Gadgetory

roku streaming boxes have gotten smaller and smaller over the years and now they finally will bit all the way down to the Roku streaming stick this is actually the second streaming stick that Roku's made but the new model is a huge leap forward now that it worked with any TV that has an HDMI port and it's half the price at just fifty dollars hey I'm Matthew miskovic for cnet and the streaming stick is Roku's answered to Google's $35 chromecast it has the same compact form factor with essentially all the hardware of a full-sized Roku box packed into a device that's not much bigger than a USB flash drive the plastic casing sports roku's signature purple color which won't be on display since it's designed to live behind your TV in a spare hdmi port the back of the TV placement would leave the stick almost entirely concealed except it needs power which it can get from a USB port on your TV or by connecting to the included power adapter there's not much else to the device save for a micro USB port a small indicator light and a tiny button you can use to reset the stick if it freezes up in terms of internal hardware it has dual band Wi-Fi support as well as full 1080p output now while the chromecast relies on your smartphone or tablet for all its navigation the streaming stick includes an actual remote it's essentially the same remote you'd get with Roku's other budget streaming boxes although it works with Wi-Fi direct so it can communicate with the stick when it's hidden behind your TV Roku also lets you control the stick using its mobile app and the streaming stick supports some casting functionality similar to the chromecast for netflix and youtube so with the streaming stick do you get to choose which kind of control scheme you prefer the streaming stick is also packed with apps there are over 1,200 apps on Roku's platform and while many of these are filler there's also a lot of great content including netflix amazon instant HBO Go Hulu Plus Pandora MLB TV amazon cloud player voodoo and Showtime any time even better the streaming stick has cross-platform search so you can search for a movie or TV show and we'll show you all the services that offer that content and how much it costs now in this version of the streaming stick first came out we liked almost everything about it except for the fact that some apps like Netflix and YouTube took over 30 seconds to load since then roku's made big improvements to the netflix app slowed speed getting it down to just five seconds so while there are still some apps to take a while to boot up it feels like a much smaller issue now that Netflix works quickly and when you look at the total package the Roku streaming stick is definitely worth the extra fifteen dollars over the chromecast with its huge library of apps the included remote and cross-platform search the Roku 3 is still the better overall streamer since it's faster and it includes the cool remote with a built-in headphone jack but it also costs twice as much so when it comes to overall value it's tough to beat the fifty-dollar Roku streaming stick i'm matthew miskovic from cnet and this is the Roku streaming stick