- Can't beat the price
- Hands-free voice control
- Customizable remote
- Lost-remote finder
- No lag or bloatware
- Needs to be out in the open
Let’s just skip to the chase, because two things are true: The Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device has a horribly generic name. And I would buy it instead of a Google Chromecast With Google TV.
I don’t mind admitting that I was skeptical of a $50
So what changed my mind? A few things, actually. A few surprising things.
Video review
The basics
If you’re new to any or all of this, we’ll set the stage here. Onn (technically it’s styled onn. — lowercase and with punctuation — but we’re absolutely not going to do that) is Walmart’s house brand. It’s like Insignia for Best Buy.
And the Onn
The
Basically, it’s a
It has Ethernet, so you can keep things hardwired. Or if you want to keep things wireless, it supports Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax). I didn’t see a huge speed difference either way (I use an Eero Pro 6 mesh setup on gigabit fiber), but that also could have been a function of the speed test app I was using. Either way, more than 100 Mbps up and down is far than fast enough for our purposes here. And if you need one, there’s an HDMI cable in the box. Nice.
It also has a USB-A port (it’s USB 3.0, too), so you can plug in a hard drive and use it as a built-in device storage as
The Onn
The setup
Let’s go back to that bit about where I was worried about using tech from Walmart. I mostly was concerned about performance — is this thing going to be as laggy as the original Chromecast with
So far, neither of those things has been an issue.
First, a pre-setup consideration: Take a second to flip through the quick-start guide in the box, if only because there are some extras on the remote control you maybe haven’t seen before. And you’ll also be directed to keep the Onn
A couple of other features on the device itself include a button on the front that almost just looks like a logo, or maybe a power button (the latter wouldn’t really make sense, though). Turns out it’s a dedicated remote-finder button. Press it, and your remote will start chirping. Its tiny LED also will flash, but that’s all but useless.
And around the side of the box is a switch that turns off the device’s otherwise always-on microphones. There’s no on-screen notification when that happens, but you’ll note that the four LEDs on the box that light up when you’re issuing voice commands are now a consistent red.
Setup was pretty much exactly like I’ve seen on any other
Once you’re up and running, things should settle down after a few minutes. (You actually get a notification about that — if there’s a little hesitation at first, be patient. That’s normal when you first set up a device like this.) You also might get a couple of other notifications about things going on in the background. For me, that included a firmware update for the remote control. Keep an eye out for those.
The remote control
There’s actually a bit more to say about the remote control, but it’s also going to get a bit confusing. When folks stared getting their retail units of the Onn
But on May 16, Walmart confirmed that, yes, there are two versions of the Onn 4K Pro remote — and that the one we got will be phased out. There are a couple major (or not) differences. Our remote control does not have backlit buttons, which is a shame. Those are always nice to have. But it also doesn’t have a big “Free TV” button in the middle, and I’m absolutely OK with that. It looks awful.
So I’ll continue to review the remote that we got — just know that it might well not be the remote that comes with your Onn
First is that I greatly enjoy it — more than the remote that comes with the Chromecast with
Regardless, most (if not all) of the buttons are also perfectly useful.
Let’s start with what’s been referred to as the “Magic Button.” It’s not actually called that anywhere — Star Button probably is more accurate — and there’s nothing particularly magical about it. It’s a customizable button, and that’s hardly new to streaming devices.
This button lets you do one of two things: You can assign it to any installed app that’s otherwise available in the launcher (not just any random APK file format on the device), or you can assign it to switch to any other device it’s able to see is connected to your TV, and then change that device’s inputs. That’s handy if you want to switch from the Onn box to, say, a Blu-ray player.
Me? I’ll just leave it tied to an app.
One little quirk here, though. If the Star Button is assigned to an app, you can long press it again to change which app it launches. But if you have it assigned to cycle device inputs (say, you want it to control a receiver instead of your TV), you’ll need to go into the remote control settings menu, then scroll all the way down, and then you’ll see an option to change the Star Button functionality. That menu option doesn’t appear if the button launches an app.
There are four branded quick-launch buttons at the bottom of the remote, labeled for YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, and Paramount+. That’s also not at all a new phenomenon — but there is one fun little trick here. Hold down the YouTube button and you’ll get the option to assign it to either
There are a couple of other buttons of note: There are dedicated options to switch Google profiles — extremely handy so that you and your spouse or roommates or kids can all get your own recommendations when using this thing. (And recommendations are still a huge part of the
The only complaint I have about the remote — and it’s a small and unsurprising one — is that the buttons are not backlit. I didn’t expect them to be backlit given that this is a $50 device, but it would have been nice to have.
The experience
I started this review with my concerns. I was concerned about lag. I was worried about Walmart cruft. I’m finishing it without any headaches over either. The Onn
I had no problem with Dolby Vision kicking in, just as it does on my other platforms. (Apple TV 4K is my daily driver, and I use an old Chromecast all the time, too.) Dolby Atmos also mostly worked across the various services and content that support it, from Stranger Things on Netflix to Top Gun Maverick on Paramount+.
I did run into a few hiccups where I didn’t get Atmos audio where I’d otherwise expected it. I couldn’t get any Atmos out of the Apple TV app (Dark Matter and Argyle were both no-gos for some reason), and there were a couple other titles on Netflix that failed. Your mileage may vary, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see that get sorted at some point.
Other than the fact you bought this from Walmart, you’d think it was a proper Google device.
The other thing I was pleasantly surprised by was the sheer lack of any sort of Walmart presence in daily use. (To be honest, I’d forgotten that Walmart had unloaded Vudu a few years ago.) So far, no display ads. No suggestions that I buy something from Walmart. There’s just a stock, standard
Again, it wouldn’t surprise me if things change at some point. But so far, so good.
But the biggest improvement over Chromecast with
Voice control, by the way, works exactly as you’d expect.
Just keep in mind that if you have any Nest Hub speakers within earshot, you may run into discrimination problems, where another device’s microphones hear you when you really wanted the Onn
Should you buy it?
I can currently say without any sort of hesitation that if I had to choose between the Chromecast with
But Onn brings more to the table. It has Ethernet and USB built in. It has hands-free voice control via the mics on the device itself. It has the built-in remote-control locator. And it doesn’t have the lag you experience on the Chromecast.
All for the same price.
The Onn
For now, everything’s coming up roses. Any concerns I have about the Onn
For all intents and purposes this is, for now, a solid
And for just $50? The Walmart Onn