Gadgetory

Roku streaming boxes have gotten smaller and smaller over the years and now they finally whittled it down all the way 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 works with any TV that has an HDMI port and it's half the price at just 50 dollars hey I'm Matthew Muscovy ak4 CNET and if you've been waiting for real cooz answer to google's $35 chromecast this is it it has the same compact form factor with essentially all the hardware of a full-size Roku box packed into a device that's not much bigger than a USB flash drive the plastic casing sports Roku 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 the included power adapter there's not much else to the device safe for a microUSB port a tiny indicator light and a small button that 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 for your 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 you get to choose which kind of control scheme you prefer the streaming stick is also packed with apps there are over 1200 apps on Roku's platform and while many of those are filler there's a lot of great content including Netflix Amazon Instant HBO Go Hulu Plus Pandora MLB TV Amazon Cloud Player buddhu and Showtime anytime even better the streaming stick has cross-platform search so you can search for a movie or TV show and it will show you all the services that offer that content and how much it costs now everything sounds pretty great about the streaming stick so far but it does have a bit of an Achilles heel and that's speed well it's fast enough when you're navigating menus some apps like Netflix and YouTube take forever to load over 30 seconds of just looking at the loading screen every other roku box i've seen loads netflix in 12 seconds or less so it really feels like a step backwards when you're using the streaming stick now once you load up the app the speed is fine and it's worth pointing out that the sluggishness doesn't affect every app on the streaming stick but Netflix and YouTube are two of the most important apps so the speed issues are more than just a nuisance so that's the major drawback with the Roku streaming stick its huge library of apps the included remote and cross-platform search all make the streaming stick worth the 15 dollars over the chromecast and it's still an impressive streamer at just 50 dollars but the speed issues on Netflix and YouTube mean the $100 Roku 3 is still our favorite streaming device even at twice the price I'm Matthew moscovia from see net and this is the Roku streaming stick