A little under five years ago, Google released one of its most crucial streaming devices ever: the Chromecast with Google TV. It was the first streaming gadget to launch with Google TV, which, issues aside, offered a much more personalized and refined smart TV experience than Android TV ever did. Paired with fun colors, a great remote, and a $50 price tag, the Chromecast was an instant hit.
Thankfully, a company called Thomson will soon give us that replacement with the Cast 150. It’s a streaming dongle with the same design and features as the Chromecast with Google TV, and it looks like an excellent spiritual successor.
Unfortunately, one regrettable spec may ruin it completely.
Is 8GB enough storage for a streaming device?
105 votes
Everything the Cast 150 gets right
Outside of that spec (which I’ll get to in just a moment), everything else about the Cast 150 looks fantastic. Hardware-wise, the dongle design is practically identical to the Chromecast with Google TV, meaning it’ll hide discreetly behind your television and won’t take up any space on your entertainment stand.
The remote is quite different from the Chromecast one, but it looks good overall. It has all of the usual navigation buttons, shortcuts to a few streaming apps (YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney Plus), plus the new Live TV button Android Authority reported on earlier this month.
What about everything else? You’ve got support for 4K streaming, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, a Cortext A35 processor with 2GB of RAM, and the full Google TV software suite. Thomson hasn’t announced pricing for the Cast 150 yet, but assuming it’s around $50, it has all the makings of an excellent budget Google TV streamer.
Why one spec might ruin it
David Imel / Android Authority
I was getting pretty excited about the Cast 150 while reading about it — until I saw its storage spec. The Cast 150 has just 8GB of internal storage, the same amount available on the Chromecast with Google TV. As someone who had the Chromecast with Google TV, trust me when I say that 8GB is not nearly enough space.
When I bought the Chromecast in 2020, my first few weeks with it were fine. I installed the apps I needed, logged into all of my streaming accounts, and things seemed like they were okay. But it didn’t take long before I saw pop-ups that I had run out of space.
Trust me when I say that 8GB is not nearly enough space.
Of the Chromecast’s 8GB of total storage, only about 4GB was available for me to use (the rest being taken up by the Google TV software and other system files). That quickly proved to be my biggest issue with the Chromecast. At least once every couple of weeks, I would regularly have to delete applications to make room for new apps or software updates to existing ones — and that’s not even accounting for Google TV system updates, which caused even more storage issues.
This was already a big problem in 2020, and in 2025, with more streaming apps than ever and application file sizes only getting bigger, there’s no reason to believe the Cast 150 won’t be subject to a similar — or worse — fate.
While you may think you can squeeze by with 8GB if you only use a handful of streaming apps, that doesn’t leave you any wiggle room should you find new apps you’d like to download. It dramatically limits what you can and can’t do with your TV streaming, and it was one of the main reasons I ditched the Chromecast with Google TV just a few months after I bought it.
Following the Chromecast a little too closely
Storage issues aside, I love what Thomson is trying to do with the Cast 150. Google doesn’t seem interested in reviving the Chromecast with Google TV any time soon, and for people who want a cheaper, compact Google TV streamer, the Cast 150 has a lot of positives.
Some specs obviously have to be cut to reach a (presumably) low price for the Cast 150, but when you look at another Google TV streamer like the Onn 4K Pro — which has 32GB of storage and still costs just $50 — it really makes you wonder why Thomson settled with 8GB. Even 16GB would have been acceptable, if not ideal.
I wanted to be excited about the Cast 150, but if 8GB is the storage amount Thomson has settled on, I’ll be sitting this one out. And unless you enjoy micromanaging file and app storage space, I’d recommend you do the same.
