Just had the Stream 4K delivered. I was a little worried over the weekend as the first impressions posted here were less than flattering. I felt kinda silly for jumping on this deal right away without waiting for reviews. However, I just got finished with a new fireplace build with a recessed TV and needed a new streaming box ASAP because Vizio SmartCast is garbage. I just got done setting it up and figured I would give my own first impressions and field some questions.
For context, I am a big Android TV fan and have used most other streaming platforms at least in passing (Apple TV is probably what I'm least familiar with). Currently, my main TV uses an OG Shield TV (which is probably one of the best tech devices I have purchased in the last decade) and a MiBox S on a secondary TV. I'm reasonably happy with both in their respective roles. The MiBox loses connection sometimes and will struggle with certain content, but I'm sure that's more due to the fact that it is on the other side of the house and I need to get another access point to really blanket my place.
The Stream 4K is going in a similarly tricky WiFi area: much closer to the main Nest WiFi, but enclosed in a build out and there's a large stone fireplace located directly between it and the router. The SmartCast built in the TV struggled to play things at an acceptable resolution if at all. A Chromecast Ultra did much better from this area but couldn't stream Stadia.
Anyways, I plugged everything in and got started. I had a couple weird hiccups connecting the remote. I would press the back and TiVo button to connect and it would. I would start to move through the set up and it would ask me to connect the remote again. It never lost my spot, but it did that 3 times. I never had another issue with remote connection since then so... Moving along the set up, I tried to copy my account with my smartphone. I have never had good luck with this, with any of my devices. This was no exception. After waiting 5 minutes for it to "copy your account" I abandoned ship and just entered my credentials manually like always. I will attribute this to Android TV more than the Stream 4K. I always wondered if others had similar experiences with that. Once through the initial set up, it wanted to download an update. I think it was about 130mb. It took forever. I was starting to worry that my WiFi out here just wasn't going to hack it. But it finished eventually and restarted. Boot time seems fairly quick. Not instantaneous, but not forever. Upon restart, it wanted to set up the TiVo activation and personalization which was easy enough. Choose some TV shows and Movies to build your personal algorithm... I feel like I've done this a thousand times with different services with very little payoff. One more time can't hurt I guess.
Once I finished that, I began to set up my typical Android TV experience and delete all the apps I don't use. There wasn't a ton of bloatware but it was all deleteable. I did not try to get rid of the TiVo app yet however as I intend to give it a chance. I mostly use YouTube TV, YouTube, Disney+, Netflix, Prime, and Plex. All of those downloaded (or were already included) and connected just fine. I also downloaded Button Mapper and a speed test app from the Play Store and updated all the apps. I got rid of all the channels and shortcuts that are of no use to me. The TiVo Stream and Netflix button cannot be moved from first two spots in the shortcuts and the TiVo Stream channel cannot be hidden. Annoying, but I'm sure disabling the TiVo Stream app would make quick work of that. I haven't yet because I intend to check them out for a little anyways.
I did have the black home screen early on that people reported. I just opened the settings with the voice assistant and force closed the Android TV Home app. It popped right back up and hasn't done that again. I wonder if something glitches while setting up the TiVo app. But anyways no restart required.
The experience is snappy for me. Perhaps it's because on this TV I am coming directly from Vizio's trainwreck, but the OS moves smoothly and videos start quick. It is early in the experience, but I would say it moves better than the MiBox S. I have not bothered to look at the specs of each to compare, this is just anecdotal. The TiVo app is actually extremely smooth and fires up videos from different sources pretty seamlessly.
Now, about the app. This is like one of the holy grails of streaming that most major players have attempted and failed to deliver completely (including Android TV itself with the universal search). This app suffers a similar fate at least for now. If anyone can do it, it seems like TiVo would have as good of a chance as anyone else with their history in the game. They are pretty close and have most of the major players, I'm sure for some people it is perfection. But as I use YouTube TV and Plex for a big chunk of my streaming, this app is practically worthless. Having Sling TV as the only live provider is pretty limiting. Perhaps they have plans to cover other services and Sling is just a launch partner, but I have seen no news on that front.
But as it stands, I probably won't use their app much for now and there are a ton of buttons on the remote that become useless to me. I plan on checking it out here and there just to see how good the recommendations are and to see the progress made. If they continue to add services and innovate, this could be a killer app. This is a tall order, though.
If nothing changes from this point, it is still a very capable Android TV device for me. My set up is very basic: a 1080p 40" TV with no external sound devices to worry about, so I am not the best to look to for how 4K, HDR, or Dolby performs. The remote feels good in the hand and works very well with my system: changes the volume and turns off the TV. I won't be having it do anymore than that, though. There are lots of wasted buttons (if things don't change for me) that I look forward to remapping to suit my needs. I haven't done this yet, but it works flawlessly on the new Shield TV remote I bought with a Netflix button.
Overall, I am satisfied and looking forward to what happens next. After all, the reason the Shield TV is the best is only partially because of its beefy internals... It's because Nvidia treats it like a first class device. If TiVo does the same, the Stream 4K could be nice little surprise in the Android TV ecosystem!