MSRP: £79.99
Google has officially announced the launch of its Nexus Player media streamer/micro console/box of tricks for the UK market.
As well as announcing its own competing device, in the Fire TV Stick (coincidence?), Amazon also inadvertently blew the UK release date of the Nexus Player by showing availability on the site, earlier in the week.
Google’s Nexus Player is the company’s first device to feature the Android TV platform and is now officially on the UK Google Play Store, at a price of £79.99, putting it head to head with the likes of Fire TV Box and the Roku 3.
Google’s Nexus Player is the company’s first device to feature the Android TV platform and is now officially on the UK Google Play Store, at a price of £79.99, putting it head to head with the likes of Fire TV Box and the Roku 3.
The Nexus Player will ship with a tweaked version of the latest Android OS (v5.1 Lollipop) and features a decent sounding spec sheet. Processing is taken care of by an 1.8GHz quad-core X86 Intel ‘Atom’ backed up with 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage.
The device is ‘Google Cast-ready’, allowing you to throw media content from your tablet, smartphone, or laptop to the TV. There’s full access to the Google Play store, of course and, like the Fire TV, there’s the option of a games controller for an additional £35.
In terms of app support, the UK launch looks a little skinny at the moment. There are the ubiquitous YouTube and Netflix apps but it’s not yet clear what other major video streaming services are supported and no word on the major UK catch-up services, but surely BBC iPlayer will appear sooner rather than later.
We’ll know more when we have our review sample in hand, so look out for that coming soon.
Is anyone excited for this? Surely, with extensive native app support, this could be ‘the one?’
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