During Amazon’s Prime Day sale you possibly can snag the Roku Streaming Stick for just $34—a 32 p.c financial savings. See all of our picks for the best deals for cord cutters.
In an ideal world, reducing the cable wire and organising a brand new streaming participant would assist you to toss your TV distant in a drawer. One distant ought to be all you want to management each the streaming system and your tv.
That hasn’t been the case with all streaming gamers, together with these made by Roku. The firm’s common set-top packing containers and sticks by no means included TV quantity or energy controls, so that you sometimes needed to hold one other distant helpful or purchase a common distant. (One exception: Some Roku fashions can management an A/V receiver by way of HDMI-CEC.)
The newest Roku Streaming Stick ($50) and Streaming Stick+ ($70) lastly rectify that scenario, with new remotes that may management TV quantity and energy by way of a built-in infrared emitter. They even have a microphone for voice recognition, and the Stick+ helps 4K HDR video on the lowest value ever for a Roku participant.
The Roku Streaming Stick delivers as much as 1080p resoultion. You’ll wish to the Streaming Stick+ (proper) for those who’re searching for 4K HDR.
The Roku expertise stays acquainted—perhaps just a little too acquainted, as rival platforms take more energizing approaches to discovering and discovering content material. Yet the Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick+ are nonetheless straightforward to suggest on the power of their wise {hardware} enhancements.
A story of two sticks
Like the earlier Roku Streaming Stick, the brand new 2017 fashions join on to a tv by way of HDMI, drawing energy from both the tv’s USB port—most newer TVs help this—or an outlet. Roku doesn’t embrace an HDMI extension cable within the field, however will send one for free in case your TV’s HDMI slot doesn’t have sufficient clearance round it.
Roku says the brand new Streaming Sticks are 50 p.c extra highly effective than final yr’s mannequin, and that the Steaming Stick+ has extra RAM. But in observe, there isn’t a world of distinction between any of those gadgets. Apps usually take a number of seconds to load throughout the board, and whereas body charges do are inclined to drop under a clean 60 frames per second in some apps, it’s uncommon to run into any outright freezing or different navigational hang-ups.
Both of the brand new sticks additionally use dual-band 802.11ac, reasonably than the 802.11n commonplace of the earlier mannequin, permitting for longer vary and quicker speeds over the 5GHz frequency band with a appropriate router (they’re going to help 802.11n if that is all of your router is able to). The Roku Streaming Stick+ goes a step additional, shifting its wi-fi receiver out of the stick itself and into the ability wire, although in my testing this didn’t make a lot distinction. Only within the furthest nook of my home did the Stick+ present an enchancment over its cheaper sibling, with a sign power of “Fair” as a substitute of “Poor” over the two.4GHz band. (Neither system picked up the 5GHz band on this location.)
The fundamental distinction between Roku’s two new Streaming Sticks is video high quality, with the pricier Stick+ delivering 4K and 4K HDR. Although Roku hasn’t made any splashy 4K content material strikes, akin to Apple’s price parity with HD for iTunes motion pictures, third-party shops like Amazon Video, Vudu, and FandangoNow have began matching some costs on their very own. Roku helps 4K video from all these sources and a couple dozen more, together with Netflix, YouTube, Smithsonian Earth, CuriosityStream, and Toon Goggles. That’s a broader choice than different platforms, and Roku even gives helpful a 4K Spotlight app for locating UltraHD content material throughout totally different apps.
The $50 Roku Streaming Stick (prime) is identical measurement and form as final yr’s mannequin, whereas the 4K HDR Stick+ (backside) is a bit longer.
Remote revelations
With or with out 4K HDR, the largest enchancment to the brand new Roku Streaming Sticks is of their remotes, which now embrace quantity buttons and an influence button for TV controls. They additionally help voice search, which Roku had beforehand relegated to its most expensive players.
During setup, Roku mechanically detects the mannequin of tv it’s plugged into, and can try and mute the amount utilizing a collection of TV codes till you affirm that the controls work. Roku bought it proper on the primary try on three current Vizio TVs and an eight-year-old Sharp TV, however there’s no solution to manually program the distant if Roku’s setup doesn’t work. (For that, there’s nonetheless Sideclick.)
TV controls really feel like a revelation on Roku, despite the fact that Apple TV, Nvidia Shield TV, AirTV, and the Xiaomi Mi Box supply related options. That’s partly as a result of Roku’s streamers are cheaper than these choices, and partly due to the corporate’s general reputation. With Roku’s help, TV controls are all of a sudden the norm, and people who don’t supply them—particularly Amazon’s Fire TVs—appear antiquated by comparability.
Roku’s voice controls aren’t so forward-looking. Being in a position to shortly search for particular motion pictures or reveals by title is helpful–and Roku’s newest software program brings some new options, corresponding to style search and filtering by streaming service–but Roku’s voice search continues to be far behind different platforms in a number of methods.
For one factor, Roku’s voice recognition simply doesn’t work that nicely. The microphone has hassle listening to issues except it’s an inch or two out of your face; even then, Roku can misread the outcomes. (One instance: Roku heard a number of requests for “comedies on The Roku Channel” as an try and launch a channel referred to as Comedy Dynamics.) Filtering by streaming platform additionally didn’t work with some companies, together with Netflix and Amazon Video.
Beyond simply technical points, Roku doesn’t help the sorts of subtle queries that Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV do. You can’t launch a video instantly by voice or filter outcomes with follow-up instructions. Roku even fails to acknowledge some some seemingly primary requests, corresponding to “Show me new releases.”
The Roku Streaming Stick+ has its wi-fi receiver constructed into the ability wire, although this did not have a lot affect on reception in our assessments.
Clicking round with a distant is commonly extra reliable than utilizing voice instructions anyway, however that might change as different platforms like Amazon Fire TV and Chromecast add hands-free voice controls and deeper voice hooks into streaming companies. Roku doesn’t but have a solution to these developments.
Same outdated software program (principally)
On the software program aspect, Roku continues to take the identical conservative strategy that it all the time has, emphasizing a launcher for particular person apps over the content material inside them.
This isn’t essentially a nasty factor. Although Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV are all extra formidable about pulling content material instantly onto their dwelling screens, their execution stays uneven, so that you’ll ultimately wish to fall again on an app launcher a lot of the time. Also, Roku does supply some aggregation by way of Roku Feed, which retains observe of recent TV episodes and film availability throughout dozens of streaming companies. It’s a helpful function, although sadly it hasn’t improved at all around the previous yr.
Meanwhile, Roku appears to be getting over the app quality issues that had been hurting the platform. New companies like Hulu with Live TV, DirecTV Now, and Plex Live TV are simply as polished on Roku as they’re different streamers. And whereas the platform has some stragglers utilizing Roku’s outdated, ugly app templates— you, PlayStation Vue—Roku has given these builders an ultimatum: Those apps received’t be allowed to situation updates beginning subsequent yr, they usually’ll be removed entirely in 2019.
In lieu of sweeping modifications, the most recent Roku OS 8 brings some subtler enhancements. It follows Apple TV in supporting single sign-on, so you possibly can authenticate with a pay TV supplier in a single app and mechanically acquire entry to many others. Like Apple’s model, Roku’s single sign-on doesn’t work with a number of the largest cable suppliers, corresponding to Comcast and Spectrum, or with some TV Everywhere apps (most notably Disney), but it surely’s nonetheless a time-saver, and it really works with some streaming bundles corresponding to Sling TV and PlayStation Vue.
For higher and for worse, the Roku interface has barely modified through the years.
Videophiles can even admire an choice to mechanically match the show’s refresh fee to no matter content material is enjoying. This helps reduce display screen tearing for motion pictures shot at 24 frames per second, on the expense of seeing a flash of black earlier than the video begins and after it ends.
Otherwise, it’s the identical outdated Roku software program. It has some distinctive touches, corresponding to personal headphone listening by way of Roku’s cell apps, help for resort and dorm-room Wi-Fi connections, and a few distinctive nuisances, like the lack to toggle between current apps and a large advert on the house display screen. But principally, it will get the job accomplished for watching TV.
Bottom line
Last yr’s Roku Streaming Stick was already our choose for best budget streaming device, and the brand new mannequin widens the hole with its closest rival, Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. Only Roku’s participant permits you to stow away your TV distant, and its apps have improved whereas remaining much less liable to efficiency hiccups. For $20 extra, the Roku Streaming Stick+ is a simple choose for 4K HDR TV house owners, because it successfully replaces our earlier choose, the Roku Premiere+, with higher options and a cheaper price.
The streaming system market is now awash with choices, from low cost streamers like Chromecast and Roku’s personal Express fashions, to high-end streamers like Apple TV and Nvidia Shield TV. And there are many little the reason why you would possibly choose a type of gadgets as a substitute of a Roku.
But Roku has all the time been in a position to lower by way of all these causes with well-priced {hardware} that simply works for most individuals. The new Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick+ didn’t want way more than a greater distant to construct on what they already had.