 Yeah, we're making a video about a Chromecast, but we have a good reason. This isn't just a Chromecast, not anymore. It's got a remote. Okay, sure, yeah, it still plays content that is casted from your device, and I'm pretty sure it's Chrome-plated, but it also supports 4K, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos. It can stream games locally and from the cloud. It can read external storage and use ethernet, and it can even make video calls. Wait, that's just an Nvidia shield. How much is this thing? 50 bucks. What? Ridge Wallet wants to redefine the wallet with its compact frame and RFID blocking plates. Check out how they can keep your wallet bulged down and use offer code Linus to save 10% and get free worldwide shipping. Since the first one launched for 35 bucks in 2013, Chromecasts have been an inexpensive way to throw content from your phone or your Chrome browser up on the big screen. And the low price made sense because it was essentially a wireless display adapter more than it was a home entertainment device. Updates over the years enabled casting in a plethora of Android apps and added support for features like 4K resolution and 60 FPS. But the Chromecast itself has remained an enigmatic inaccessible dongle. Like what mysteries lie beneath your plastic shell? Well, we don't have to wonder anymore because the Chromecast with Google TV still does all of that stuff, but also has an actual user interface called Google TV. And here's the awesome thing. It is not the same Google TV that Google killed back in 2014. Thank goodness. Google TV is just a skin on top of Android TV. Sort of like the custom Android forks that companies like Samsung pre-install on their phones. Google TV is also an Android app, which will eventually replace Google Play movies and Play TV. But it also seems like Google TV will eventually just be what everyone calls Android TV. You know, the whole thing is getting pretty convoluted. The point is this thing runs Android TV and is therefore capable of some of those awesome things we mentioned before because of the Android app ecosystem. Of course, this is all nothing new. There are a ton of Android TV boxes out there. It's just that most of them come with significant compromises. Amazon's Fire devices are inexpensive, but they don't natively support casting or dongles. And you're stuck with Alexa and Amazon's Fire OS version of Android. There are tons of Chinese made Android boxes that look amazing, but end up having janky software and well, good luck sorting out any returns or repairs. There's the two Nvidia Shield TV models, which are freaking amazing with their AI upscaling and low latency game streaming, but they start at 150 US dollars and, hey, what's this? Ah, yes, the TiVo Stream 4K, which is basically the same device as the Chromecast with Google TV, but with an older processor, uglier remote and a worse interface. Now, the experience is very similar to alternatives from Apple, Amazon, and Roku. It presents movies and TV shows from across all your streaming services, allowing you to browse content by type and jump right into the app where you can watch it. You can search by voice with Google Assistant through the remote, add to your watch list for later viewing and like titles to teach Google's algorithm about your preferences. Look, I already told you, if Keanu Reeves isn't in it, I don't wanna see it. And of course, you can also directly open streaming apps to use their interfaces or fire up any other apps that you might have side loaded. I mean, playing Halo on this thing, it's just, well, let's not get carried away yet. The dongle uses the same floppy pebble design as its direct predecessors, but now it looks as slick as you will with a new shirt from lttstore.com. It comes in three colors and feels real nice in the hand, which doesn't matter, but hey, when you imagine it back there, you'll be like, nice. There's the HDMI output, just like before, but the micro USB port has finally been upgraded to USB-C. And this one isn't just for charging. That's right, you can plug anything in there, like the official $20 Chromecast ethernet adapter, or even a random generic USB-C dongle with ethernet, SD card slot and extra USB ports. Woo! Just make sure that you choose a dongle that has another USB-C port on it to pass through power and that you use a greater than 7.5 watt power adapter, since that adapter now has to power anything connected to the hub as well as the Chromecast. With the hub, you can do things like play video files directly off of external storage devices with a file manager app. You can connect USB peripherals like mice, keyboards, and controllers if you don't have wireless ones on hand. You can plug in a webcam for big screen video calls, although apps other than Google Duo seem to require some tinkering. And you can take advantage of a wired internet connection. Although I should point out that our speed test results going from wireless to ethernet were weird to say the least. We doubled our upload speed, but then decreased our download speed. I guess such inconsistencies aren't that surprising given the Amlogic S905D3 processor and its four pinner ARM Cortex-855 cores. And fortunately, it didn't affect our ability to stream even high bit rate Blu-ray rips from Plex. But I do wonder if there's some work that could be done to smooth that out. Now it's time to get into why we wanted to take a look at this thing in the first place. It's a good casting and Android TV stick, but who didn't see that coming? What I wanted to know was for just $50, how does it measure up to something like the Nvidia Shield? Can the Chromecast with Google TV game? The answer is yes. Like don't get me wrong, 3D Android games aren't gonna run the smoothest, assuming you can even clear enough space to install them on the Chromecast's four gigs of usable storage. But they do run. And as for game streaming, well, you can do it both in home and from the cloud. Android TV optimized versions of apps like Steam Link, Moonlight, and even GeForce Now are directly available from the Play Store. And performances, well, it's as good as your network connection. Here at the office, we experienced virtually no lag streaming games from a local PC, even on Wi-Fi, and just a little bit more playing cloud games via GeForce Now. But that's because our networking setup here is balls to the wall. At home, however, Riley noticed significant lag streaming both from his gaming PC and from the cloud, and strangely, both over Wi-Fi and a wired connection. Maybe it's not that strange. We did note in his tech upgrade video that his home router is pretty awful. Riley, really though, your home router is awful. You gotta upgrade that. I didn't know. Who uses the one from their ISP? Now I know. If you do have decent internet, you could even try out some cloud gaming apps that you're not supposed to. Android TV doesn't have support for Xcloud or Stadia yet, but you can sideload them and play games just fine. If by just fine, you mean with significant lag, because gaming on these apps wasn't great, even here in the office, and I can see why they're not officially available yet. Interestingly though, there was significantly less lag in all of those game streaming apps on the Shield TV Pro, which Riley also took home for comparison. So there you have it. If you want a super optimized game streaming experience, the Shield TV might actually be worth the extra $100. For anyone else though, this is basically the only streaming sticky, floppy doodle that matters, unless of course you're one of the dozens of you who are paying Stadia members, in which case support is coming next year. So I expect between now and then Google will either A, do some optimization magic to make the experience real nice on the Chromecast with Google TV, or B, just straight up cancel Stadia like they do with everything. It's basically inevitable. Check out the new WD Black SN850 NVMe drive featuring PCI Express Gen 4 at Micro Center. It's engineered and built with Western Digital 3D NAND to give you both reliability and performance. And it reaches up to 7,000 megabytes per second reads and up to 5,300 megs per second for writes to get you in your games quicker, especially as games get optimized for faster SSDs. It can handle up to 1 million IOPS and you can also monitor your drive and take control with the downloadable WD Black dashboard, which helps you optimize your performance. Check it out at the Micro Center links below. If you guys enjoyed this video, maybe check out our full review of the Nvidia Shield TV. It really is fantastic if you've got an extra 100 to $150 to spend.