Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick Review: Packs in the Google TV Jazz

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 8

Amazon has had a monopoly in the personal entertainment space for quite some time with their Fire TV devices. However, Google did try to counter this last year with their Chromecast running Google TV. Though sadly, it did not make its way to India like most Google devices.

Now thanks to Realme, we are getting a taste of the much-improved Google TV. The brand recently announced the Realme TV Stick 4K running Google TV with a not-so-hefty price tag. Coming in at INR 3,999, the Realme TV Stick certainly makes an impression and tries to eat into the Fire TV Stick 4K market.

We have been using the Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick for a little over two weeks, and this product left us quite impressed. For a thorough take on this, please scroll down for our full review.

Key Specifications

  • Operating System: Google TV based on Android 11
  • Resolution:4K 60fps, HDR10+
  • Ports: HDMI 2.1 out, micro-USB in
  • RAM/storage:2GB/8GB
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0
  • Dimensions:90 x 29.8 x 14.5mm, 30 grams
  • Price:₹3,999

Box Contents

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 15

A complete list of items you get inside the box:

  • Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick
  • HDMI extender
  • microUSB cable
  • Power Adapter
  • Voice Remote
  • AAA batteries
  • Documentation

Design

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 11The Realme 4K stick design is identical to the Mi TV Stick and Amazon Fire TV Stick. It’s a rectangular device in matte black colour and made out of polycarbonate. The HDMI port sticks out from one end, while the microUSB port used to power the stick is placed on the side. There is also a status LED on the other side, which is a neat touch.

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 1The Realme branding here is quite prominent, and since the device is fairly small in size, you can tuck this away behind the TV. Realme also bundles an HDMI extender within the package, which is helpful when the ports on the TV are hard to reach.

Overall, the design is fairly straightforward. We have raved about it in length on our previous reviews of the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Mi TV stick. However, there are some negatives to this design, too, mentioned in the below sections.

Software

The most significant highlighting feature on the Realme 4K TV Stick is the use of Google TV. This is the first streaming stick apart from the 3rd Gen Google Chromecast that runs this new OS build. Google TV is miles ahead compared to Android TV in terms of UI/UX, recommendation engine, and features. Here, the Realme TV stick gets a lively home screen with large thumbnails, recommendations from the apps you’ve installed, and more.

Since the product is launched locally in India, we get the option to load content from Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, MX Player, YouTube, Prime Video, and Apple TV. In addition, the stick here runs the Google TV build based on our unit’s Android 11 and August security patch. So the stick has all the up-to-date software, but it will be interesting to see how Realme fairs with the updates over time.

Performance

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 13The Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick packs in the latest Quad-core CPU with a powerful PowerVR GPU ideal for casual gaming. Unfortunately, we get 2GB of RAM here and just 8GB of internal storage, out of which only 4GB is available to the user. We would have liked the internal to be double given the competition.

The new UI feels snappy and responsive for the most part barring some occasional hiccups. The Realme TV stick is able to output at 4K resolution, as is evident in the product name. The stick gets support for HDR10+ but misses the support for Dolby Vision which is readily available in the competition. We did notice some heating issues on the stick, which can be attributed to the boxy compact design, something similar is present on the Fire TV 4K.

Realme 4K Smart Google TV Stick 7During our limited use, we did not notice any significant issues with the streaming stick. The app opening times were quite short; apart from Disney+ Hotstar, which maxed out at 1080p, all the other major OTT platforms pumped out content at 4k resolution. With the stick, Realme bundles the same remote that is available with their smart TV range. It is a Bluetooth + IR remote that takes in two AAA batteries and has a D-pad, Home, Back, Volume keys, and dedicated buttons for leading OTT services.

The remote also has a voice feature, using which you can summon the Google Assistant, which works like a charm. We want to add that this all is smooth on high-speed broadband internet, so make sure the connectivity at your end is good.

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About the author

Yogesh Brar

The guy recommending you tech products & living on the Internet. Or you can connect with me on Twitter: twitter.com/heyitsyogesh