Roku has yet to disappoint me. Where other brands change form factors, interfaces, and product support with what can feel like alarming regularity even for insiders like me, Roku, with its rounded square interface, pleasantly rubbery remote controller, and joyously simple plug-and-play stick design, has held the course.
When the new Roku Streaming Stick Plus arrived at my house, it felt like it was 2012 all over again. That Obama-era techno-optimism—remember when social media was on the right side of history?—is still evident. There are no huge annoying ads atop everything in the menus, there’s no nagging to like or subscribe to some proprietary data funnel or other. Instead, you just get a decent processor, a USB cable for power, and a remote that now features four quick buttons for apps you might actually subscribe to—how SlingTV ever got a dedicated spot on a Roku remote I’ll never know.
Quality-wise, this 4K streaming device offers everything you could realistically need without buying a disc player and starting a 4K Blu-Ray collection. If you have $40 to spare and a sluggish TV, just buy one already.
Sticking Out
Photograph: Parker Hall
There was once a time when stick-based players like this one, which is the size and shape of an old-school USB thumb drive, could cause weird mounting issues depending on whether or not a TV manufacturer had put its HDMI ports somewhere that made actual sense. These days, the stick easily plugs into every modern TV I’ve tested, with a decently long USB cable that plugs into the TV’s external USB port (also now essentially always there) for power. It’s a “setup process” insofar as you are aware how to plug cables into cable-shaped sockets.
The remote is what you’ll interact with the most, and it is fantastic as usual, a nonslip pill shape with familiar buttons that feel like high-quality pencil erasers. It’s all standard Roku fare at this point, until you realize that the apps listed for quick access on the bottom are actually good now: Disney+, Apple TV, Netflix, and Amazon.
Now included in this tier of Roku device (previously it was only available on more expensive models) is the voice remote functionality, allowing you to use the microphone in the remote to search for your favorite shows and movies. It’s a shockingly decent tool if you’re not sure where to stream something specific, and one that comes in handy for me a few times a year when I have a hankering for a specific holiday movie or other.
Logging On
Courtesy of Roku
It’s really easy to get logged into any app you subscribe to, and also easy to rearrange the tiles on the home screen so you don’t have to see stuff you don’t use. Setup, including signing into Wi-Fi and installing a quick software update, took about 10 minutes.
