Chromecast: Living the Google life

So, I got my hands on a Chromecast!

Jealous?

I walked into bestbuy, and asked them if they had any. They weren't on the shelves, but they had a few behind a desk.

Guy told me they were selling like crazy.

I figured all of y'all, would want a review.

First off, it came in a box. It didn't come with a fox. It didn't come in a sphere.

Can you have a spherical box?

Do boxes have to be rectangular?

IS MY LIFE A LIE?

At 35$ + tax (37$ locally here), they're a steal with 24$ of netflix.
Yes, that's right, 13$ more after tax than buying netflix buys you streaming.

By the way, that 24$ of Netflix STACKS WITH ALREADY EXISTING ACCOUNTS. Want 4 Chromecasts for 4 TVs? You get a year of Netflix.

Also, rumor has it, multiple Chromecasts can stack more months of Netflix.

UPDATE: GOOGLE STOPPED GIVING OUT MORE NETFLIX SUBSCRIPTIONS

So what is a Chromecast?

A Chromecast is a HDMI stick slightly larger than a flash drive, that can stream video from the internet or clone a chrome browser tab.

You can see it setup above to the right. Notice it has a USB cable in the back. That's a power source. I tried to power it off the 0.5amp flash drive port on the TV, which did not work. However, a 1amp external hard drive port did work to power it.

That's it.

You need a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer to control it, of nearly any non retarded variety. (Windows xp/vista/7/8, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Winphone,

Where can I get one?
The cheapest place is Best Buy. 
The google play store sells them, but they charge shipping, while bestbuy does not.

If you want the absolute best deal, I recommend using E-bates and going to the Best Buy store through the E-bates site.

You get some of your money back as commission
That'll save maybe 50 cents or so.

So how does it work?

Well, first you have to configure it.

The configuration is pretty stupid simple. I had one slight complication though. For Chromecast to work, much like wireless printers, you have to have AP isolation off, which I had on.

I had to reconfigure my wireless router to use it, which of course, I forgot the admin login, so I had to reset my router from scratch. That took maybe 10 minutes, but isn't typically necessary.

I installed a small configuration program from Google, and attached the Chromecast to my wifi. The Chromecast itself emits a wifi hotspot, so you can configure it, which then moves it to the network.

After initial configuration, you can remove the settings app if you choose. Optionally you could configure it from

On a laptop, you need a browser extension on chrome, (and this only works on chrome, hence the name, Chromecast).

Suddenly, when you go to Youtube, or Netflix, there is an option to display your video on another screen in the media controls. There is also a small Chromecast icon next to the menu button in the top right.

The Chromecast button streams your current tab. What's interesting is, even if you change off the streaming tab, that tab keeps on streaming. This also applies to video.

You can start a Netflix stream on your Chromecast on one tab, and then change tabs, and the video does not stop. This gives you some form of pseudo multi-monitor support.

I did have a bit of an issue that Chromecasting a browser tab would cut the edges of the screen off a bit, and the color temperature of the tab felt wrong.

Currently it doesn't support many services. Hulu is on the way, but isn't ready yet.

It does have an open API though, so I presume many services will adopt it.

How would I rate Chromecast?

Hardware 10/10 Fantastic in every regard

Software 8/10 The software is still beta(even officially), but it's mostly solid.

Services 6/10 Very few services function on it. Great for a Netflix fan!

Value 7(9)/10 This is a great addition if you already have a tablet to control your device, but is less useful if you don't. It's an ecosystem extender, but if you don't have an ecosystem to extend, that's like trying to fill up a tire which doesn't have a wheel.

Cheers!