Hello,
I wanted to share some feedback from my recent experience as a customer, which I hope might be helpful for your product team.
I have been a Google user and owned one of the older, regular Chromecast sticks for a while. I was looking to upgrade it because it had become very slow over time.
When I went to the store, I noticed the main options available were either another basic Chromecast, which was similar to the slow one I already had, or the more powerful Chromecast with Google TV streamer. I was definitely looking for a performance upgrade, but unfortunately, the price for the streamer was a bit too high for my budget. I couldn't find a more powerful Google option that was in-between these two models.
Because of this, I ended up buying the Xiaomi TV Stick instead. It was fast and powerful, but at a much more affordable price. So, in the end, I replaced my old Google stick with a new Xiaomi one simply because it offered better value for the performance I needed.
From my perspective, there seems to be a large group of customers with a limited budget who, like me, are using older TVs. We don't necessarily need 4K resolution, as our TVs don't support it. At the same time, people who do have new 4K TVs often don't need a stick at all, since their television already has a modern smart OS built-in.
It feels like there could be a great opportunity for a product aimed at users who want a significant speed and performance upgrade from the basic Chromecast, but without the premium cost of the 4K streamer.
This feedback is meant to be constructive, coming from a customer who genuinely likes the Google ecosystem but had to choose a competitor's product this time.
Thank you for your consideration.
