Nexus Player, the first Android TV box by Asus officially announced

Along with the announcement of Android 5.0 Lollipop, Nexus 6 and Nexus 9, Google has also announced the NexusPlayer, a new living room media box. It is the first device based on the new Android TV platform and is made by Google and Asus together. The Nexus Player is the most recent attempt taken by Google to take over the TV.

The Android TV platform boasts of a good looking interface that will let users to stream movies, music and TV shows. The devices based on this platform can also be used to play Android games. 

Google has announced that the Nexus Player is up for pre-order on Play Store and will be available for sale on November 3rd for a price of $99. The optional gamepad is priced at $39. 

The Nexus Player resembles the shape of a sleek looking puck measuring 4.7-inches in diameter. It features a tiny remote with few buttons for functions such as allowing users to perform voice searches using a microphone similar to the Amazon Fire TV.

Also, there is 8GB of native storage capacity and support to stream content wirelessly via WiFi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 (MIMO)) that is a standard feature among media boxes. Furthermore, there is support for a game controller, but it has to be purchased separately.

The Nexus Player weighs in at 235 grams and employs a 1.8GHz quad-core Intel Atom chipset and there is a separate Imagination PowerVR Series 6 graphics chipset to render excellent games and HD video. Also, there is 1GB of RAM that should suffice for the Android 5.0 platform to sail through smoothly.

The device also comes with two AAA batteries that can juice it up for necessary functionalities. Other aspects are Bluetooth 4.1, 1920 x 1080p@60Hz Full HD HDMI out and micro-USB 2.0.