Into the Stream

We took two of India’s biggest streaming gadgets, Amazon Fire Stick and Google Chromecast and worked really hard to watch TV series, movies and a lot of other videos (wink wink) to see if cable cutting is really an option or are these just a few more novelty gadgets?

In the west today, streaming gadgets have become a norm. So much so that the words ‘Netflix and Chill’ have become synonyms for something else. Now after a first few hiccups, India now has the infrastructure to deliver streams straight to your television. To check out whether they are good enough, we got our hands on the two of the most famous streaming gadgets and reviewed them.

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Google Chromecast

The first generation of Chromecast was released back in 2013 and in the subsequent years Google has ironed out some of the much-needed problems with their device. Chromecast now comes in a disc with the model no NC2-6A5, giving a cheeky head nod to the Star Trek Enterprise. That is significant because this is a device made by geeks for nerds and has features reflecting those.

Chromecast can obviously stream Netflix, Hotstar, and YouTube, but alongside that, it has some other apps like Facebook, Twitch and Dailymotion. Also if you want to buy or rent to watch the movies you can purchase them of the Google Play Movies. What it also does is screen mirroring to watch your home videos, see photos or just cast your favourite android apps on your big screen. Also, you can use your chrome browser on your laptop to use the mirroring service. The caveat is that this makes your phone or laptop practically useless but we found it to be worth the inconvenience.

However, if you don’t have an android device the productivity of this gadget drops down dramatically. There is no screen mirroring on iOS and you get a shadow of the service Google wants to provide to you. The same goes for its audio model. You cannot use apple music and you have to stream your music through Saavn, Wynk or Hungama Play.

Our final thoughts on this device are that Google has got something really awesome here. They just need to make it a more inclusive device and add more apps for people who prefer iOS and other platforms.

Amazon Fire Stick

Amazon started their foray into the streaming market in 2014, with the Fire TV. Subsequently, they release a smaller version called the Fire TV stick. They have continued this trend, by once again releasing the Fire TV in 2015 and the Fire TV Stick in 2016. But, this streaming device is markedly different from its peers like the Chromecast. It's rich feel and premium packing makes quite an impression from the start and the design of this device isn’t playful but assures that it will do the desired job.

The Fire Stick’s main U.S.P. is the Prime Video library. It is ever growing with TV series and has original shows like Inside Edge, American playboy and the award winning Bosch. Moreover, their ever growing movie library is getting great awesome movies like Star Trek – Beyond, Superman V Batman and all classics from the Harry Potter franchise. You get all this with Amazon Prime membership most of us have for the one to two-day delivery. Add to all that the voice control remote with Amazon’s Alexa assistant and this device becomes a powerhouse.

This device is also more powerful than its contemporaries with a quad core processor and inbuilt Bluetooth 4.1. The hardware of this device makes its Operating System run smoothly and the remote makes the search really streamlined. The whole experience puts a smile on your face. The remote also makes gaming on this device easier and more responsive and is much better than using your phone as a controller. Just to be clear, it’s not like you cannot sync your phone to the device and turn it into a remote, but it’s not necessary.

To stream, you obviously get the same old Netflix, Hotstar etc. with this device but you also get 100 Gbs free from Airtel to run this device for the first three months, which for any streamer becomes essential after just a few hours of watching high definition videos. Along with that, you get 3 months free subscription to Eros Now and 6 months on Gaana. For kids, you get ad-free streaming on Voot. Altogether it feels that Amazon put much more thought in this device than Google did in theirs.

What we don’t like about this device is the YouTube app. The app is clunky with one of the worst navigation abilities. Considering that YouTube is the world’s biggest videos libraries we expected more from Amazon.

Finally after trying out these services for a few days we have to say that if you aren’t into watching numerous new and sports channels, and don’t mind having to pay for data rather than to cable companies. Cord cutting might just be the way to go. After all you will get the option to watch your favourite shows on your time and not wait for them on a particular time. However, if you are one of those people who like to channel surf between 40 channels, you are better of sticking to your satellite television.

From the September 2017 issue of FHM India.