Walmart may not have announced it yet, but the retailer’s latest streaming player–complete with the Google TV interface and 4K streaming capabilities–is now in stores, and it’s looking to be quite the bargain.
Both CordCuttersNews and 9to5Google have been tracking the progress of the Google TV 4K Streaming Box (which has arrived through Walmart’s Onn brand), and the streaming player recently popped up on Walmart’s website, complete with an enticing $19.88 price tag. Google’s 4K-enabled Chromecast with Google TV, in contrast, costs $50.
But while Walmart’s product listing for the Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box is live, you can’t snag the player online yet. Instead, the site simply tells you which nearby Walmart locations have the product on their shelves.
This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best media streaming devices.
That means if you want the Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box now, you’ll have to jump in your car and go find one.
The Google TV 4K Streaming Box looks like an upgraded version of the retailer’s earlier Android TV players–namely, the $25 Onn FHD Streaming Stick and $30 UHD Streaming Device, which we reviewed back in 2021.
We gave high marks to both of those players, particularly the UHD Streaming Device, which we called “surprisingly hard to beat” for the price.
The new Google TV 4K Streaming Box has much the same form factor as the older UHD Streaming Device, including a square design with rounded corners and an Onn voice remote, this time with shortcut buttons for YouTube, Netflix+, Disney+, and Paramount+.
As far as specs go, we’re talking dual-band Wi-Fi 5, a quad-core Cortex-A35 processor with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage (similar to the Chromecast with Google TV 4K), on-board Chromecast and Google Assistant, and (of course) up to 4K video resolution.
The biggest change with the Google TV 4K Streaming box compared to its predecessor is the Google TV interface, an updated version of Android TV that runs on ChromeOS.
The product page is light on specifics as far as HDR and immersive audio goes. There’s no mention of Dolby Vision HDR, for example, although we’re guessing the box supports at least HDR10. (The latter, a garden-variety version of HDR, lacks the scene-by-scene HDR mapping of Dolby Vision and HDR10+.)
Also missing is any mention of Dolby Atmos–just Dolby Audio, although it’s possible the box allows for Dolby Atmos passthrough.
In any case, we’ll have a full review of the Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box once we get our hands on a sample unit.