As has been stated, this product isn’t released to consumers in the US until 2024-09-24, so just about the only person outside of Google who might even understand the question is Jenn Pattison Tuohy at TheVerge (a rare journalist who can spell Matter, Thread and Zigbee).
Here’s the Google blurb for those interested:
https://store.google.com/intl/en/ideas/articles/google-tv-streamer/
And a related Jenn P article on Google’s roadmap:
I’d hope Google would add Matter v1.4 support to give any-to-any border router connectivity.
It looks like an upgrade from the previous 4k stick, but not much more CPU, nor usable USB ports. The existing devices work fine with a decent USB-C PSU and a hub/ dock to add wired Ethernet and storage for local VLC playback. USB cameras also work to create a slightly shonky big-screen video conferencing setup. The extra memory will help Android performance.
When it finally appears in the UK, my additional questions are:
- Any noticeable speed increase over the Google TV 4K?
- Does it work with USB-C Ethernet and storage?
- Does the deep linking guide still work?