Google announced that it has sold 20 million Chromecasts to date, and it isn’t stopping there — we’re getting a brand new Chromecast model with improved performance, features and design. At its 2015 press event, Google released a fresh new Chromecast at the same great price of $35 — and it’s available today.
The all new Chromecast is a small flat circle, and rather than having a built-in HDMI plug on the side it has a short length of cable with the HDMI plug on it instead — that gives you more options for positioning of the Chromecast dongle, particularly if your TV is up against a wall. The cable also magnetically latches to the bottom of the Chromecast’s body, keeping everything tidy.
On the inside the new Chromecast, you’ll get improved Wi-Fi performance, including 802.11ac and 5GHz support, as well as three antennas that it will smartly choose between so that it gets the best signal from your router. This will lead to higher quality audio and hopefully shorter buffering times when you start up a stream.
Google unveiled plenty of new Cast-capable apps and services to work on any Chromecast as well. Showtime will now be putting all of its content on Chromecast, which is a huge content library. NBA, NHL BeIN Sport and more are coming later this year, as is the new Sling TV service, which is currently available on Android TV.
This isn’t the only new Chromecast hardware, though — Google is also doing an audio-only model for your speakers.