Casting Your Options

The main reason I went out and bought a cast was because I needed a way to get my Netflix binge on since my old vizio tv was no longer being supported (sad face). I definitely didn’t want to carry my ps3 everywhere my T.V. went considering I’m in college, my stuff tends to move a lot. So on to the beans of it.

Googles streaming device the chrome cast comes packaged in a no frills box. Accompanied by the usual info, charging cable, and an HDMI extender you have the power to bring the internet to your

T.V. As far as the content of the box is concerned it is all to be expected, with the HDMI extender it allows a bit more room to work with for installing the device into the back of the T.V. where you might be tight on space, so it can prove useful for those who have ports facing the wall directly.

The look:

The cast its self is quite sleek and doesn’t feel heavy enough to completely destroy your port. One thing I feel they could have done differently would be to have added some tiny vents so that it wouldn’t get too hot during use especially since it sit behind a hot screen and around other device. I mean I honestly try to keep it well ventilated behind my entertainment area but it can still get a bit warm, other than that I have no design complaints.

Score: 3.6

The Set-up:

As I said before I wanted to stream mostly Netflix and the cast handles it beautifully since it uses its own computing strength to render video from a wireless internet connection. Now if you are like me and in college you might have come across a snag of not being able to properly set up your Chromecast due to a splash screen keeping you from login and stuff. This was extremely maddening after spending the better part of the week messing with t and having it load the update bits at a time through magic and wishes. If it wasn’t for having a travel router I would’ve been stuck, plain and simple. By using my TP-Link I was able to bypass the splash screen by having confirmed the credentials through my computer and if you find yourself in this predicament, you can find solutions through a search. After that I was able to go through the normal setup method that it walks you through. It would have been nice to be able to get through a splash screen or Wi-Fi login screen through the device itself not have to use external devices or an Ethernet Port which they now sell.

Score: 3.9

All about the APPS! :

I know I know it’s about time I started talking about what this does and why you should even consider buying it. With so many ways to stream it can be hard to choose what you want to pick. Personally I already own google play movies and the like so it was a no brainer for me, to be able to stream my movies and webpage to the cast is just awesome. You have your choices of comedy central, music streaming, HBO, Showtime, just a whole gang of apps that you have at your disposal. By downloading your app to your phone and connecting your phone to the same Wi-Fi as the cast and you are good to go. The interface is smooth and simple with one button you instantly cast to the T.V. put simply it works and I have had relatively no problem with it with the exception that the apps rarely but still happen to either disconnect or freeze on me which requires a quick restart. As I said this rarely happens but you should be aware of the possibility of the app freezing on the phone but will probably keep playing on the monitor. My favorite part is being able to cast your browser to the screen, as of now it is still labeled as a beta feature but works fairly well for things like text or pictures but it is not quite optimized for showing video as it can have a hard time rendering and showing a smooth video or maybe video and sound would be off. With a little more work it has the potential to be really awesome and something double worth looking into.

Score: 4.0

Conclusion time:

Until they can optimize the use of casting the web and watching a video through it I would say it gets 3.8 out of 5 stars and would recommend the Chromecast to anyone who is in the market especially if you have a lot of google tech in your life, then this can definitely work into your set-up.

If you read until the end I really appreciate it and would also appreciate some feedback in the comment section, if you liked this post and know someone who would benefit from it then please share it. Once again thanks for reading and be sure to leave some feedback.