In 2019, you shouldn’t should juggle a couple of distant management to look at TV. With most media-streamer remotes, quantity and energy buttons are inbuilt, so that you don’t must hold a second distant helpful.
The Roku Express is a notable exception. At $30, it’s the most cost effective streaming participant that Roku sells. It’s additionally by far the worst, principally as a result of it lacks the TV controls that are actually commonplace on each different streaming participant. As extra folks drop cable or satellite tv for pc TV and rely solely on streaming, this omission has develop into inexcusable, particularly when the Roku Express+ (offered completely at Walmart) has a superior distant for simply $10 extra.
I due to this fact implore you: Spend the additional cash and thank me later.
Palm-sized streamer
In each different approach, the Roku Express is ok. The 2019 model has a brand new design that’s extra vitality environment friendly—Roku says it may well run off the powered USB port on practically each TV that has one—however it’s nonetheless a palm-sized black field with an HDMI port within the again. It comes with a 2-foot HDMI cable, plus a strip of adhesive so you possibly can stick the Express to your TV stand or to the TV itself. The field requires line of sight to the distant, nonetheless, so you possibly can’t disguise it inside an leisure console.
Jared Newman / IDGAround again, the Roku Express has simply HDMI output and a Micro-USB port for energy.
Performance feels much like different Roku gamers, except for the marginally sooner (and far pricier, at $100) Roku Ultra. Roku has finished a superb job optimizing its streaming software program for reasonable {hardware}, so that you’ll seldom must cope with uneven scrolling of extreme load occasions. The solely draw back, as with all Rokus, is that there’s no quick method to swap between latest apps.
As for Wi-Fi connectivity, the Roku Express doesn’t assist hardwired ethernet, and its single-band 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) connectivity is effectively behind the occasions. It needs to be superb if you happen to’re not placing a variety of different demand in your Wi-Fi community, or if you happen to don’t have a variety of neighbors with their very own networks in shut proximity. If wi-fi interference is a matter, you’ll need a streaming machine with dual-band Wi-Fi 5 assist, such because the Roku Streaming Stick+, with a Wi-Fi 5 or higher router to match.
Bare-bones distant
The primary downside with the Roku Express, once more, is the distant. If you’ve by no means used a streaming distant that has quantity and energy controls inbuilt, you’re lacking out on a way more handy expertise. And when you’ve gotten used to that comfort, going again is tough to tolerate.
Jared Newman / IDGUnlike different Roku remotes (similar to that of the Roku Ultra, pictured in again), the Roku Express distant lacks TV quantity and energy buttons.
Those lacking controls aren’t the distant’s solely problem. It doesn’t have a microphone button both, so you possibly can’t use voice to lookup a particular present or search by style, nor are you able to launch content material immediately by voice in apps that assist this operate, similar to Hulu, Pandora, and The Roku Channel. Although Roku’s smartphone app nonetheless enables you to carry out voice controls on the Express, utilizing it’s a trouble in comparison with urgent a button on an precise distant.
The Express’ infrared distant additionally feels much less responsive than different Roku remotes that use a radio-frequency connection. While the participant is fairly good at receiving an IR sign whenever you level the distant in numerous instructions, instructions don’t at all times register whenever you press a directional key a number of occasions in fast succession, so scrolling by way of lengthy lists takes extra effort.
Jared Newman / IDGWithout a voice distant, you’ll must do much more TV typing.
Once extra, that is the place I stress that for $10 extra, the Roku Express+ is accessible from Walmart with quantity, energy, mute, and voice search buttons on its distant, and with a extra responsive RF connection. (This mannequin is to not be confused with the previous-generation Roku Express+, whose primary distinction was composite video output for outdated tube TVs.) Do not low-cost out on the one component of the streaming expertise you’ll work together with essentially the most.
Dead-simple streaming
On the software program aspect, the Roku Express is functionally much like different Roku gamers. The primary menu presents a grid of streaming video apps alongside a listing of different features, similar to search, the app retailer, and a choice of free ad-supported content material.
Jared Newman / IDGThe Roku house display screen places apps on the forefront.
It’s all fairly simple, particularly when you already know what you’re in search of, however as with different Roku gamers, the Express falters a bit whenever you’re feeling indecisive. There’s no simple method to entry the exhibits you’re already watching from throughout totally different apps, and no method to seek for content material by style. (On different units, Roku has began surfacing “zones” of flicks and exhibits with sure style searches, however these don’t appear to be out there on the Express.)
On the upside, Roku gamers are nice at surfacing free content material to look at. The “Featured Free” part of the house display screen pulls in ad-supported motion pictures and exhibits from throughout totally different apps, whereas The Roku Channel app has its personal free choice. The skill to hear privately by way of Roku’s cellular app, with headphones related to your cellphone, additionally stays a pleasant contact that different platforms lack.
Jared Newman / IDGRoku’s “Featured Free” part is a superb useful resource that different streamers lack—supplied you don’t thoughts advertisements.
Because of Roku’s ease of use and free content material, it tends to be my default advice for anybody who’s new to streaming units and doesn’t know the place to begin, even when the software program is much less snazzy than, say, Amazon Fire TV or Apple TV units. If not for its substandard distant, the Roku Express can be an amazing price range decide, particularly in comparison with Amazon’s sluggish Fire TV Stick, which prices $40.
Instead, these in want of an affordable streaming participant ought to seize the Roku Express+ from Walmart or look forward to a sale on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K, which is far sooner than the non-4K model and sometimes sells for lower than its $50 listing value. For just a bit extra money, higher remotes are a lot simpler to return by.