Gadgetory

well this is the eye with a verge and this is Google's chromecast the chromecast is a $35 HDMI dongle that lets you stream video from laptops tablets and smartphones and it works across Mac's PCs Android and iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad the only complicated part of setting up a chromecast is getting it power and even that is pretty simple almost all TVs have a USB port that you're not using on them and the chromecast can just plug right into that if you don't have a USB port on your TV there's a small power adapter in the Box all in all it's a tiny little bit more cable clutter than you might expect but it's also one of the simplest setups out there the only thing left to do once you've plugged in the chromecast is either open the Android app or the setup page and Chrome on your PC give the dongle a name and configure the Wi-Fi connection which takes just a couple minutes you'll also be prompted to install the google cast extension in Chrome on your Mac or PC the first time through but I get the feeling that will all be built into Chrome very very soon once you've got everything set up which took me just 5 or 10 minutes using the chromecast is ridiculously simple supported apps and services will display a little icon when they see the chromecast on your network and when you hit it it'll tell the chromecast to connect to that service and stream the video using chromecast and apps like Netflix and YouTube is almost perfect since the chromecast is streaming video directly from the web and not your phone the video looks great and you can switch to other apps and tabs on your phone or PC and keep working while the video is playing there are some glitches I find it pretty easy to confuse the Netflix app on my iPhone and occasionally I find yourself sort of lost while the video is playing without any obvious way to control it since you've closed the tab or switched apps it's not the end of the world but Google would be smart to build some basic controls into that Android chromecast app and released a similar iOS app the other problem is that right now the list of apps and services that support chromecast is pretty short it's Netflix YouTube and Google Play Music & TV on Android that's it compared to something like Apple TV and airplay that's a pretty sparse list Google has a long way to go and convincing content companies to support chromecast directly although I imagine Google's working pretty hard on that and I imagine those content companies are pretty interested in supporting chromecast since it's at this point the only viable competitor to airplay but you don't have to wait for Google really you can also just stream any tab from the Chrome browser on Mac PC or the Chromebook pixel that means you can stream pretty much anything to a chromecast I tried the Verge's homepage vimeo spotify are do ESPN whatever i wanted really clicking fullscreen on a flash video makes that player fullscreen on your pc and on the TV the only thing is it didn't work where video players that rely on quicktime which is built by apple dragging a video into chrome from the desktop that played using quicktime sent video but not sound streaming video from a tab isn't perfect though there are some clear stutters the scrolling lags way behind your finger and the Audion get out of sync especially in bad connections but it works which is important and google says the feature is only in beta so I'm really hoping it'll get better and that's pretty much it the chromecast does what it says it's gonna do and it does it really well it's the first device that's made it easy and desirable to put a web browser on your TV and while there are definitely some glitches in places where Google needs to fill in the gaps it's pretty good for $35 in fact it's probably one of the best impulse purchases you'll make this year