
- +
Inexpensive
- +
Beautiful 4K HDR streams
Cons
- -
Fewer channels than competitors
- -
Lingering bugs
- -
Inelegant design
In "Up the Long Ladder," an otherwise very forgettable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a guest star informs Mr. Worf that "Every moment of pleasure in life has to be purchased by an equal amount of hurting." Nowhere is this adage truer than in streaming media players.
The Google Chromecast Ultra ($seventy) may sound like the perfect device on paper: a modest, powerful 4K thespian that works with your existing setup and costs considerably less than $100. Dig a little deeper, though, and yous'll find meaning shortcomings in its design, functionality and channel choice. The Chromecast Ultra fits the bill if you want beautiful visuals without breaking the depository financial institution, just you'll have to be willing to put up with a few little annoyances to get there.
- What is Google Chromecast?
Editor's note: Google has since discontinued the Chromecast Ultra. Our original review appears as originally published below, but cheque out our Chromecast with Google Tv set review and Google Chromecast (3rd Generation) review to see the current options.
Google Chromecast Ultra review: Pattern
Although I was lukewarm on the manner the first Chromecast looked (also equally but nearly everything else well-nigh it), I was a large fan of the redesign. The Chromecast Ultra resembles its 1080p counterpart in that it's a round USB dongle that can attach magnetically to its own HDMI connector. Hiding information technology behind a Tv is very elementary, although if y'all can't, it's an bonny enough device. (Sadly, the Chromecast Ultra doesn't come up in the cool red or yellowish options of its less sophisticated cousin.)
The Chromecast Ultra is a bit bigger than the 1080p Chromecast: 2.iii inches in diameter, rather than two.0 inches. (The Roku Stick, one of the Chromecast's closest competitors, is 3.3 x 0.8 inches, for comparing.) The size isn't much of a trouble, just the power source is. Unlike the smaller Chromecast, which can draw ability from a TV's USB port, the Chromecast Ultra requires a constant connection to an outlet in order to function. If your amusement center's surge protector is already total, get ready to play musical wires, or else run an extension cord. (Which I did, and virtually tripped over it a few times).
Not simply is the adapter itself very large, but the cord is not almost long plenty: just about 5.5 feet. If your TV's HDMI ports are on the opposite side of the closest power supply, you have my sympathies. At least the large adapter lets you plug in an Ethernet cord. You lot may need information technology to get the total 4K feel, depending on the strength of your wireless connection.
The Chromecast Ultra is pretty, but its setup and functionality feel clunky compared with the 1080p Chromecast. Perhaps there was no style around this, given how much power a 4K auto needs to draw, just and so why not simply make a small box instead of a dongle? It's a mismatch of form and role.
Google Chromecast Ultra review: Interface
The best interface is no interface. So sayeth Google, which designed the Chromecast with a nearly invisible operating system. Rather than navigate through a series of menus, similar on a Roku, an Amazon Fire TV or an Apple Television set, the Chromecast just takes cues from your mobile device or reckoner, so handles the rest on its ain.
The way information technology works is remarkably simple. Just download the Google Home app on your iOS or Android device, or the Google Cast Extension in the Chrome browser. The Google Home app will give you a list of compatible apps, which you tin can so download from the Google Play Store or iTunes. Each app volition now have a "cast" push built-in, which streams content to your TV. The process is pretty like for computers, except you'll visit websites instead of opening apps. There's a partial list of compatible programs on Google'due south Chromecast site.
The dazzler of the Chromecast is that your phone is not actually doing whatever of the legwork. You lot aren't dissemination Netflix directly from your phone to your TV. Rather, the Chromecast app sends a signal to the device, which handles the residual on its own. You're free to use your phone as normal while your shows and music stream in addition to controlling volume, rewinding, fast-forwarding, pausing, skipping tracks and all the other things you lot'd expect a remote to exercise. The battery drain on a device is minimal, and the functionality is intuitive for anyone who'due south ever used a smartphone earlier.
More: Best Streaming Players: Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV & More
On the other manus, relying on your phone or computer to command everything ways that you'll have to bargain with minor abrasive errors on a fairly regular basis. While the Chromecast Ultra always responded promptly the first time I wanted to sentinel something, information technology would oftentimes just end working if I tried to switch to a new app without stopping the get-go one. This happened whether I was using my phone (a Motorola Moto X), my tablet (a Google Nexus 10) or my laptop (an aboriginal Lenovo), and so it appears to exist owned to the Chromecast rather than the controlling device.
After watching a bear witness for a long period without using my phone, my controls would sometimes disappear. While installing a software update, my telephone said that the device had stopped responding, when in fact, information technology was working just fine and ready to accept new commands.
These oddities are difficult to avoid when you've made a protocol that has to collaborate with dozens, if not hundreds, of slightly different phone and reckoner operating systems, but Chromecast has been grappling with these problems since its very get-go iteration, and while they're getting better, I don't know if they'll ever fully go away.
Finally, using your phone as a remote means that you are relying on a device that sees heavy usage with limited battery life. A conventional remote control on a fix of AA batteries might last for years; you're lucky if your phone lasts for 8 hours. Plugging it in is a pocket-size badgerer, in the one thousand scheme of things, but both my phone and tablet ran out of juice while I was watching Netflix, and I couldn't fifty-fifty pause my show while looking for their chargers. It'southward a First World problem, merely a problem nonetheless.
Google Chromecast Ultra review: Content and Apps
It'due south surprisingly hard to get an accurate gauge for the number of Chromecast apps available. This is partially because information technology'south surprisingly hard to find Chromecast apps beyond the major players. There is no comprehensive list of Chromecast apps, nor does Google provide a number. Rather, Google makes the Chromecast SDK widely available, and so just about any developer can implement information technology, if information technology so chooses. I would guess there are a few thousand Chromecast-compatible apps out there, betwixt iOS, PC and Android platforms. Like most streaming channels, perchance 30 of them are worth your fourth dimension.
The app selection on the Chromecast Ultra is identical to that on the regular Chromecast. You can get Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go/Now Google Play Movies/TV/Music, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Crackle and dozens upon dozens of other video and music providers, both major and modest. There are even a few decent games, like Only Dance, although the gaming section is all the same very much an reconsideration.
More: The Best Streaming Video Services: Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV and Beyond
Google and Amazon still refuse to play nicely together, though, meaning that you can't apply the Chromecast to stream Amazon Video without a few clever work-arounds. (You can mirror your screen or use Google Chrome's Bandage extension to cast your whole browser screen; they both technically work, neither is ideal.) This is peculiarly a shame where the Chromecast Ultra is concerned, considering Amazon Video is 1 of the few providers of unique 4K HDR programming at the moment.
4K content is also rather slim pickings at the moment. Netflix streams a number of its original shows and movies in UHD, sometimes with HDR features. Some YouTube videos are in 4K. If you lot take whatever of your own 4K content, you can stream it through a DLNA app like Bubble uPnP. That's about it for at present.
Speaking of streaming your ain content via DLNA, yous'd better take a third-party app handy, because yous cannot stream your ain videos and music straight from your phone to your TV in Google Play Movies or Music. Given that Roku offers a native program with this characteristic, leaving it out is a huge disappointment.
Google Chromecast Ultra review: Performance
Ane advantage of the Chromecast Ultra's larger size and bigger power draw is that it packs a more powerful processor than its 1080p counterpart. Google boasts that the Chromecast Ultra can run apps and become them to Hd and UHD qualities faster than the smaller one. From what I've observed, it tin can indeed. Opening programs seldom took more than 5 seconds; some apps, similar Crackle, accomplished full HD resolution in just a 2nd or two. This is also highly dependent on your Internet connexion, but at to the lowest degree with a potent connection, the Chromecast Ultra can run very, very fast.
As to whether this fabricated a huge qualitative difference from older Chromecasts, I didn't notice any. A few seconds to buffer as your show starts is unlikely to spoil your 24-hour interval, and if the tradeoff is the ugly, beefy, constantly-plugged-in adapter, I'd rather take a few actress seconds to hit total- Hard disk drive resolution each time.
Even so, no one (I hope) is buying the Chromecast Ultra to run into how well information technology broadcasts full-Hard disk drive content; they want to see it deliver 4K HDR video. For this purpose, I can attest that the Chromecast Ultra is a thing of dazzler. I sabbatum through the four videos in the YouTube HDR playlist (which aren't terribly interesting, but do a expert job of showcasing 4K'due south well-baked resolution and HDR'south vivid colors), and was consistently impressed past the vibrant reds of a skateboard, the vibrant greens of a snakeskin, the crystal clarity of a bead of sweat or the coaction of light and shadow in a redwood woods.
Achieving consummate 4K HDR allegiance does take a little while, though. In my tests using an Ethernet connection on an office line that grants 35 Mbps download speeds, it still took virtually twoscore seconds from when I started a video to when it achieved maximum resolution. Whether this is due to office network protocols is difficult to say, but either way, watching full 4K HDR videos will crave a picayune patience, assuming your network is even stiff plenty to support them (most 25 Mbps down).
At present, merely Netflix and YouTube offering 4K and HDR content for the Chromecast Ultra; if you want more than that, y'all'll probably need to stick to a Roku Ultra ($130) or an Nvidia Shield TV ($200). The Amazon Burn TV can display UHD resolutions, but not HDR, which leaves the Chromecast Ultra as the cheapest competitor in a narrow field. Still, the number of compatible apps should increment over the next year, and having both functionalities in a $70 machine is naught to sneeze at.
Google Chromecast Ultra review: Verdict
The Chromecast Ultra doesn't accept as many apps every bit its competitors. The interface has some lingering flaws, and having to proceed information technology plugged into the wall at all times is greatly abrasive, considering its dongle design. If you lot tin can look past that, though, you're paying only $lxx for a device that broadcasts gorgeous 4K HDR video with easy-to-use controls on devices you already own.
While the Chromecast Ultra isn't perfect, and certainly not for anybody, it's a solid choice for videophiles who don't truck with Amazon, and who want meridian-notch performance for relatively fiddling money. It's not as comprehensive every bit it could be, but it's expressionless simple, and in the complicated globe of streaming, a fiddling simplicity can go a long way.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/google-chromecast-ultra,review-4043.html
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