Gadgetory

well hey this is Ross with the verge and this is Google's Nexus Q set tops fear thing if I don't sound certain about what exactly to call it the functionality isn't much better Google calls it a social media streamer and it's an actually powerful device with very very limited use inside we've got Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich 1 gigabyte RAM 16 gig storage memory and Wi-Fi and the back to device we have a optical audio out we've got an Ethernet port micro HDMI micro USB which we haven't quite figured out what to do with yet and a quartet of banana jack speaker outputs so under the right conditions setups actually not too bad all set up and all input actually is done through an Android device you can download the Nexus Q remote app in the Google Play Store however if you have NFC you can also rub the key with the device and get a direct link to it not necessary but kind of fun so here's how it works once you get the Nexus Q setup from your Android device what you can do is you can go to the Google Play Music Google Play video or YouTube pick a song pick a video and basically what you're going to do is you're going to be telling the Nexus Q to play that video or audio track here's the catch so with the Nexus Q is actually doing is actually going back out into the internet and grabbing the audio video file either from YouTube or the Google Play Store and streaming it afresh you can still control we're in the time track the video audio is or you can adjust the volume but there is actually no device-to-device media transfer has all been done on the internet your Android device is essentially a glorified remote control for dedicated media streamer we're actually pretty disappointed with the quality of the video itself despite having HD video sources it looked closer to standard definition to our eyes and actually did HD which for $3 fear it's pretty disappointing as for the audio we're actually pretty impressed with the performance the Nexus Q has a 25 watt amp that's twelve and a half watts per speaker we plugged in a few unpowered speaker to see how old we could actually get the Nexus Q we got to say it's pretty impressive audio with multiple Android devices you can actually build an audio playlist together Google X a call is something of a party still only one account can control visualization settings but everyone guest in master control within range can add google play music tracks to a cue with google TV in the course Samsung's chrome box Google actually has a couple of other more compelling set-top box options the next queue itself is in kind of a confusing place not really doing that much and not even doing that much very well at $209 it's hard to justify a purchase except for only the most hardcore of Android fans and even then their friends all better be Android phone users as well