I am thinking about switching over to an android TV device from a Roku but I am wondering about the differences in the o.s
When streaming from Netflix or Hulu on Android does it have the same functionality as google play movies in that you can see info on the actors and so forth or is it the same as on a Roku?
Voice search, just how good is it? Is there also a way to search via text from a phone?
I would have to check on the cast info. I rarely even pause what I'm watching so I can't say there's anything where you can hit a button to see who the actor is on screen at that moment.
Voice search is great. It reads my voice well. It then searches for content with those words. By my definition, that's "good". There's a remote app, but I haven't really used it. I'm sure you can use it to search.
Also, if you enjoy using the remote headphone jack on Roku, your only real option for Android TV is the Shield TV, and it's currently a bit hard to find in stock, at least for the 16GB eMMC model. Rumors point to a new version on the horizon, but it'd only be a small upgrade if any. The device is incredibly powerful for what it is.
I don't have Hulu, but I haven't seen that feature on Netflix.
The voice search should be better on Android TV, but I can't say for sure since I haven't used voice search on a Roku. And yes, if the app uses standard text input, you can use the Android TV app on your phone to type.
One thing to keep in mind is if you switch to Android TV, there is no official Amazon Prime Video app available.
Voice Search is great. There's a version of Kodi by the former Android Maintainer of Kodi called SPMC that's optimized for Android TV. One of the features is that it can do voice search within SPMC, so that's a huge plus.
Does the shield allow you to connect a Bluetooth headset to it?
Voice search on Nexus Player is much better since the Nougat update. My remote is no longer disconnecting as well.
The info view at pause is for Google Play movies only, no other app does this (same as Xray on Amazon Fire).
Voice search is great for me on the shield. It was shit on the Nexus player though.