Gadgetory

this is Jimmy from Jim's a review room welcome to another review today we'll be looking at the brand new Roku streaming stick this device is intended and competing with the Google chromecast although a bit higher at 50 dollars now with my review today I'll be focusing more on content and the channel lineup for those who are not familiar with Roku and be sure to watch my review of the Amazon fire TV in Google chromecast when those videos are available if they're on my channel or by clicking these videos displayed so without further ado we'll get started going over its physical layout first it's a full size HDMI dongle just like the chromecast and does require its own power now if your TV has a USB port you can connect it there and if not Roku does provide a wall adapter as well now once you plug everything in and turn on the TV just follow the instructions on how to connect your Roku to your wireless home Internet and it's pretty straightforward after that now I'm not too fond of having another controller laying around but the controller does work well though and it's a very simple layout and you have the basic back button at the top left home to the right purple directional pad to navigate rewind play and forward and lastly on the bottom our quick access buttons that unfortunately you cannot change now once everything is set up and this is very important as this was not part of the instructions go to your settings then display type and if you have a 1080p television or monitor change it to that and for some reason after installation that were made on 720p for me and I believe it did make a slight difference in image quality now getting back on topic here we'll get going with the content now my channels host your downloaded channels for viewing and the bulk of your time is spent here but before I get into that I'll run down real quick on the other features Roku offers now if your interesting movies and you don't want to Dreadnoks down the street the latest movies are available that you normally wouldn't find of course on Netflix or Hulu type services a videos offer rent or purchase and Retin usually is 399 up to $5.99 in some cases for standard and HD versions respectively now most purchase prices are $14.99 and can go up to $19.99 now prices are kind of the on the expensive side just to rent a movie considering I'm a Redbox kind of a person where I can rent a movie for low two dollars but when compared to other at home rental services like renting a movie on your Xbox Playstation or renting through your cable provider it's on par and at the same time similar price making the Roku competitive when comparing apples to apples as the same thing for TV shows a lot of the latest content up to the previous season are available in for both movies and TV listings they're broken down very well based on type and genre you're interested in through their menu list now as for the news category it does work well from a needs each video is more like a one to three minute clip that highlights on a subject at hand making each news story easily digestible and once I click on a video this will play video after video until all are played and they're continuously being updated throughout the day it's just real quick short clips just to get a glimpse of what's going on out there in the world again the news can be broken down to each category as seen on your screen now regarding the channel store found on the main page of Roku this is where it's all at this is where you add all your channels to my channels as I mentioned in the beginning of the video now roku claims they have over 1000 channels which by comparison with a chromecast is massive Roku does a great job with practically all of your popular subscription-based channels like Netflix Amazon Instant and HBO GO for those Game of Thrones videos out there etc and more are shown on your screen right now and pause the video if you have to and for those who are not familiar with Roku besides those channels you get channels that supplement your cable box now if you have Time Warner Cable or let's say even Dish Network download the channel sign in with your accounts and you can watch some of your cable channels on a TV without paying for that actual cable box as an example ESPN provides free content once you sign in again with your cable providers the user ID and password and you'll have access to ESPN live which after my test ran about a minute behind the actual live feed from my TV downstairs and you'll also have on-demand video clips just in case you want to go back and replay some highlights through the sports world and non cable channels like Fox are providing this feature where you can watch full episode that were recently aired again this is also free and only requires you to verify you have a compatible device although the screen says you need to activate to watch it was simple as putting in the screen code and two fastest website to verify the device is again compatible nothing is charged now to be honest some channels have more content than others the previously mentioned channels offers live TV or at least full episodes of contents some others as an example like the Disney Channel plays only trailers or clips of movies while the major-league channel requires you to have the MLB pass to watch its content the paid subscription basically so if you're at the store and seen the back of the box or looked up Roku on their website not all they're shown or advertised channels aren't necessarily free but the next section which makes up for the rest of what Roku offers are free to watch though and this one makes up the bulk of the thousand channels Roku claims though they're similar if not mainly Internet TV channels and there's tons of content you have big names like revision3 IGN and Vimeo which are nonetheless great then I'll continue to scroll through the screen to see what's available so you may decide if Roku is right for you again feel free to pause or go back if I'm scrolling too fast now I personally like watching the Food Network on cable TV and scrolling through some of the food channel offerings here you can see there's a decent variety you won't see Bobby Flay or shows like worst cooks in America but again there's some decent content that's worthwhile to watch now being frank some of the content providers are not as well known in not hiding budgets so there are home pages you can say it looks almost like a yahoo web page pet from the 90s now some content might look like you're watching daytime television where the content isn't as interesting or appealing as you'd hope but because there is so much content out there there's still a good amount of channels that you can watch as a similar experience with cable TV then I practically watch only a few channels out of the 100 or two that are provided by my cable provider and that's Time Warner now in regards to performance it works well but it for the most part it's not the most fluid thing you've seen and the chromecast isn't fast either nor is Apple TV at this point it's almost okay to say that's expected because these dongle type devices really hold the power like their external boxes example the Roku 3 and the new Amazon fire TV now you do have some stutters and hiccups from time to time and you would have to wait several seconds for the Roku to catch up now it's not a deal breaker but it would have been nice or you would have thought that would have been a bit quicker the resolution on the menus are not the best even after changing a setting to 1080 but the content image like on Netflix or as good as the competition so in regards to performance it feels on par with the chromecast as an individual product though and using tablets and smartphones these days yes it scrolls through the menus for the most part fine but when loading content or lots of images it does lag a bit now moving on to the app that comes with the Roku which you can download for either your Apple or Android powered device I downloaded mine to the iPad and it works great you can use this app on your smartphone and have it like a remote control right in your pocket now in regards to content is the same layout in John Rob rake down where you can add and delete channels through your device and using this app was much faster and smoother than going through the TV menus and lastly through the app you can cast similar to chromecast content that you're watching now for example if you're watching a video on your iPad click the cast button up top and select your Roku the Roku will eventually start playing that video on its own on the connected TV now this works with YouTube Netflix and any other video photo or music you have on your device so far what's great about Roku you have all of your subscription services so if you have one service and not the other you're not missing out Roku basically provides almost all of them for you now you have channels that supplement your cable box experience and you get cable on a TV where you haven't paid for an additional cable box now if you don't have cable and refuse to pay that astronomical monthly fee there's tons of free content for viewing and although some channels might be a bit lackluster there's a good amount of channels that I can see using from time to time so that's it I know this video was somewhat long but I hope this review helped you in some way be sure to watch the Amazon fire TV and Google chromecast review when available if you have not please take your time to like and subscribe to this video for future alerts new products this is Jimmy from Jim's review room take care everyone