Walmart’s new $30 streamer is the Chromecast with Google TV replacement I’ve been waiting for

Google left an obvious gap when it moved on from the Chromecast with Google TV. As imperfect as it was, the $50 price made it an affordable way to get a reliable Google TV streaming device — much more so than the $100 Google TV Streamer, the only streaming device Google currently sells.

Thankfully, Walmart’s new Onn 4K Streaming Stick looks poised to fill that gap. The $30 dongle will offer cheap, simple streaming for those emotionally committed to Google TV, and for that crowd, it might be perfect.

What $30 buys you with the Onn 4K Streaming Stick

The Onn 4K Streaming Stick hasn’t officially launched, but all signs point to an imminent release. It’s a no-frills 4K streaming stick (as the name implies) that runs Google TV. In other words, it plugs into an HDMI port, connects to Wi-Fi, and drops users into the familiar Google TV interface — complete with app support, recommendations, and built-in casting.

Like other Google TV devices, it’ll pull my go-to apps from the Play Store and surface shows and movies across services, so I’m not constantly hopping between them. It’ll let me flip from The Pitt on Max to Paradise on Hulu to whatever Netflix is pushing this week with minimal effort. For me (and for anyone using my TV), that’s really all I want from a streamer.

Under the hood, the hardware is about what I’d expect for the price (and importantly, no worse). The Onn 4K Streaming Stick packs a quad-core Cortex-A55 processor paired with a Mali G57 GPU, along with 2GB of RAM (up from the previous model’s 1.5GB) and 8GB of storage. It’s not especially powerful, but it should be enough for smooth navigation and everyday streaming. At this price, I’m after convenience, not perfection.

To that end, even the in-box experience keeps things simple. Based on images shared by a user who spotted the device early at Walmart, the package includes everything you need to get up and running, from a remote to a proper power adapter to an HDMI extender for tighter setups, avoiding some of the headaches you get with ultra-cheap streamers.

On the feature side, the images list 4K playback, Dolby Atmos support, dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz with MIMO), Google Cast, and Gemini voice controls. It’s essentially the same core experience I’d expect from more expensive devices, such as a modern-day Chromecast. The jump to 4K fixes one of the biggest limitations of Walmart’s older Onn stick, which was capped at 1080p, and puts it in line with the much older Chromecast with Google TV.

In short, the new Onn streaming stick delivers the features that actually matter to me with relatively few compromises, all for a great price. You know — just like the Chromecast with Google TV used to.

Picking up where Google left off

Of course, this is still a $30 streaming stick, and that usually comes with trade-offs. Cheap hardware has a habit of making a good first impression before slowing down once updates pile up and storage fills. And yet, this is exactly the kind of device that doesn’t need to overdeliver. Even as more TVs and projectors ship with Google TV built in, that doesn’t necessarily make a cheap streamer redundant.

Built-in platforms can also age poorly, lag behind on updates, or just feel inconsistent across devices. A $30 stick is an easy reset and something I can swap in to update my TV without making a huge financial commitment. There’s no shortage of cheap streaming sticks, but most run Roku or Fire TV instead of Google TV. I’m already in Google’s ecosystem, so Google TV with Cast support feels more cohesive — and at $30, that’s a worthwhile differentiator.

Specifically, this is the kind of purchase that makes the most sense on a secondary TV like a for a bedroom, guest room, or older set that needs a refresh.. It’s cheap enough to impulse-buy, capable enough to keep my downtime stress-free, and easy to replace in a few years—more or less the original Chromecast playbook and what we had with the Chromecast with Google TV.

Google hasn’t shown any indication of launching a new Chromecast with Google TV anytime soon, and we shouldn’t hold our breath for that to change. Is that annoying? Sure. But if the Onn 4K Streaming Stick is as good as it’s shaping up to be, that may not matter anymore.