Roku has really changed its OS with the latest update and I’ve been using the new Streaming Stick Plus to test them both out. Overall, there are some nice improvements, but they seem to come at the cost of some of the simplicity that made Roku so special in the first place.
Streaming Stick Plus
There’s not a lot to say about the new streaming stick that hasn’t been said. Roku has been making fantastic affordable smart TV sticks since I started in this beat six years ago and the same is true today. The Plus model I’m testing is fairly priced at $50 and will play all the high-end content from any major streamer.
out of the box this is what the Home Screen is like.
This model caps out at 4K HDR10+ so there’s no Dolby Vision support, but honestly, it’s not something anyone looking for a Roku Stick Plus should care about. If you don’t care enough to know what Dolby Vision is, you probably aren’t looking to get one of these. That said, I know what Dolby Vision is and I don’t care. HDR10+ and Dolby Vision are pretty much identical and both look extraordinary. Unless you’re comparing them side-by-side you won’t notice a difference.
If you’re like me and run a Plex server, you’ll be happy to know that this little machine holds up decently well. When I tried streaming a 4K HDR Blu-ray rip of Interstellar with an average bitrate of 56mbps, the Streaming Stick Plus almost got the job done. Tracking the playback on my server, the video would even peak at bitrates around 96mbps. The video held up for about an hour before crashing out, but this won’t be an issue for the average person streaming 4K from Netflix and Applt TV+.
The remote is the same as always, which is to say it feels decent, it’s light and the button layout is quite simple. There’s no headphone jack on this remote though so if you want that you need to upgrade. The major change on the stick is that it finally takes power over USB-C. But don’t worry it comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable in the box so it’s easy to run off your TV’s built-in USB ports since it only draws around 2.5 watts of power.
What 4K Roku stick should you get?
There are four options: the Roku Express (4K), the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, and finally, the Roku Ultra.
In my eyes, there are only two real options now: the Streaming Stick Plus, and, if you really care about specs and want to be hardwired in, the Roku Ultra. If you really want the remote with the headphone jack, you can also buy it separately.
RokuOS
This is how the home screen looks when you turn all the extras off.
This is the real upgrade I was excited about, but sadly it’s let me down.
First of all, there are a ton of new sub-sections in the sidebar that I needed to disable. I find things like recommended channels and live TV distracting and I had to dive into the settings to disable them. Once I did, the Roku home screen went back to the way it used to be.
I prefer this because it’s straightforward and something I’ve found people of all ages can learn super easily. Adding all this extra stuff isn’t inherently bad, but it erodes one of Roku’s traditional strengths of simplicity.
The next issue is with the new Backdrops feature. This is supposed to be a more refined screensaver experience for the system, but instead, it’s a really janky app that’s not even built into the OS.
To get it, you need to search for Backdrops in the Streaming Store. Then you can install it, and once inside there are a ton of awesome high-resolution art options, a smart system for customizing your selections and even the ability to load a custom album right from Google Photos. It’s perfect, except you need to manually turn them on which defeats the whole purpose of a screensaver.
Art looks great on modern TVs.
There is a little shortcut at the top of the app home screen, but it’s honestly insane that this isn’t built into the regular screensaver functionality. I will say one nice perk of these backgrounds is that the Roku stick automatically detected that my TV was OLED and set the background rotation to every five minutes to prevent burn-in.
Overall, it seems like these work more flawlessly on Roku TVs and not as well on the streaming sticks, which is a shame. If Apple can make it work with the Apple TV and the Roku City screensaver plays all the time then I’m sure the company can figure this out.
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
