Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro review: This is a great streamer

The Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro is an excellent streaming box if you ignore its biggest selling point.

For $50, you get speedy performance, lots of storage space, and a feature-rich remote control. Like Walmart’s $20 Onn 4K box, it runs the same Google TV software, which is helpful for finding new things to watch, but the Pro model also supports Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos object-based surround sound.

Just don’t buy the Onn Google TV 4K Pro with hands-free voice control in mind. It’s a poor substitute for a dedicated Google Nest or Amazon Echo speaker, and it’s far more frustrating to control with voice alone than Amazon’s Fire TV Cube.

Walmart’s Onn Google TV 4K Pro resets expectations for what a $50 streaming device can deliver.

A beefy box for the money

Take a look at the Onn Google TV 4K Pro’s spec list:

• Quad-core Cortex-A55 CPU, Mali-G31 MP3 GPU
• 32GB of storage
• 3GB RAM
• Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth
• USB 3.0 port
• 100Mbps ethernet port

That’s a lot of bells and whistles for the money. With the USB-A port, you can connect external storage drives, wired game controllers, and other accessories, while ethernet allows for a more stable wired connection to your router. Roku and Amazon don’t build these features into any streaming device under $100.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best media streamers.

Outside of the $129 Apple TV 4K, most streaming devices also come with no more than 16GB of built-in storage. You’re unlikely to hit the Onn 4K Pro’s 32GB limit without installing lots of games, and Google TV can still automatically “hibernate” unused apps to free up space if you do.

As for performance, the Onn Google TV 4K Pro was consistently a few seconds faster at loading apps than both the standard Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max in my side-by-side testing. It was also much better at remembering your place when switching between apps. I was able to jump between a half-dozen apps and pick up right where I left off, while the Fire TV Stick 4K Max would take me back to an app’s initial loading screen nearly every time I navigated elsewhere.

A do-it-all remote

Walmart has always leaned toward maximalism with its streaming remotes, but the Onn 4K Pro remote is its most button-packed yet. Here’s what it includes beyond just basic navigation:

• Google Assistant voice control
• TV volume, power, and mute (supports both IR and HDMI-CEC)
• Star button for either switching inputs or quick-launching a favorite app
• Shortcut to Settings
• Shortcut to Google TV’s Live tab.
• A “Free TV” button that jumps straight to Google TV’s free streaming channels.
• Channel up/down buttons
• Shortcuts for YouTube (also mappable to YouTube TV or YouTube Music), Netflix, Disney+, and Paramount+

It helps that Google TV lets you customize the remote using third-party apps such as TVQuickActions. I’ve used this app to add a recent apps switcher, a shortcut to my full app list, and a quick-launch button for Channels DVR.

The Onn 4K Pro also includes a remote finder function, similar to the Roku Ultra. Press a button on the box’s front edge, and the remote will chime for 30 seconds or until you interact with it. This really ought to be a standard feature on streaming devices by now.

My only concern is with the remote’s backlighting, which can’t be disabled and activates on any button press regardless of lighting conditions. I fear this could cause undue drain on the remote’s pair of AA batteries—an issue Amazon mitigated on its Alexa Voice Remote Pro with an ambient light sensor—but admittedly I haven’t used the Onn 4K Pro long enough to notice any impact.

Google TV

Like Walmart’s cheaper streaming box, the Onn 4K Pro runs Google TV, which is based on Android. It has a comprehensive selection of streaming apps, but what’s most notable is how it helps you sift through a sea of streaming content

Scroll down the home screen, and you’ll find recommendations based on your viewing habits, a “Continue Watching” row for resuming movies and shows in progress, shortcuts to free streaming channels, and genre-based suggestions.

Unlike on Roku and Fire TV devices, you can actually hide services from this menu by heading to Settings > Accounts & Sign-In > Your Services. That goes a long way toward making the home screen feel more orderly, as does the clear labeling of which service each recommendation comes from. (Even so, you’ll still see some recommendations for pay-per-view movies, with no way to hide them.)

Google TV’s home screen also includes a channel guide that integrates linear channels from free services such as Pluto TV, Tubi, and Plex. It can also pull in channels from Sling TV or YouTube TV if you pay for those live TV streaming services. You’ll still land inside those apps after selecting a channel, but the feature lets you browse across services more efficiently.

Unfortunately, some of Google TV’s longstanding blindspots haven’t gone away. The “Continue Watching” row, for instance, is a great feature, but it’s unable to show anything you’ve been watching on Paramount+. Netflix content, meanwhile, does appear in the “Continue Watching” row but cannot be found anywhere else on the Google TV home screen, so you’ll need to jump into the Netflix app to discover new shows from its catalog.

The upside is that Google TV does provide quick and direct access to individual apps. They appear in a “Your apps” row that’s a couple clicks down from the top feature carousel, and you can both customize the order and add more apps through this section.

Voice search is a strong point as well. You can ask for specific movies or shows, or request genres such as “movies about musicians,” “TV shows based on video games,” or “sci-fi movies starring Jeff Goldblum.” Launching live TV channels by voice also works well if you’re subscribed to YouTube TV—you can just say “tune to ESPN” while holding the mic button—but I ran into errors trying to do this with Sling TV and Philo.

An inferior smart speaker

As indicated by its fabric enclosure, the Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro wants to be more than just a streaming box. It has a speaker and far-field microphones built in, so you can talk to it with “Hey Google” voice commands just like a dedicated Nest smart speaker. Even if your TV is off, the box will respond by voice and turn on the TV to display supplemental info, such as the upcoming weather.

But in my experience, hands-free control failed in just about every way:

• Google TV can’t understand basic navigation commands, such as “scroll left” or “select,” nor does it let you select on-screen items by name. By contrast, Amazon’s Fire TV Cube supports total hands-free control, so it’s more accessible for folks who can’t use a traditional remote.
• While you can ask for specific movies or shows by voice, Google Assistant always wanted to route playback to my Nest Hub or Lenovo Smart Display in other rooms of the house.
• Even when I connected the device to a separate Google account—one that’s connected to a YouTube TV subscription—it refused to play live channels from YouTube TV with hands-free voice commands.
• There’s no way to adjust the volume on the device’s built-in speaker, which handles responses when the TV is off.

This all adds up to a largely worthless smart speaker experience. If you want a Google Assistant device for hands-free interaction, buy a dedicated smart speaker instead, and don’t even bother enabling the Onn Google TV 4K Pro’s hands-free controls.

Chromecast issues

Like all Google TV and Android TV devices, the Onn Google TV 4K Pro supports casting video from compatible mobile apps. That means you can open up Netflix or Spotify on your phone, connect to your TV via Chromecast, and choose what you want to play on the television using your phone or tablet as the remote.

There’s just one problem: You can’t use your phone or tablet to control the TV’s volume. If you start a Chromecast session, you still need the streaming remote for volume control, which largely defeats the purpose of casting to begin with. The Onn Google TV 4K Pro does have its own internal volume control, which works while casting, but enabling it prevents you from using the remote to adjust your TV or soundbar volume directly. This is not an ideal trade-off.

To be clear, this issue is not specific to the Onn Google TV 4K Pro, or to Walmart’s streaming boxes in general. I’ve experienced the same limitation on Google’s own Chromecast devices.

Should you buy the Walmart Onn Google TV 4K Pro?

Although Walmart flew a little too close to the sun with its smart speaker features, the Onn Google TV 4K Pro is still an excellent streaming box for the money. It’s more performant than other sub-$100 streaming devices, has a button-packed remote that’s loaded with customization potential, and offers ample storage and accessory support that cost more on competing devices.

Its closest rival is Roku’s Streaming Stick 4K, which has the same $50 list price but a less capable remote. While Roku’s interface is simpler, Google TV is better at helping you discover new things to watch. Both devices are far superior to Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks, whose software has become a confusing, ad-ridden mess.

The streaming box business has been stagnant for so long, with many vendors selling the same old hardware for years in a row. Walmart’s Onn Google TV 4K Pro resets expectations for what a $50 streaming device can deliver, and while its more ambitious features don’t pan out, it should at least encourage rivals to try a little harder.

Correction: This review originally stated that Google TV’s “Continue Watching” row does not integrate with Hulu, Amazon Prime, or Peacock. Further testing has shown that they do. (It’s possible that a reboot or additional time was needed for these tie-ins to appear.) The story has been updated accordingly.