TL;DR
- Thomson has launched a copy of the discontinued Chromecast with Google TV.
- The Google TV dongle comes with an updated remote that features a dedicated “Live TV” button.
Earlier this year, Google discontinued the Chromecast with Google TV and replaced it with the new Google TV Streamer. The old Chromecast had a compact, dongle-style design that plugged directly into a TV’s HDMI port. In contrast, the new Google TV Streamer features a more traditional set-top box design, with a separate unit that connects to your TV via an HDMI cable. The Chromecast was also much more affordable, with the 4K model costing about half as much as the new streamer. The good news is that a Chromecast alternative has just hit the market, albeit it doesn’t come from Google.
Thomson has launched the Cast 150, a Google TV dongle that looks and works almost exactly like the original Chromecast with Google TV. It features the same plug-and-play dongle design for easy connection to any HDMI-equipped screen. It also supports 4K streaming, making it a direct replacement for the old Chromecast with Google TV 4K.
Under the hood, the Thomson Cast 150 is powered by a quad-core Cortex A35 processor, an ARM Mali-G31 GPU, 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage. It also offers support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.
The biggest change shows up in the remote. The Cast 150’s voice remote follows Google’s new reference design and includes a dedicated Live TV button placed prominently in the center.
We exclusively reported this design change a few weeks ago, when Google confirmed that upcoming Google TV devices would include a “Free TV” or “Live TV” button on their remotes. Walmart’s new Onn 4K Pro also features this button. Besides that, the Cast 150’s remote sports the usual shortcut buttons for Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video, and Disney Plus.
Unfortunately, Thomson hasn’t revealed the pricing for the Cast 150 yet, but fingers crossed, it ends up close to what the Chromecast with Google TV used to cost.