Google TV Streamer Supports External Storage, Runs Android 14

The Google TV Streamer is official as of earlier this week, but because the device hasn’t yet shipped and no one has it in their hands for review, bits of additional info are trickling out to help you decide if you need one. For example, just today, we’re learning about expandable storage for it and which version of Android it runs.

First, we’ve now got confirmation that the Google TV Streamer does indeed support external storage. While Google made it clear that they think the upgrade to 32GB of storage in this new device is a major upgrade over the 8GB in the Chromecast with Google TV (and it is), some power users may need even more space.

Google told 9to5Google that the Google TV Streamer can technically handle external storage through its USB-C port. Unfortunately, there is only a single USB-C port, which is used for power to the device. In order to expand storage and power the Streamer, you would need to use some sort of dongle that would give you an additional port. That will apparently work, too.

And the other part of today’s news drop relates to the version of Android. The Google TV Streamer, according to Mishaal Rahman, runs Android 14. This would be the first Google TV device to do so, which it should be as a Google-made device.

Android 14 for Google TV was announced back in May at Google I/O and is expected to bring big performance improvements, as well as multi-tasking. We hope that refers to Android 14’s picture-in-picture capabilities. There’s more too, which you can read about here.

Google TV Streamer at $99.99 – we decide if we’re buying yet?