- The 50% price rise is effective immediately
- It's US-only so far, but expect rises elsewhere too
- Price hike makes the streamer much less competitive
The Google TV Streamer just got an enormous price hike, so if you've been thinking of buying one you'd better move quickly before retailers put the price up by a whopping 50%.
The price hike only affects US customers so far, but we'd expect a similar rise in other countries very soon because the reasons for the increase apply globally: Google says that it's "due to rising component costs" and will also affect some Google Nest cameras and doorbells.
Google isn't the first brand to increase its streamer pricing as the price of memory has skyrocketed: Apple, Roku, Fire TV and Onn have all gone up too, in some cases by even more than Google's 50%. But the increased cost of the Google TV Streamer makes it a harder sell when you compare it to the competition.
Is the Google TV Streamer still worth the money?
There's a big difference between a $99 streamer and a $149 one, and unless you really need Cast support it might be wise to consider one of the rival devices or delay your decision until Apple unveils the long-awaited successor to the Apple TV 4K, which is expected imminently.
The Google TV Streamer is a great device, but I think it came with an implicit trade-off: it was much cheaper than, say, an Apple TV 4K, but Google's platform offers less privacy and of course, ads. With a 50% price hike the Google streamer looks like much less of a bargain, especially compared to Amazon's Fire TV Stick models.
If you want a cheap ad-supported device, Amazon's ones are way cheaper; if you care about ad-free browsing and privacy, an Apple TV no longer costs much more than the Google option — and when the new Apple TV launches, the current device will likely get some decent discounting.
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