Walmart’s new 4K Google TV stick is the Chromecast replacement I needed [Gallery]

Walmart is in the process of launching its new Google TV streamer lineup and, while I’m pretty intrigued by the Pro model, it’s the 4K streaming stick that was delivered first and, just as I hoped, it’s exactly the Chromecast with Google TV (4K) replacement I’ve been wanting.

Chromecast with Google TV launched in 2020 as a solid intro to the new experience – that aged decently well – but Google took a long time to deliver an upgraded version. The Google TV Streamer is a major upgrade, fixing the storage and performance woes that long plagued the Chromecast, but it was never a direct replacement simply because, from a hardware perspective, it fulfilled a totally different need.

So, despite happily swapping out the other Chromecasts in my home with Google’s newer devices, one of the TVs in my home was stuck on that older hardware. Google TV Streamer’s bigger size was far from ideal behind a mounted TV in my office that, underneath, didn’t…