Prolific television maker TCL has announced that it will be selling its first Google TV within the year. The set would be the first with the new UI and join a fleet of Roku TVs and low-end Android TVs in the portfolio.
Read MoreProlific television maker TCL has announced that it will be selling its first Google TV within the year. The set would be the first with the new UI and join a fleet of Roku TVs and low-end Android TVs in the portfolio.
Read MoreThe Chromecast with Google TV is a brilliant product, as noted in Ryan's review, but it's not without its flaws. Since getting one a week ago, I've found Google's new Android TV skin to be a delight, so much so that my far more powerful Nvidia Shield has been relegated to the bench. The experience isn't perfect, however, and I've had to close misbehaving apps on several occasions. The most notable issue I've faced relates to Bluetooth audio, but thankfully there's an easy fix.
Read MoreGoogle TV is the latest iteration of Google's smart TV software, having made its debut on the latest Chromecast a few months back. Sony's new Bravia XR TVs are among the first to arrive with Google TV built-in, and they have some other noteworthy features as well.
Read MoreGoogle TV, the Android user's hub for searching out and tracking streaming content, recently dumped support for Netflix content. That means if the show you're looking for is on Netflix, you'd have to tap around more to find it. But if your show is on Comcast's Peacock service instead, that's not the case anymore.
Read MoreYouTube TV isn't cheap. Subscribers do get a lot of channels for the money, at least, and now it looks like they might be getting even more than they bargained for. Google just started sending out emails to some current users inviting them to claim a free Chromecast with Google TV — but hurry, because the offer expires later this month.
Read MoreScanning through tens of streaming services and hundreds of shows and movies to find that one perfect title is not only time-consuming but also exhausting (TIL, it even has a word: Showverload). Google, being that one nice guy around, wants to fix that for you with its all-new Google TV interface. The highly personalized service is getting a new tool to better understand your likes and dislikes, which will help Google tune its content recommendations to match your preferences.
Read MoreWhen it announced the new Chromecast, Google heralded its new Google TV interface layer as an excellent content discovery experience aimed at helping you find what to watch without worrying about the logistics of the 'where' and 'how.' In many ways, the promise is fulfilled and we think you won't be disappointed at all by your $50 purchase. But if you don't live alone and have kids, a roommate, or a partner with a different taste, the experience is far from ideal. Google TV is clearly built for a single user, from the homescreen to Assistant and various other apps.
Read MoreGoogle TV is meant to act as a starting point for your watching experience by letting you look up titles and see where you're able to watch them including through your current streaming memberships. One of the participating services was Netflix, but it appears that the behemoth has dropped from the Android app.
Read MoreThere are 8K Android TVs out there and a decent selection of 8K content on YouTube. But up until recently, the streaming cap on the YouTube app for Android TV was 4K. Not anymore, though.
Read MoreGoogle introduced dynamic audio grouping on the Nest Hub and other Assistant-enabled smart displays earlier this year. The feature allows devices to be added and removed from audio groups on the fly without needing to edit groups beforehand. This ability started rolling out in the Google Home app last week — and it enables a workaround that lets you cast videos to Chromecast devices while the audio plays on Nest speakers.
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