Gadgetory

by now you probably know about the chromecast it's a nice HDMI dongle by Google that plugs right into your television and provides a whole new world of media streaming possibilities however some of you out there kind of use the chromecast already and maybe you wish that it had a little bit more functionality and on the other hand there's a number of you out there who are probably wondering what the alternatives are to the wonderfully affordable dongle right here well we have one in particular and it really caught our eye and we want to show you what it's all about hey Josh for Garf manager authority what's going on everybody and that image behind me is coming from my laptop wirelessly streamed by this the Nereus Ares pro what I wanted to say real quick was when it comes to the chromecast we have a lot of great content already for you and you probably already saw it we have videos in regards to just the review itself and also to some of the new apps that were opened up to the ecosystem of the chromecast itself but also I will give you a quick nutshell here in terms of the chromecast it's basically an HDMI dongle that plugs right into your television and pairs to your phone via the Wi-Fi connection in your house and what it will do from there is allow your phone to communicate with it and when you want to stream particular content using a number of different features and software you will be able to communicate to the chromecast to find the content itself it does not stream straight from the phone it instead finds the content itself and streams it independently from there you will be able to still use your phone the way that you need to and it's just a great way of creating what could be considered a smart TV out of any television in your house and now we move on to the Nereus areas Pro itself now essentially this is a wireless HD solution that is supposed to take the HDMI out from your laptop or computer and wirelessly stream it out to your HDTV you start off with the transmitter itself that goes straight into the HDMI port on your computer now for people with slimmer laptops this particular dongle might not seem as let's say inconspicuous as you might want it to be but in my experience it hasn't really changed experience all that much the one thing that you will learn when you look through the Quick Start Guide is that the actual transmitter itself requires power just like the receiver does and case of the transmitter it requires a USB connection that is provided to you via a mini USB cord that connects to one of the USB ports in your computer when you make it over to the receiver itself it is a small little box that does have to be plugged into either a USB port that will be able to power it for all that it has to do or for probably a much safer solution you will be able to use an AC adapter that is also included in my case I use the AC adapter and is plugged directly into one of my power surges that is plugged into the wall after that you simply just have to get the HDMI cord that also is included into the Nereus Ares Pro itself and then the other side obviously into your TV and from there you just have to turn on both devices both pieces of the device and after that once they get connected you should be able to use the HDMI out from your laptop or computer the same way you would any other secondary display now the extra bits and pieces that come in the package of the Ares Perl include a io transmitter and remote now this IR transmitter is yet another cord that has to come out of the receiver and plug in and you can have it mounted anywhere that you need the remote to reach it is something that for the most part I find that I didn't really have to use because obviously my streaming sources are just the laptop straight to the TV not really changing any of the sources here and then on top of that you also have a mount which comes in to a tripod mount on the bottom of the receiver if you want to position it anywhere else a couple velcro strips are available if you really want to find a nice place for the receiver for it to be out of the way but for the most part this is all obviously due to if your signal is a little bit weak you can change the position of the receiver forward to pick up better but from my experience the signal was strong enough that no matter where I put the receiver or where I was with the transmitter the image still came in nice and clear and smooth now especially given the general plug-and-play nature of the Ares Perl I do have to say that the quality of the image itself is actually quite stellar I did find perhaps it's more of my laptop's fault with maybe it's somewhat lack of power but in when I had the extended displays or even the clone displays I was able to watch everything with minimal lag and when I'm watching certain videos like let's say full screen YouTube videos there might be a little bit of stutter in the actual smoothness of the image but for the most part it wasn't any experience breaking type of deal yes there are going to be more chords than just say if you have the one HDMI cord that's connected from the laptop to the to the monitor but for all intents and purposes if you really need to be able to go around your room or even around the house with your laptop and be able to see it on a large display like let's say a very big HDTV or a projector I can see where this devices usage can be really put to good use now one point in the column for the chromecast is for the fact that you can find the content in your in your various services hit play and then it will send right over to the chromecast you don't really have to do too much work aside from that however on the Ares pro you are able to still use the computer and have a secondary display showing all of the content like I said before you might see a little bit of stutter but really not all that much but also I getting all of that set up and moving the browser tab over or moving the actual window over from one monitor to the other you know that it's just a little bit more time consuming and it might be a first-world problem to be honest but it's definitely one of those things you notice one of the great things about the chromecast is the fact that it is so easy to use once you have it plugged in and you get the setup done you can literally get anything from your phone and just send it right over in this case you do have to get setup with your windows or mac or linux setup in order to have it provide the experience that you want and so there you have it for the Ares pro by Nereus now of course we have one last portion of this review in comparison to the chromecast and that is of course the price that is definitely the rub here because the area stroke comes in at 250 dollars that's where the chromecast comes in at 35 dollars it is a wonderful and affordable entry point for anybody who's just looking for simple media streaming and really wants to connect the phone to the chromecast to the TV to create a Smart TV out of whatever TV might be lying around in your house in the case of the Ares pro it is really for the tech junkie out there who wants to stream literally everything and that does include games which is a great feature of this little HDMI streamer but with that price point you are getting what you pay for and luckily with the Ares pro you get a lot and a lot of good performance out of something with its price point so as always thank you guys very much for watching and we just wanted to show you what one of the alternatives are out there you saw Kevin's review of the miracast and how that was different from the streaming of the chromecast now obviously that was different and now the Ares pro is a bit different as well in very very obvious cases especially the price but we just wanted to show you what other alternatives out there because HDMI streaming is actually a thing and the chromecast is not necessarily the only player in the game but we will say it is probably one of the best that there is in the game so with all that in mind make sure you drop us likes on our videos if you liked what you saw subscribe to our channel if you haven't already and remember to stay tuned to Android 30 for all of the best coverage because we are your source for all things Android