Google has today announced the launch of two media streaming device, the Google Chromecast 2, along with its sister audio streaming device, Chromecast Audio in India. These devices start at ₹3999.
These updated Google media streaming devices were launched alongside the New Nexus line-up, namely the 6P and 5X last year and were the attraction among the smart accessories, due to it’s faster connectivity and storage improvements.
For not-so-familiar ones reading this piece, a Chromecast is a media streaming device that plugs into the HDMI port on your TV and can be used to play audio/video content on a high-definition television or home audio system by directly streaming it via Wi-Fi from the Internet. You can select the content that you want to play from your device and mirror it to the TV Screen, while still using your phone without any disruption. The Chromecast 2 comes updated with the latest Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4 GHz/5 GHz) technologies to connect with your smartphone.
The device (pictured above) has a circular design and the new antenna system allows it to stream higher-resolution videos significantly faster, with minimal buffering. The older Chromecast had 2GB of internal storage, but with the improved cache technology developed by the team at Google, the new Chromecast has only 256MB of internal storage, as it requires less memory while streaming your favorite TV Show, Movie or Video, etc.The Chromecast 2 pre-loades the content that you want to watch, the moment you open the media application, thus requiring less memory allocation. This feature is dubbed as the “Fast Play”.
The other device launched today is the Chromecast audio, which is a small circular device that plugs into your speaker for streaming music over Wi-Fi. The benefit of using a Chromcast Audio is that you can just Tap the Cast button from music apps to hear the music instantly on your speakers, without the hassles of connecting the phone to it and leaving it there. This is a great replacement for Speaker Docks, where we used to plug in our phones to enjoy loud music.
Both the Chromecast devices are available for sale on Flipkart, Snapdeal, PayTM, Reliance Digital and Croma, starting today. The Introductory offer includes six months of free Saavn Pro and HOOQ subscriptions.
