When my husband and I swapped out our Vizio OLED for Roku’s Pro Series QLED and switched it on, both of us gasped. Even my two children (7 and 9) were mesmerized when they turned on Steven Universe. “Why does it look so much better now?” my daughter asked.
The difference between OLED and QLED is palpable (as you can also read in our How to Buy a TV guide). OLED technology is beautiful, but it lends itself to truly black blacks; it’s best if you’re watching movies or gaming in an optimized, dark, home-theater-like environment. A QLED is just … brighter. That makes a huge difference when you’re 7 and 9, watching cartoons while jumping on the couch and waiting for dinner, or when you’re a mom who is trying to catch a bit of the Copa America games on the couch with her dog while working.
This is the first of Roku’s in-house-made TVs (Roku TVs made before last year were made by other companies, just with a Roku brain). My colleague Parker Hall tested the entry-level Roku TV, the Plus Series, and was very impressed. For a month now, my family and I have been testing the upgraded Roku Pro Series and have also been thrilled.
User Friendly
Specs and performance aside, one of the main reasons you buy a Roku anything is because of how easy it is to use. I really liked my Vizio OLED and just accepted that every time I turned it on, I’d have to spend five minutes sorting through the Vizio Smart interface and fiddling with cables if I wanted to play on my gaming PC.
Photograph: Adrienne So
It was with a deep sigh of relief that I plugged in my Sonos soundbar, PS5, and gaming PC into the Roku TV and watched everything just … show up in the Roku interface. (It has two HDMI 2.1 ports, HDMI eARC, USB-A, USB-C, and cable inputs.)
Although you can mount it, I just placed it on our console table with the two included feet and it fit easily. Adding all your apps—Netflix, Disney+, Fubo—takes about as long as clicking on the Add Channels button and signing in on your computer, which is basically zero time unless you’ve forgotten your login information.
Having an easy-to-navigate interface also makes it much easier to figure out other things to watch. Vizio’s interface was so cluttered that my kids often just went straight to Steven Universe. On Roku’s, the CuriosityStream and PBS Kids tiles are so easy to find that they ended up watching more educational content just out of, well, curiosity. That was an unexpected gift in summer, when all the neighborhood kids just end up watching TV at our house in the air-conditioning.
