Streaming devices made by the likes of Roku, Apple, and Amazon have a lot to gain from hardware updates, since they process their audio and video internally, and sometimes come with distinctly new remotes or game controllers. Something like the Google Chromecast, on the other hand, is a little harder to go update-crazy about.
The whole point of Google's $35 HDMI dongle is to repeat the audio and video signal from the mobile device you already own, to make content from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop pop up conveniently and wirelessly on your bigger TV screen. Until that core mission statement changes, a new version of Chromecast exists mostly to do the same thing as the last one, right?
That's not to say the two-year-old dongle didn't need a little sprucing, and as such this year's model feels like a stealth, catch-up upgrade, as opposed to a streaming-dongle sea-changer. The 2015 Chromecast has received a hardware redesign and some antenna tweakage; it now shares shelf space with an all-new Chromecast Audio dongle; and its new app, at least on Android, aspires to be a one-stop shop for all of your streaming-video content. Let's find out what difference two years makes.
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