Lenovo has decided it’s time the enter the streaming stick game, and as such have announced their first media streamer to take on Apple TV, Amazon’s Fire TV and the Google Chromecast. I give you the Lenovo Cast (Hockey Puck).
Lenovo’s streaming thing will be available from August globally for $49 I expect there will be a GBP price to follow (that’s roughly £30). It will be aimed at rivalling the Chromecast for many reasons, the first being that it is intended to be out of site.
Additionally, instead of featuring its own app store and services such as Netflix or BBC iPlayer, the Lenovo Cast is another wireless hub that accepts and streams video from Miracast or DLNA-enabled devices, including smartphones, tablets or PCs.
This give it the unique ability of working with iOS, Android and Windows 8.1 and can also mirror the screen of Android devices onto a TV to play games on the big screen, it should have more options than the Chromecast at current.
It has a HDMI output, both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi antennas (something the Chromecast does not offer) and is capable of outputting video up to 1080p. It is a tiny device that is intended to be portable, being just 70mm in diameter and 15mm in height. It weighs 50g.
A lot of the newer TVs on the market today also offer DLNA and Miracast support, but there’s still plenty of us with older TVs and something like this is far cheaper than buying a new one.