Chromecast is definitely one of the best devices to come out of any Tech company last year. The popular streaming device has won over many fans and offers up a slew of choices for you to access your favorite media. There are a couple drawbacks though, and there is certainly room for improvement. Alcatel will be attempting to capitalize on these shortcomings by releasing its own Media Streaming Dongle that offers Chromecast like features.
The device will be called the Alcatel Home V102, and allow you to stream local content to the big screen, as well as mirror the display of your device. The mirror feature is one big feature in particular that the Chromecast is lacking, although hopefully for those of us that already own the Chromecast, the Miracast feature will show up at a later date. The Home V102 is packed into a little dongle that connects up to your TV or Monitors HDMI port, and is actually about the same size as the Chromecast, perhaps even a bit smaller. Alcatel says that the Home V102 supports 2.4/5GHz Dual-Band Wifi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, which seems pretty compatible with a wide array of networks and should be able to accommodate just about any setup that isn’t completely ancient. The Home V102 also supports 1080p quality video streaming at 30fps.
The Home V102 isn’t specifically meant for mobile devices, as Alcatel says that it will work with laptops as well. The support for smartphones and tablets is there provided you have a mobile device that supports the screen mirroring feature in the first place. Alcatel will be launching this little dongle sometime around the second quarter of the year, and when it releases it will initially only head to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The Home V102 costs a bit more than the Chromecast, but for the added capability of using the Miracast feature, were not so sure that a higher price is a bad thing. Do you think just under $70 is worth it? Let us know what you think in the comments.