**Google Nexus Player Review: A Promising Start for Android on TV**

The Google Nexus Player is a device that promises to bring Android to your television, and as a tech enthusiast, I was excited to dive in and see how it performs. With its sleek design and user-friendly interface, the Nexus Player has all the makings of a great streaming device.

**Setting Up the Nexus Player**

My first step was setting up the Nexus Player. As soon as I booted up the device for the first time, I was greeted with a setup wizard that guided me through the process of configuring my Google account and connecting to my Wi-Fi network. If you're familiar with ChromeCast, you'll feel right at home with this interface. Once I completed the setup process, I was ready to start exploring the Nexus Player's features.

**Main Screen and Navigation**

The main screen of the Nexus Player is divided into four sections. The first section displays content that may interest me based on my Google account history, which includes YouTube videos, play movies, and other applications. While this feature was mostly populated with YouTube videos, I didn't see any listings for Hulu or Netflix, despite frequent use. The second section shows all the applications I've downloaded and installed, including those that come pre-installed with the device. The third section is dedicated to games, where I can store my favorite titles. Finally, the fourth section displays my current Wi-Fi status and settings.

**Search Functionality**

One of the standout features of the Nexus Player is its search functionality. Using the remote's search button, I was able to perform contextual searches within YouTube and other Google applications. For example, I could search for movies featuring a specific actor or director, as well as browse content from specific genres. This feature works seamlessly across all Google applications, and I'm eager to see how it will evolve in future updates.

**Voice Search**

Another innovative feature of the Nexus Player is its voice search functionality. Using the remote's microphone button, I was able to perform voice searches that would have been impossible with traditional text-based interfaces. While this feature is still in its infancy, I'm excited to see where Google takes it next.

**Idle Mode and Screen Saver**

When the Nexus Player goes idle, it displays a screen saver filled with hundreds of images, which is both visually appealing and a nice touch. This feature also shows me the current SSID (network name) being used, providing an added layer of information about my network connection.

**The Play Store: A Limited Offering**

As of this recording, the Nexus Player's Play Store has a limited selection of applications and games available. While I understand that this is just the beginning, it's a shame to see such a lackluster lineup at launch. However, I have no doubt that developers will begin releasing their Android apps for the Nexus Player in the coming weeks, so let's keep an eye out for future updates.

**Connection Issues and Future Updates**

One of my biggest concerns with the Nexus Player is its connection issues. In my testing, I experienced frequent disconnections and lag while streaming content. While this may be a temporary issue, I hope that Google will address these problems in future updates. With the Nexus Player, it's essential to keep an eye on software updates and wait for any potential fixes or improvements.

**Built-in Casting**

One of the most exciting features of the Nexus Player is its built-in casting functionality. Using the device's remote, I can easily cast content from my tablet or laptop to the Nexus Player directly, eliminating the need for a separate Chromecast device. This feature is perfect for those who want to stream their favorite shows and movies on their TV without any additional hardware.

**Conclusion**

The Google Nexus Player is an exciting device that promises to bring Android to your television. While it has its limitations at launch, I'm confident that future updates will address these issues and bring the full power of Android to this streaming device. As always, my recommendation for those interested in trying out this technology is to wait until there are more applications available and a few weeks have passed since its release. With patience and updates, the Nexus Player has the potential to become an essential component of your entertainment setup.

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**Author Bio**

Kevin "The Tech Ninja" - Android Authority's resident tech expert, I've been exploring the world of Android for years and am always on the lookout for the latest trends, innovations, and must-have devices. Whether it's a Nexus 6, a Galaxy S7, or an upcoming device from Samsung or Google, you can count on me to bring you the inside scoop on all things Android.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGoogle has made several attempts to get into your living room with the Nexus Q android TV and most recently chomecast the Nexus Q and Android TV was a major failure the Q never officially came out and Android TV had limited OEM and app support this is Google's latest and arguably its most Bodacious attempt to become one with your living room this is a Nexus player review the Nexus player looks like an oversized hockey puck and that's the best way to describe it it has a matte black finish and smooth all the way around the sides of the player has a glossy Edge the bottom has a cutout for the micro USB HDMI out and also your 18 wat power cable the puck weighs 235 G and it's also a pretty small device sitting at 120 mm by 120 mm by 20 mm it's made to blend Into Your Entertainment stack and not stick out which is nice there's also a small white LED at the bottom of the player but it's only visible when sitting ey level which lets this to continue the theme of being stealthy it also sits flush doesn't tilt nor Rock the remote is shaped conveniently similar to the fire TV's remote the remote is pretty small at 37 mm x 140 mm x 16 mm and only weighing a mere 40 G the player's remote uses the same matte black finish that that matches the player the directional pad is glossy and the middle button is matte all the buttons has a nice click to them there's also an LED at the top of the remote this led lets you know when it's in pairing mode and it also lights up when doing voice search and various other activities the Asus made Nexus Gamepad is an additional purchase for $40 the game pad looks and feels like an Xbox controller the handles are painted black and the rest is glossy the buttons and analoges all feel tight and provide some nice feedback when pressing them in the quality of the controller is something you'll find with a console it's honestly that good Beyond design it's a normal Bluetooth controller you can pair it with any Android device and it's powered by two ablea batteries when we take a look at what's inside the Nexus player we'll find that it has 1.8 GHz quad core processor Intel atom imagination power VR Series 6 Graphics 2D 3D engine 1 GB of RAM 8 GB of onboard storage 211 AC 2x2 mimo for Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.1 and of course the star of the attraction Android 5.0 Lollipop if there's one thing you know about me I'm not about specs I'm all about performance the next this player is quick Snappy and effortlessly Glides to the interface although the specs are not amazing it's just a testament to the optimization of the software flipping between screens and applications is quite enjoyable just like anything web base your internet connection is a major driving Factor assuming you have a decent internet connection you shouldn't have much lag when launching videos via YouTube or any other streaming services your performance will be relative to what you experien with the chomecast it's the same performance and it's the same technology for streaming videos once you click your video it plays within a few seconds you're able to fast forward and Rewind the video with moderate to no buffering times as of right now there are not a lot of games available on the Nexus player but the games that on there runs great it runs similar to a high-end mobile device now a game like asphalt runs at a constant frames per second you'll see minor drops from time to time now Riptide 2 runs pretty good now when there's a lot of racers in one spot it slows down and drops maybe 10 frames but it catches right back up when you're by yourself the controls are responsive and the sensitivity of the analoges are spot-on every minute movement you make the controller picks it up which is great hopefully a game like Grand Theft Auto comes to the Nexus play player so I can really try these specs out now for games that use the remote exclusively it works pretty much the same way the circular controls are pretty accurate and so is the clicker in the middle and everything works just fine but it is a lot harder to use versus a true game pad can this replace the console no of course not but if you want a better gaming experience than gaming on your phone and tablet then this is a great addition to the Nexus player I just hope more games will be added soon since everything ties back to your Google account it keeps a history for YouTube and also play music any type of playlist you made or anything like that all stays within the application it feeds in suggestions based on your cumulative browsing history and also your multiple channels so essentially no matter where you're using Google services it pretty much picks up where you left off your first bootup takes you into a setup wizard if you use chomecast before then you should feel right at home you simply need to have a computer or mobile device with internet access to confirm the codes on your TV once you do that that you're ready to rock and once you're on the main splash screen it should look familiar that's because it looks like Amazon's Fire TV and very similar to the Xbox 360 take on the Metro UI it's an easy design and works well for non-touch devices on the main screen you have four sections the first section pulls in things that may interest you based on your Google account history I found mostly YouTube videos but every once in a while I found a play movie that shows up now I didn't see anything for Hulu or even Netflix even though I use those applications frequently the second section shows all the applications you've downloaded and also the ones that come with your device think of this as your app drawer if you will the next section is just for games any games you download are there the last section shows your current Wi-Fi status and also the settings when you're playing a YouTube video or listening to play music and you go back to the main screen in the background the video still plays or also play music continues to play as well now that play music continues to stay with you when you're in the store or you're browsing through YouTube however Netflix Pandora or any other application did not have that feature when you exit a non gooogle application it closes the application no multitasking at all even if you go back in within a few seconds more times than not it treats it like a new session and that gets annoying quickly especially you accidentally press the back arrow hopefully an update will come out and alleviate that the search button on the remote lets you use your voice for searches it does a contextual search too you can do a search for movies with a certain actor director or even genre but to take things up a notch Google enabled it so you can do a search for other criterias for example movies from the year 2000 or even movies that won an Academy Award now this only pulls in movies or TV shows that Google Play offers so you won't find anything via Hulu or Netflix this voice search works in all of the Google applications and not tied into anything else this can change one day but I really wouldn't count on that one when the Nexus player goes idle you get the same screen that Chromecast goes to it has hundreds if not thousands of images that are displayed it also shows you the time SSID as well just a nice touch to your screen saver the Play Store as of this recording is lacking there are only a few applications and maybe a dozen games I'm sure this list will grow by the time this ships but I can only comment on what's there now I'm sure the devs are updating their applic ations and games to work with the player but right now it's pretty bare the Nexus player is just the beginning with Android on your TV within a few months we'll see the first TVs with the built-in software it's a great start that Google has right now but there's still ways to go during this review I had to make a few assumptions that the software will be updated to address some of these issues the applications are lacking right now and the connection issues were really frequent for me this is something you may want to wait until it's been out for a few weeks to purchase to be sure that updates fixes the issues or if you're like me you want to take a leap of faith and trust that Google will fix all your issues regardless if you own a chomecast and you wish I had a controll on applications this will be a godson the Nexus player isn't for everyone but is it for you just a few more things before I wrap this review up it does have built-in casting so you can CH cast right to it directly so you can actually have a video on your tablet on your laptop using Chrome and you can send the video Direct to the Nexus player so you don't need a chomecast for that feature as always guys my name is Kevin the tech ninja make sure you like this video And subscribe to Android Authority for more great videos like this one and also great coverage for the whole Nexus release don't worry guys as soon as the Nexus 6 is available we'll have the review for you we're going to have unboxings we're going to have tips and tricks as always guys my name is Kevin the tech ninja and this is Android authority your source for all things Android take care guysGoogle has made several attempts to get into your living room with the Nexus Q android TV and most recently chomecast the Nexus Q and Android TV was a major failure the Q never officially came out and Android TV had limited OEM and app support this is Google's latest and arguably its most Bodacious attempt to become one with your living room this is a Nexus player review the Nexus player looks like an oversized hockey puck and that's the best way to describe it it has a matte black finish and smooth all the way around the sides of the player has a glossy Edge the bottom has a cutout for the micro USB HDMI out and also your 18 wat power cable the puck weighs 235 G and it's also a pretty small device sitting at 120 mm by 120 mm by 20 mm it's made to blend Into Your Entertainment stack and not stick out which is nice there's also a small white LED at the bottom of the player but it's only visible when sitting ey level which lets this to continue the theme of being stealthy it also sits flush doesn't tilt nor Rock the remote is shaped conveniently similar to the fire TV's remote the remote is pretty small at 37 mm x 140 mm x 16 mm and only weighing a mere 40 G the player's remote uses the same matte black finish that that matches the player the directional pad is glossy and the middle button is matte all the buttons has a nice click to them there's also an LED at the top of the remote this led lets you know when it's in pairing mode and it also lights up when doing voice search and various other activities the Asus made Nexus Gamepad is an additional purchase for $40 the game pad looks and feels like an Xbox controller the handles are painted black and the rest is glossy the buttons and analoges all feel tight and provide some nice feedback when pressing them in the quality of the controller is something you'll find with a console it's honestly that good Beyond design it's a normal Bluetooth controller you can pair it with any Android device and it's powered by two ablea batteries when we take a look at what's inside the Nexus player we'll find that it has 1.8 GHz quad core processor Intel atom imagination power VR Series 6 Graphics 2D 3D engine 1 GB of RAM 8 GB of onboard storage 211 AC 2x2 mimo for Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.1 and of course the star of the attraction Android 5.0 Lollipop if there's one thing you know about me I'm not about specs I'm all about performance the next this player is quick Snappy and effortlessly Glides to the interface although the specs are not amazing it's just a testament to the optimization of the software flipping between screens and applications is quite enjoyable just like anything web base your internet connection is a major driving Factor assuming you have a decent internet connection you shouldn't have much lag when launching videos via YouTube or any other streaming services your performance will be relative to what you experien with the chomecast it's the same performance and it's the same technology for streaming videos once you click your video it plays within a few seconds you're able to fast forward and Rewind the video with moderate to no buffering times as of right now there are not a lot of games available on the Nexus player but the games that on there runs great it runs similar to a high-end mobile device now a game like asphalt runs at a constant frames per second you'll see minor drops from time to time now Riptide 2 runs pretty good now when there's a lot of racers in one spot it slows down and drops maybe 10 frames but it catches right back up when you're by yourself the controls are responsive and the sensitivity of the analoges are spot-on every minute movement you make the controller picks it up which is great hopefully a game like Grand Theft Auto comes to the Nexus play player so I can really try these specs out now for games that use the remote exclusively it works pretty much the same way the circular controls are pretty accurate and so is the clicker in the middle and everything works just fine but it is a lot harder to use versus a true game pad can this replace the console no of course not but if you want a better gaming experience than gaming on your phone and tablet then this is a great addition to the Nexus player I just hope more games will be added soon since everything ties back to your Google account it keeps a history for YouTube and also play music any type of playlist you made or anything like that all stays within the application it feeds in suggestions based on your cumulative browsing history and also your multiple channels so essentially no matter where you're using Google services it pretty much picks up where you left off your first bootup takes you into a setup wizard if you use chomecast before then you should feel right at home you simply need to have a computer or mobile device with internet access to confirm the codes on your TV once you do that that you're ready to rock and once you're on the main splash screen it should look familiar that's because it looks like Amazon's Fire TV and very similar to the Xbox 360 take on the Metro UI it's an easy design and works well for non-touch devices on the main screen you have four sections the first section pulls in things that may interest you based on your Google account history I found mostly YouTube videos but every once in a while I found a play movie that shows up now I didn't see anything for Hulu or even Netflix even though I use those applications frequently the second section shows all the applications you've downloaded and also the ones that come with your device think of this as your app drawer if you will the next section is just for games any games you download are there the last section shows your current Wi-Fi status and also the settings when you're playing a YouTube video or listening to play music and you go back to the main screen in the background the video still plays or also play music continues to play as well now that play music continues to stay with you when you're in the store or you're browsing through YouTube however Netflix Pandora or any other application did not have that feature when you exit a non gooogle application it closes the application no multitasking at all even if you go back in within a few seconds more times than not it treats it like a new session and that gets annoying quickly especially you accidentally press the back arrow hopefully an update will come out and alleviate that the search button on the remote lets you use your voice for searches it does a contextual search too you can do a search for movies with a certain actor director or even genre but to take things up a notch Google enabled it so you can do a search for other criterias for example movies from the year 2000 or even movies that won an Academy Award now this only pulls in movies or TV shows that Google Play offers so you won't find anything via Hulu or Netflix this voice search works in all of the Google applications and not tied into anything else this can change one day but I really wouldn't count on that one when the Nexus player goes idle you get the same screen that Chromecast goes to it has hundreds if not thousands of images that are displayed it also shows you the time SSID as well just a nice touch to your screen saver the Play Store as of this recording is lacking there are only a few applications and maybe a dozen games I'm sure this list will grow by the time this ships but I can only comment on what's there now I'm sure the devs are updating their applic ations and games to work with the player but right now it's pretty bare the Nexus player is just the beginning with Android on your TV within a few months we'll see the first TVs with the built-in software it's a great start that Google has right now but there's still ways to go during this review I had to make a few assumptions that the software will be updated to address some of these issues the applications are lacking right now and the connection issues were really frequent for me this is something you may want to wait until it's been out for a few weeks to purchase to be sure that updates fixes the issues or if you're like me you want to take a leap of faith and trust that Google will fix all your issues regardless if you own a chomecast and you wish I had a controll on applications this will be a godson the Nexus player isn't for everyone but is it for you just a few more things before I wrap this review up it does have built-in casting so you can CH cast right to it directly so you can actually have a video on your tablet on your laptop using Chrome and you can send the video Direct to the Nexus player so you don't need a chomecast for that feature as always guys my name is Kevin the tech ninja make sure you like this video And subscribe to Android Authority for more great videos like this one and also great coverage for the whole Nexus release don't worry guys as soon as the Nexus 6 is available we'll have the review for you we're going to have unboxings we're going to have tips and tricks as always guys my name is Kevin the tech ninja and this is Android authority your source for all things Android take care guys\n"