I have a second generation Chromecast on an old TV that only does 1080p. I’m fine with that, I don’t care about the resolution. Someone told me that I might like the new one with Google TV, but I don’t know much about it. I pretty much just cast from apps on my phone, so I’m not sure if there’s any reason to upgrade. The only thing I don’t like is sometimes the Chromecast icon doesn’t show up and I have to restart the app, but I doubt that’s on the Chromecast end.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with what I have, but I’ve been looking at comparison websites and they aren’t really telling me what I need to know, which is if I’m missing something good I shouldn’t be missing.
Also, this is not really important, but I’m on Chrome and Google thinks “Chromecast” is a misspelling.
I loved my first gen Chromecast, but I can’t recommend the newer ones. I got the 4k model. Aside from the fact that it draws enough power I can’t plug it into the TV’s USB… it just isn’t capable of streaming 4k without frame skips. And no, it’s not my fiber internet, the router, or the streaming service. I have a Sony TV with Android TV and it streams 4k just fine. The Chromecast was unwatchable for me, probably downgrading to 1080p would fix it, but then I didn’t need to pay extra for the 4k model, and I could have just plugged the standard model into the TV.
I decided to go ahead and get the Google TV version. It was only like $30, I figured if I hate it, I can switch back.