Chromecast vs. Fire TV Stick 4K Max: Price and Design
Not only are they feature-full and powerful players, but they are also among the least expensive 4K HDR-capable devices available.
Both are dongles. They connect directly to an HDMI port on your TV and are hidden behind the screen. The Chromecast is a flat oval and slightly larger than the Fire TV Stick, and it has an attached ribbon cable with an HDMI connector.
The voice assistants control playback, search, launch apps, and more on the streaming player.
They are also fully functioning assistants that accept voice commands to control smart home lights, smart thermostats, door locks, and more in your home. Both can create reminders, alarms and display your calendar or shopping list.
In contrast, Google will display a choice of cauliflower Instapot recipes from TV shows, food apps, and videos on YouTube. Likewise, asking about Mt. Vesuvius brought up informational videos, but it did not display the response. This adds another step toward getting to your answer as you have to watch the videos.
Chromecast vs. Fire TV Stick 4K Max: Remote Controls
Adding Google TV to Chromecast means a remote control is included. The remote is an elongated oval making it comfortable to hold. It’s small and minimalist. Google stepped out of the norm in the remote design as it did not include a play/pause button.
While the center button of the navigation wheel acts to play or pause while watching a video, it also works as the OK or Enter button on other menu screens. It’s counter-intuitive to how any other remote works and requires practice to remember. Another anomaly is that the power button is at the bottom of the remote. There are only two direct access buttons—for YouTube and Netflix— and the audio controls are on the side (similar to a Roku remote).
On the other hand, the Alexa remote is slender and relatively comfortable with a typical button setup. The blue Alexa button stands out at the top of the black remote control. Direct access buttons on the bottom launch Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu. A TV button brings up the Live TV schedule grid.
Chromecast vs. Fire TV Stick 4K Max: Specs and Performance
Both support up to 4K video at 60Hz with Dolby Vision HDR 10, HDR 10+ for excellent video quality, and Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital, and Dolby Digital Plus.
Chromecast vs. Fire TV Stick 4K Max: User Interface/Menus
While the speed of navigating and opening apps and loading smooth video loading is important, we notice the menus every time we use the streaming player. When we sit down to stream videos, we want to quickly get to the video we want to watch or get good suggestions to discover new titles.
So far, there has been little difference between the two devices. Still, when it comes to using the streaming sticks, Chromecast with Google TV’s menus are better than any other streaming player currently available.
What makes the Chromecast stand out is the Google TV OS. A well-designed home screen combined with a robust algorithm makes it easy to find what you want to watch next. If you want the suggestions to better reflect your entertainment preferences, you can take a quiz and indicate the movies and TV shows you like/dislike. Also, you can add thumbs up/down in the detail pages of individual titles.
Google TV’s For You screen is agnostic as it displays recommendations from all the apps you watch. In the settings, you can specify which apps to include in recommendations. The bottom line is that it is effortless to find new titles to watch that are similar to the types of shows you like to watch.
Chromecast has a Live tab in the menu. The grid shows channels from your installed apps, including PhiloTV YouTube TV, Sling TV, and 300 free Live TV Channels on Pluto TV. The services are in one grid, changing to the next service as you scroll down. You can quickly set up which are your favorite channels and switch back and forth between displaying all channels or favorite channels in the grid.
