Roku Resolution Flowchart: Methods to decide the proper mannequin in 2025

Let’s say you wish to purchase a brand new Roku participant, both to exchange an outdated one or as an improve over your good TV’s streaming options.

You possibly can learn a bunch of evaluations, or seek the advice of the comparability chart on Roku’s web site. However that’s no enjoyable. What you really want is a straightforward, visible approach to decide a participant from Roku’s lineup of a half-dozen streaming packing containers and sticks (together with one field that doubles as a soundbar).

That’s the place my Roku resolution stream chart is available in. This replaces one I made a couple of years in the past, earlier than Roku revamped its choices with a few new low cost streaming sticks.

The flowchart (click on to enlarge)

Roku’s system lineup is extra streamlined than it was once. It now not consists of the Specific or Specific+, which have been much less moveable than Roku’s streaming sticks, and all of its streaming remotes now embrace TV energy, quantity, and voice controls. (Thank goodness.)

The result’s a lineup that typically supplies extra options with every step up the mannequin listing:

• Roku Streaming Stick ($30, mannequin 3840R): HD video solely.
• Roku Streaming Stick Plus ($40, mannequin $3830R): Helps 4K HDR and HDR10+.
• Roku Streaming Stick 4 ($50, mannequin 3820R2): Provides Dolby Imaginative and prescient help and barely higher Wi-Fi reception (due to MIMO).
• Roku Extremely LT (about $60, mannequin 4802, Walmart unique): Provides wired ethernet help and has a headphone jack on the distant.
• Roku Extremely ($100, mannequin 4850): Provides Dolby Atmos, USB media playback, Bluetooth audio (for headphones or taking part in music from a cellphone), and a distant finder operate, triggered by urgent a button on the field. It additionally consists of Roku’s finest distant, which is a $30 add-on for its different gamers.
• Roku Streambar SE ($100, mannequin 9104R): Has a built-in speaker that’s seemingly higher than your TV audio system and will be paired with a subwoofer and encompass audio system, however lacks Dolby Imaginative and prescient and has a extra fundamental distant than the Extremely.

The most important wrinkle in all of that is which you can get most of the Roku Extremely’s options by buying a Voice Distant Professional to make use of with another Roku participant. You received’t get USB media playback or Bluetooth audio, and also you’ll want to make use of Roku’s cellular app to seek out the distant, however your expertise will in any other case be fairly comparable.

Watch out for outdated Roku gamers

One different caveat as you seek the advice of the flowchart: On-line marketplaces similar to Amazon and Walmart proceed to promote discontinued Roku gamers, a few of which have the identical names as the newest fashions.

Trying on Amazon, as an example, I see an outdated Roku Streaming Stick+ from 2017 (to not be confused with the brand new Roku Streaming Stick Plus); plus, a bunch of Roku Premiere fashions from 2018. These aren’t any cheaper than the newest choices, they usually’re no cheaper regardless of being worse in each means. Test the precise mannequin numbers as a substitute of simply the names to be sure you’re getting the proper system.

Different choices

After all, there are many different streaming units to contemplate that don’t come from Roku. Walmart’s Onn Google TV 4K Professional, as an example, prices the identical $50 as a Roku Streaming Stick 4K however has higher efficiency and a extra feature-rich distant. The Apple TV 4K is pricier than any Roku participant at $129, however it’s a lot sooner and has fewer annoying home-screen advertisements (particularly if you happen to observe my setup directions).

However if you happen to’re already acquainted with how Roku works and aren’t seeking to change working techniques, choosing the right one will be tough. Hopefully the flowchart will make issues simpler.

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