The research
- Why you should trust us
- Who this is for
- How we picked and tested
- Our pick: Google Chromecast with Google TV
- Runner-up: Roku Streaming Stick 4K
- What to look forward to
- The competition
Why you should trust us
I’ve been reviewing video displays and home theater devices for over a decade. I have ISF Level III certification and am up to date on the details of current and future HDR standards, as well as what to look for when evaluating that content on media players.
Who this is for
If you already have access to the streaming apps you use regularly—Netflix, Max, Prime Video, and so on—and, crucially, if you’re happy with that experience, you probably don’t need a dedicated media streaming device.
But a standalone media streamer might prove to be the superior option in a lot of situations:
- The TV you own (or want to buy) doesn’t have your preferred smart-TV platform built in.
- Your current streamer doesn’t support some of the apps that you want to use.
- Your streamer doesn’t search for content across all available apps.
- You can’t customize your streamer to remove apps you don’t use from the home page or add apps you use often.
- Your streamer doesn’t allow you to access content on your home media server.
- Your streamer is sluggish or glitchy, or hasn’t been updated in a long time.
- Your streamer can’t play in 4K resolution or high dynamic range, but you have a 4K HDR TV.
- Your streamer can’t play in multichannel or spatial audio formats, but your soundbar or sound system can.
- You don’t have a streaming device yet and would rather spend $50 for a dedicated dongle instead of multiple hundreds for a disc player or game console.
Simply put, media streamers are the best choice for streaming because it’s what they’re designed to do from the ground up—the same can’t be said for most smart TVs, disc players, or game consoles. Typically, dedicated streaming media devices include more apps, a more responsive user interface, and better search and organization features than game consoles or Blu-ray players offer. Additionally, app updates often come to dedicated media streamers before coming to smart TVs and other source devices.
If you travel often or even just sometimes, it’s convenient to have a small box or dongle that you can bring with you and plug right into a TV’s HDMI input to access your desired content.
While this guide focuses on standalone streaming boxes and dongles, we also see it as a guide to the software built into smart TVs. The information and critiques here concerning Google TV, Roku, and Fire TV boxes apply to their smart-TV counterparts, too.
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How we picked and tested
In this guide, streaming devices must satisfy a range of specific criteria to make it to the top:
- A media streamer must support all the major streaming services. It sounds simple, but a streaming box with a wide selection of content sources is better than one with a limited selection. These days most of the major services are available on every device, but some popular and niche services may be missing on certain devices.
- Content integration is a top priority. If you subscribe to a variety of streaming services, it’s much better to have all of that content displayed on the device’s home screen so that you can see a list of everything you’ve recently watched—rather than having to open each app individually to search for content.
- A good search function is a key ingredient. Some companies’ media streamers prioritize their own proprietary content, even if that isn’t your preferred service; for example, Amazon’s Fire TV prioritizes Prime Video results, and Apple TV prioritizes Apple’s VOD and streaming options. We prefer devices that search across all services and provide free and pay options to help you find content at its lowest price.
- The device should allow some degree of layout customization. An arrangement that places your favorite services or shows up front lets you more easily get to what you want to watch. An ideal streaming device is ecosystem-agnostic and allows you—rather than the device manufacturer—to make decisions.
- The streamer should support the latest video and audio formats. The more HDR formats a streaming device supports (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG), the more compatible and future-proof it is with newer HDR TVs. We also prefer media streamers that can output Dolby Atmos audio to your Atmos-capable AV receiver or soundbar.
We test every media streamer in a basic system with only a 4K HDR TV, as well as in a more complex home theater system. We test all of them over Wi-Fi, though some support Ethernet as well. We sometimes use multiple TVs to compare devices’ app-launch speed side by side.
During testing, we access a wide variety of content from services including Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu Plus, Movies Anywhere, Netflix, Prime Video, Vudu, and YouTube. We also compare the devices’ search, organization, and customization features.
Our pick: Google Chromecast with Google TV
Top pick
Google Chromecast with Google TV
The best media streaming device
This player offers an intuitive interface, intelligent search, and a useful remote. But you can’t power it off your TV’s USB port.
Buying Options
$67 from Amazon
$50 from Walmart
$50 from Best Buy
The Google Chromecast with Google TV is the best media streaming device because it supports a wide range of streaming services and presents content in a modern, unified interface.
It supports every major streaming service and AV format. This includes popular video services such as Apple TV+, Disney+, Max, Netflix, Peacock, Prime Video, and YouTube, as well as audio services like Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube Music. Live-TV services such as Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, Philo, Sling, and YouTube TV are also supported, and some of them can integrate directly into the platform’s Live TV interface for faster access.
You can customize which streaming apps appear on the home screen and manage which services Google uses for most of the TV and movie recommendations.
If there is a service you want to watch that Google doesn’t support natively on the Chromecast, typically you can stream it directly to the player from your computer or mobile device using the Cast option built into the app.
It’s future-proof for use with 4K HDR TVs. It supports all of the major HDR formats (HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision) and Dolby Atmos audio, allowing for the highest-quality picture and sound. Another version, the more affordable Chromecast with Google TV HD, omits Dolby Vision support and maxes out at a 1080p resolution but is otherwise identical in form and function, so if you’re looking for a media streamer to pair with a 1080p or 720p TV (such as our picks for the best 32-inch TV), you don’t need to pay extra for the 4K version.
It uses 802.11ac Wi-Fi. You can go wired instead if you add the optional $20 Ethernet power adapter.
Its compact size lets it hide behind your TV. Though the Chromecast dongle is larger than a streaming stick from Roku or Amazon, it still plugs right into your TV’s HDMI input, instead of relying on a separate box and HDMI cable.
The Bluetooth-based remote control includes a microphone for voice search, and it can control your TV’s power, volume controls, and input selection. You can also control the player via the Google Home or Google TV app on a mobile device.
Google TV has built-in Bluetooth audio support, so you can wirelessly transmit the audio signal to Bluetooth headphones for private listening. Our runner-up pick from Roku requires the use of a mobile app for private listening, which is less convenient.
The interface prioritizes content over apps, which better reflects how people watch TV. We especially like that the home screen presents everything you’ve recently watched, across multiple services, in a single location. You can select a recently watched show and go straight to the next episode, for example, or pick up where you left off in a movie. This layout gets you to your desired content faster than you can with other streaming devices, which force you to navigate in and out of apps.
The menu also offers personalized recommendations pulled from various services, instead of limiting recommendations to a single service. And the Google TV mobile app mimics a lot of the interface options, if you prefer to browse on your mobile device.
It handles search better than the competition. This player consistently found what we were looking for across assorted services and sources, including titles from our digital movie library, which some competitors don’t search.
Contextual searches such as “Oscar-winning comedies,” “movies with Brad Pitt,” or “movies with the woman from Amelie” pull up the relevant results quickly, though sometimes you might need to rephrase your query.
When you select a show or movie, Google TV also gives you a lot of information about the title, including the Rotten Tomatoes rating, cast info, the different sources you can stream it from, and related content. You can rate a show to improve your recommendations or add it to your watchlist so you can come back to it later. Since this functionality works across the different streaming services, it gives you a more consistent experience.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
Google promotes some content that you may not subscribe to. For instance, a banner at the top of the home screen contains four suggested movies or shows, which might come from a free service or one to which you don’t subscribe. In our case, the content recommendations were almost always from services we used, so this wasn’t a big issue for us, but it may annoy some people.
The device can’t draw power from your TV’s USB port. The Chromecast dongle is powered via a USB-C port, but it requires more power than you can get from the average TV or projector USB Type-A port.
You can run the dongle off a 65-watt or higher USB-C power bank, but that requires the addition of another device to your setup.
Internal storage is limited. Some owners have complained that the Chromecast’s storage is rather limited compared with the capacity of some other players; eventually you might have to delete less frequently used apps.
Support for cable TV apps is also limited. If you’re looking for a streamer to replace secondary cable boxes around your home, our runner-up is a better choice.
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Runner-up: Roku Streaming Stick 4K
Runner-up
Roku Streaming Stick 4K
A simpler interface and smaller form
This small player has a clean, simple interface and can draw power from your TV’s USB port, but its search and discovery features are less robust.
Buying Options
$43 from Amazon
$44 from Walmart
$40 from Home Depot
If you prefer a more app-centric interface, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is a great alternative that presents a wide selection of streaming services in a simple, uncluttered way. This HDMI stick plugs directly into an HDMI input and can draw power from a compatible USB port, so you can easily add it to a variety of TVs and other home entertainment systems.
Like our top pick, this Roku stick supports 4K HDR video in the HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG formats. It can’t decode Dolby Atmos audio, but it can pass that audio through to a soundbar or AV receiver from services (like Netflix and Disney+) that support Dolby Atmos.
Roku’s home screen is easy to customize. The home screen consists of a grid of individual streaming apps. You can customize the menu to add and remove apps, as well as place your most-used apps at the top. It’s a simple, clean layout that’s easy to understand and navigate.
But Roku’s interface is not as helpful at finding and organizing content as Google TV’s interface is, and it feels more compartmentalized. You can’t easily see all your recently watched movies and shows across platforms, so you have to launch individual apps to find them. Menus for “Live TV” and “What to Watch” highlight specific programming, but the selections there are more curated and less influenced by your own app usage and viewing preferences.
Likewise, the search function on Roku does a good job of finding shows across different services and apps, but it lacks the rich context and related-content information that Google TV offers.
The remote control is good; the mobile app is better. The included Roku Voice Remote uses RF technology to communicate with the player, so it works through walls and furniture. It also supports IR output to control the power and volume on your TV or projector, and it has a mute button—something that many competing remotes lack. However, the use of RF technology to control the player means you can’t easily substitute an affordable universal remote.
You can also control the player via Roku’s mobile app for iOS and Android, and the app adds some features that the player itself is lacking. While the Roku Streaming Stick 4K doesn’t support Bluetooth output directly, the app’s private-listening function allows you to stream audio from the player to your mobile device; then you can listen through wired or wireless headphones. (The $30 Roku Voice Remote Pro adds a headphone jack for private listening, but it’s almost as expensive as the player itself.)
We also found the mobile app’s interface to be snappier and more intuitive to navigate than the Roku stick’s on-screen interface. The design is more modern and content-centered, albeit not as personalized as Google TV.
It plays nicely with Apple devices. The inclusion of AirPlay 2 support and the Apple TV and Apple Music apps gives the Roku Streaming Stick 4K a lot of the perks of the Apple TV 4K streamer at a much lower price.
If a certain channel that’s important to you is missing from the Roku platform, you can stream it from the app on your macOS or iOS device to the Streaming Stick 4K. However, this arrangement requires you to keep your Mac or iOS device streaming the whole time and can sometimes be a heavy drain on its battery.
The Roku stick uses 802.11ac Wi-Fi; it lacks the option to add a wired Ethernet adapter, in contrast to our top pick.
What to look forward to
Google has announced a new media streaming device coming in September 2024: the Google TV Streamer (4K). It retails for $100 and replaces the company’s Google Chromecast with Google TV, our current top pick. The Google TV Streamer boasts better processing and more storage than the Chromecast, while also abandoning the older device’s dongle shape in favor of a more traditional box design.
Like the Chromecast before it, the Google TV Streamer will support 4K, HDR, and Dolby Atmos, but rather than hiding behind your TV, it’s designed to be showcased. It also adds an ethernet input port for more stable network streaming, comes bundled with a new Google voice remote, and can double as a hub for both Matter and Google Home.
This is a notable transformation of (and big price increase for) our favorite media streaming device, so we’re excited to get it in for testing as soon as possible.
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The competition
Roku
The latest Roku Ultra box delivers a snappier, somewhat more powerful experience than our runner-up pick, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, but is also roughly twice as expensive as both of our picks. The Ultra does come bundled with the $30 Roku Voice Remote Pro, but from a software perspective it doesn’t meaningfully improve upon the experience you have using the Streaming Stick 4K. The Ultra is overkill for most people, with the exception of those who really need an Ethernet (LAN) port and expandable storage.
Previously, we also recommended the Roku Streaming Stick 4K+, which was identical to the Streaming Stick 4K but came with the enhanced Roku remote. It has been discontinued.
Apple TV
Apple’s third-generation Apple TV 4K box comes in two versions: a $130 Wi-Fi–only version with 64 GB storage and a $150 version with 128 GB storage and an Ethernet (LAN) port. Both boxes support 4K resolution, can handle Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content, and come with the newer Siri-based remote control with a standard directional keypad. And both run on the same A15 bionic chip found in some of Apple’s phones and earbuds.
The Apple TV 4K impressed us with its zippy processing and intuitive user interface, but it still puts Apple’s ecosystem of content at the forefront—which is a boon for hardcore Apple fans but less desirable for folks who don’t subscribe to services like Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Music.
Even the more affordable, $130 version is still significantly more expensive than our picks, and despite the slick appeal of the Apple TV interface and its interrelated services, the box is not abundantly more powerful (where streaming is concerned) than something like the Roku Ultra. Our picks will serve the average buyer better at less expense.
Amazon Fire TV
In 2023, Amazon released new versions of its Fire TV stick: the Fire TV Stick 4K ($50) and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max ($60). Their main advantage over Amazon’s previous Fire Stick models is their inclusion of generative AI, which allows for a smoother voice-search experience across apps and services.
The Fire TV Stick 4K Max boasts impressive specs—an upgraded processor, Wi-Fi 6E compatibility, and support for major HDR formats and Dolby Atmos—but our testing revealed that even with its improved search, it’s still too Prime Video–centric in comparison with our picks. The home screen has an annoying amount of ads, too. The addition of the Fire TV Ambient Experience would be of more interest if many smart TVs didn’t already support similar functionality.
At $50, the Fire TV Stick 4K, a downgraded version of the 4K Max, doesn’t compare favorably with our top pick—which can be found at the same price or less nowadays—especially with regards to organizing content intuitively on the home screen.
Amazon’s hands-free Fire TV Cube continues to occupy an odd spot amongst the panoply of media streaming devices. The Cube is a bit more complex than the average streaming stick, and the third-generation model stretched that idea even further, adding HDMI pass-through (to allow Alexa integration with a separate source device) and Wi-Fi 6E compatibility to its already touted hands-free operation.
Though its ability to integrate set-top-box functions into the realm of voice control may appeal to Alexa die-hards, many modern cable and satellite remotes already include voice-search functionality. And much like Amazon’s other media devices, the new Cube still puts Prime Video content at the forefront. We ultimately found it to be a bit too specialized in comparison with the meat-and-potatoes value that our picks offer.
Gaming systems and built-in TV apps
A gaming console, Blu-ray player, or smart TV that you already own probably streams Netflix and other major services, but such devices often lack the extensive selection of content that dedicated streaming boxes provide, and they usually omit cross-app searching. They’re fine, but a dedicated streaming device offers a more cohesive, unified experience.
Android TV
The Nvidia Shield TV has always been our favorite Android TV device, thanks to its powerful hardware. But it’s getting a bit long in the tooth: The last hardware refresh was back in 2019.
The Shield TV supports Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and has upscaling technology that makes non-4K content look much better on 4K TVs. It has been a good choice for people who like to use the GeForce Now platform for gaming or for people who want the Pro model for use with a Plex server or emulator. But it doesn’t have the updated Google TV interface, so it doesn’t integrate services as the Chromecast does, and its search feature isn’t as powerful.
The TiVo Stream 4K is an Android TV–based HDMI dongle that incorporates software from TiVo, making it easier to find content from the services you subscribe to, but this function supports only certain services. As a result, if you’re looking for content that TiVo’s app supports, you can stay inside its app, but you need to go back to the standard Android TV interface for other apps.
Although the search feature shows the different services that a title is available on, it can’t show the prices, so you don’t know which option is best for you. When I found a title that I was interested in, instead of offering a page with information about that show, it would just launch Netflix to display that information. This limitation means a lot of jumping into and out of apps as you try to find something to watch, which is jarring.
Sling’s AirTV Mini is designed to integrate Sling TV with Android TV, as well as to integrate with a network TV tuner so that you get Sling TV channels and your local over-the-air channels in a unified TV guide. If you want this Sling TV integration, the AirTV might be a reasonable option, but if you’re looking for a general-purpose media streamer, you have cheaper, more full-featured options that don’t automatically boot into Sling TV every time you power them on.
This article was edited by Adrienne Maxwell and Grant Clauser.