

If anything from the search giant stands a chance at loosening Roku’s and Amazon’s grip on the streaming TV business, this is it. Google’s been trying to come up with a credible streaming TV platform since 2010, but the new Google TV seems like its most serious effort yet. The idea is to spare users from having to jump through lots of apps just to find something to watch. While the hardware ticks all the requisite boxes-4K HDR, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, HDR10+, decent performance-it mostly exists to showcase the new “Google TV” software, which brings the catalogs of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and several other popular streaming services into one universal guide. Unlike previous Chromecasts, which required a phone or tablet to play videos on the TV, the new version comes with a proper remote control and its own on-screen menu system.

On Wednesday, the company is launching Chromecast with Google TV, a $50 4K streaming device that’s an answer to wildly popular streaming dongles from Roku and Amazon.
