Roku Streaming Stick Plus Review: Cheap, Simple, and Pretty

Roku has yet to disappoint me. Where different brands alteration shape factors, interfaces, and merchandise support pinch what tin consciousness for illustration alarming regularity moreover for insiders for illustration me, Roku, pinch its rounded quadrate interface, pleasantly rubbery distant controller, and joyously elemental plug-and-play instrumentality design, has held nan course.

When nan caller Roku Streaming Stick Plus arrived astatine my house, it felt for illustration it was 2012 each complete again. That Obama-era techno-optimism—remember erstwhile societal media was connected nan correct broadside of history?—is still evident. There are nary immense annoying ads atop everything successful nan menus, there's nary nagging to for illustration aliases subscribe to immoderate proprietary information chimney aliases other. Instead, you conscionable get a decent processor, a USB cablegram for power, and a distant that now features 4 speedy buttons for apps you mightiness really subscribe to—how SlingTV ever sewage a dedicated spot connected a Roku distant I'll ne'er know.

Quality-wise, this 4K streaming device offers everything you could realistically request without buying a disc subordinate and starting a 4K Blu-Ray collection. If you person $40 to spare and a sluggish TV, conscionable bargain 1 already.

Sticking Out

There was erstwhile a clip erstwhile stick-based players for illustration this one, which is nan size and style of an old-school USB thumb drive, could origin weird mounting issues depending connected whether aliases not a TV shaper had put its HDMI ports location that made existent sense. These days, nan instrumentality easy plugs into every modern TV I've tested, pinch a decently agelong USB cablegram that plugs into nan TV's outer USB larboard (also now fundamentally ever there) for power. It's a “setup process” insofar arsenic you are alert really to plug cables into cable-shaped sockets.

The distant is what you'll interact pinch nan most, and it is awesome arsenic usual, a nonslip pill style pinch acquainted buttons that consciousness for illustration high-quality pencil erasers. It's each modular Roku fare astatine this point, until you recognize that nan apps listed for speedy entree connected nan bottommost are really bully now: Disney+, Apple TV, Netflix, and Amazon.

Now included successful this tier of Roku instrumentality (previously it was only disposable connected much costly models) is nan sound distant functionality, allowing you to usage nan microphone successful nan distant to hunt for your favourite shows and movies. It’s a shockingly decent instrumentality if you’re not judge wherever to watercourse thing specific, and 1 that comes successful useful for maine a fewer times a twelvemonth erstwhile I person a hankering for a circumstantial vacation movie aliases other.

Logging On

It’s really easy to get logged into immoderate app you subscribe to, and besides easy to rearrange nan tiles connected nan location surface truthful you don’t person to spot worldly you don’t use. Setup, including signing into Wi-Fi and installing a speedy package update, took astir 10 minutes.