It’s been a long time coming, but the signs are good that the Chromecast HDMI dongle could be launching here in Australia very soon, with Google Chrome and Android head, Sundar Pichai quoted in his South by Southwest talk as saying the Chromecast would launch in more countries ‘within a couple of weeks’.
He didn’t, or wouldn’t elaborate on which countries would be getting the Chromecast, but it’s an easy assumption to assume that the countries with the full gamut of Google Play media services – Music, Movies and TV – would see the dongle arrive first. Those countries being the UK, Japan and of course with the launch of Google Play TV Shows last week – Australia.
The Chromecast was rumoured to launch in the UK this month according to an announcement from UK based electrical retailer Currys and this further announcement would tie-in with that time-frame pretty nicely.
According to what we’ve been told, Google’s Sydney office is fully kitted out with Chromecasts in meeting rooms and we’ve been repeatedly told that Google themselves have some big plans for Chromecast, yes, even here in Australia. Unfortunately, nobody seems quite ready to tell us what those plans are just yet.
If ‘within a couple of weeks’ is still too long to wait you can always import one through a shipping forwarder or jump over to Fishpond where you can order it for just under AUD$50 including delivery.
Heh. Just after I buy my second.
Though maybe with this the ABC can be convinced to support it.
I got mine from Fishpond – took about 4 weeks but it came. Must say, having got one, not sure what the fuss is all about – very limited functionality – basically you can watch YouTube from your tablet on TV, not much else. Streaming from Chrome Beta is very much a hit and miss (more miss) and then only with video. Allcast doesn’t work. Better off just using an HDMI cable…..
… then sell it and let someone who knows how to use it use it…
aussiepads website has it as instock for $59.95 with gst, can’t recommend fishpond, but they did refund me after 3 weeks, will wait now till next month.
Can’t wait for it to occur. Fishpond is a crock, they advertise, take your money but don’t ship and continue to list and sell products from suppliers that won’t even respond to their communications. Amazing that now the Chromecast is under 50 delivered, too good to be true me thinks, I will happily wait for Google to release it or a local supplier other than Fishpond.