Roku Streaming Stick 4K | Streaming Device 4K/HDR/Dolby Vision with Roku Voice Remote and TV Controls

I am only rating this 5 stars because the customer service rep was extremely helpful and fulfilled my request with ease. Not to mention He was extremely patient with me and very kind. I was able to receive confirmation for a full refund, granted I had purchased the Asurion 2 year coverage plan. I haven’t had to return any items before and didnt know how it actually worked not to mention the shipping is longer, to and from hawaii. He was able to help me find the best and easiest option for return very quickly.
Unfortunately, the remote that I received is defective. I connected and set it up according to the instructions. My wifi connection was excellent. The only problem was the apps weren’t opening and kept ready «authentication error». I could not for the life of myself, find a probable cause or solution. I tried clearing cache/cookie by pressing a few buttons on the remote (home button 5x, up arrow x1, rewind x2, forward x3) and even did a system restart. I tried signing out and logging back in but the problem was still there.
I am going through some dark times in my life at the moment and purchased to pair with a projector for my children so we could enjoy some family time with their father who’s health is preventing him from leaving the house. As lame as I sound…i was just so grateful to have been treated with kindness as people, and life have not been so very kind to us lately

I’ve had experience with a number of devices, and this one is my favorite.

My priorities:
Fast streaming/minimal lag
Easy to navigate
Access to shows of interest
Ability to preview as i fast forward or rewind

Apple TV:
Expensive
Can’t preview or issues with some of the apps that was frustrating. it wanted to rewind or fast foward instead of clicking to the screen section you wanted with a preview. This really killed the device for me.
Easy to overshoot if you used the finger swipe option to quickly move fast-forward or rewind.
User interface, for the most part is decent and fast except for how navigates while playing.

Fire TV
Built to sell products instead of show shows, laggy, and for whatever reason I hated interacting with this device. Not being able to easily access the content I wanted due to poor organization really rubbed me the wrong way.
Pro — ability to bootleg shows, but not something I’m into and I only checked this out during the first weeks of covid.
I want to emphasize the lag issues. This is built as cheap as possible to minimally meet requirements to function and it shows.

Roku
So, now that I have the other devices out of the way, and ignore my LG streaming which is my favorite, I’ll speak to this device and why it has my vote.

This device is surprisingly fast. I didn’t expect a device that was almost as responsive as my apple TV and LG TV. This is slightly slower but barely and no lag which is the most critical thing for me.
We got this for the British Bake-off access which led to an unexpected cool thing. The discovery of the free shows, if you don’t absolutely hate commercials. For the complete British Bake-off experience, we mute the commercials. So, the additional channels that Roku provides has made it continue to be useful.
Roku allows a preview of channels as I fast forward through it.
Roku does have an issues with some apps where I need to log out and go back in so the remote works correctly. I’m not sure if that’s a bad app issue or the device but a quick back and in fixes. The apple device has never crashed or become buggy on me. The Firestick has, but it’s cheap.
The price is significantly cheaper than apple making the Roku a no brainer.
Unlike the apple TV, which requires counter space, this plugs into the back of the TV and is hidden away.

Now, an issue I had when I first turned on is that my remote was not communicating with the device. I was extremely annoyed as this was an early Christmas present for my wife, and I wanted it to function within a certain time window so a return and replace would have ruined it. The device showed the remotes power but didn’t communicate. After resetting the device, the remote works fine now. If you run into an issue, try resetting the device.

4k streaming? It’s okay. I didn’t do a side by side. It has 4k.

Navigation? It’s simple enough but could be made better. I thought the last version of the Fire TV was worse. The apple TV does shine in this area on most apps I played with. My biggest gripe with navigation in Roku is that marking something as favorite and then LOCATING the favorites from Roku’s channels and free shows, was not intuitive. I did eventually find my favorites, but that was frustrating. Additionally, the channel/app/inventory searching involves clicking to the right instead of down.

So, speed is slightly less than Apple, but barely. Navigation is slightly less easy based on the layout vs apple, and i think it’s better than the Fire the last time I used that thing. The Roku has a nice access to misc. free channels. Its price is a quarter of Apple. The fire TV? I don’t consider these two in the same league.

So, if you’re picking up a streaming device, I’d recommend the Roku over the other devices (except the LG TV native streaming app which is the best I’ve used). Performance and price are good. The only reason to avoid is if it doesn’t have access to what you want to watch. For me, it filled in the gaps and provided baking shows that we otherwise didn’t have access to.

Nunca había comprado un reproductor de estos pero lo necesitaba, me pareció que el precio era alto pero definitivamente vale la pena pagarlo.
No he tenido ningún problema de conexión, no cuando comparto pantalla desde el ipad.
El control es sencillo de usar y ligero y el comando de voz sirve a la perfección.
Ya incluye el Disney+ y yo descargué el HBO+ Y Crunchyroll desde la app y sirve muy bien.
Estoy muy satisfecha con la compra lo recomiendo bastante.

El Producto es muy bueno, presenta todo lo que ofrece, Roku es una linea de aparatos excelente, el esclador de 4K muy bien , las dos bandas de conexion Wifi permiten una conexion mas estable, y las mayoria de app estan disponibles, Netflix, Prime video, Hbo MAX, Crunchyroll, Funimetion, Disney Plus, Pluto tv, solo falta STAR Plus esa no esta disponible, factor a considerar, se añadio en esta version el poder encender el HDR de forma permanente o apagarlo, es al gusto, cuenta con formato Dolby Vision la version mas actualizada de alta defincion, el control esta bien, sencillo como todas las versiones de Roku, lo puedes enlazar con la tv, en este caso fue LG y si logro controlar el volumen y el enceder y apagar sin ningun problemas eso provoca mejor comidad, detalle se calienta bastante el aparato nada fuera de lo normal, por lo que decidi conlocar un extensor de HDMI para reducir el impacto del calor en la tv, se puede elazar con eco dot Alexa esta lo controla de forma correcta y los comandos son sencillos responden muy bien punto para Roku, Alexa hace la mayor parte, puede encender, apagar, cambiar, abrir y cerrar app, cuenta tambien con formatos de audios muy buenos, segun tu reproductor de sonido, en general recomiendo el producto, llego de Estados Unidos en el tiempo correcto y sin ningun problema muy protegido y cuidado, buen Aparato, para renovar tu tv antigua o para explotar las versiones nuevas de tv con 4k el escalador del roku es superior al 4k nativo de la mismas tv. sin duda un aparato bastante bueno.