Walmart has offered the most affordable ways to get Android TV OS for a while now, but the retailer’s cheapest Google TV streaming stick has unexpectedly gotten a price hike.
Update 12/27: Roughly a week after the new price kicked in, Walmart has moved its Google TV streaming stick back to its original price of $14.88.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Walmart has raised the price of the “Onn Google TV Full HD Streaming Stick,” its latest device based on Google TV. The device debuted in November for a price of just under $15, about $5 less than the 4K-capable streaming box that debuted earlier this year.
Following up on its Android TV counterpart, Walmart’s streaming stick has a Bluetooth remote based on one of Google’s reference designs and is powered by an Amlogic S805X2 chipset with 8GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. All in all, it’s a solid package.
But now, that package comes at a higher price of $17.50. The $2.50 price hike arrived in the past few days and came with pretty much no warning. We’ve reached out to Walmart to confirm if this is a permanent price change, but given the listing is still marked as sold by Walmart directly, it does seem to be official.
We’ve reached out to Walmart for confirmation on whether this is a permanent price update, but, likely because of the holidays, the retailer hasn’t been able to confirm just yet. That said, the price hike has been in place for a few days (since December 21) at this point, so odds are this is permanent.
While $2.50 isn’t much, it makes this product a pretty tough sell. The 4K version of Walmart’s Google TV streamer is still sold for $19.88, putting barely over $2 in between the two. And with the 4K model supporting better output and offering a stronger processor, it’s a no-brainer to stick with that version.
We’ll keep an eye on the device to see if the price changes back, but for now, it’s the going price.
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