For everyone else, it's a rather expensive streaming box that doesn't cater to other tech ecosystems.
Apple TV 4K is built to accommodate your iOS devices with AirPlay 2, serve as a HomeKit hub for your smart home cams, plays or displays your iTunes purchases or iCloud photos, allows you to play Apple Arcade games, and puts Apple TV+ shows front and center. We're not fans of Siri for voice controlsįor regular Apple users, the choice of the best streaming device truly is a simple one.
Nevertheless, if you prefer Alexa and Fire OS 7, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max gets you an excellent level of quality in a tiny, bargain-priced streaming device. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max also supports Wi-Fi 6, so your videos can stream in a higher quality with less time wasted on buffering. For one thing, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is powered via MicroUSB, while Chromecast with Google TV uses USB-C with the latter, you can connect your Chromecast to a USB-C hub. However, we didn't hesitate to put Chromecast with Google TV above the Fire TV Stick 4K on our best streaming device list. Our Fire TV 4K Max review did find the ads to be a bit too much using this device however.
We actually like the Alexa remote more because it has dedicated rewind and fast-forward buttons. Each lets you contact their respective voice assistants with the touch of a button. Both streaming dongles have identical support for 4K, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos. Of the Amazon Fire TV family, we selected the Fire TV Stick 4K Max as the device that most shoppers should choose, as a close rival to the Chromecast with Google TV in specs and features.
But many people consider Alexa to be the best voice assistant available today, and if you want a streaming dongle with built-in Alexa commands, then your best choice is, of course, a Fire TV Stick.
Most of our top streaming picks cater to Android or Apple users, or are universally compatible but don't specialize in any one tech ecosystem or voice assistant. No official support for Google apps beyond YouTube
As most owners of the old Chromecasts will attest, Google TV having a remote control for streaming, casting, and voice command features was long overdue. It gave us good recommendations based on our viewing habits, and the menus of content are both fast-moving and well-organized. We found that the dongle was easy to set up in our Chromecast with Google TV review.
Beyond that, it uses a rebranded version of Android TV called Google TV that employs machine learning to power Google's Knowledge Graph, which generates personalized recommendations from your favorite streaming platforms and Android TV's thousands of free apps and channels. Most streaming companies lock off Dolby streaming to the "premium" dongle that costs twice as much. It can stream 4K, HDR, HDR10+, Dolby Vision content, and Dolby Atmos soundtracks. Now, Chromecast with Google TV bundles both casting and Google TV streaming into one cheap dongle that will serve the needs of most streaming addicts.įor starters, the Chromecast with Google TV is disproportionately powerful for its size and price. When Chromecast dongles could only cast content from your devices to the TV, many people reserved one HDMI slot for their Chromecast and another for a traditional streaming stick.