#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS PC#
#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS PLUS#
#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS TV#
#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS FREE#

4K HDR streaming for $40 / £40 opens the door to discount cord-cutters in a way that hasn’t happened before. Small critiques aside, the Roku Premiere is an impressive (and, impressively cheap) piece of kit. How good that content looks like will depend on your TV, obviously, but we thought the player did a good job passing along the information without issue. In terms of performance playback was consistent on our connection with measured speeds of 30Mbps in the bedroom where the player was located, and never stumbled even when streaming 4K content. In practice we didn’t have much of an issue streaming 4K video in a bedroom located a room away from our router, but if you have a large home with the living room far away from your modem and router setup, it’s worth considering the Streaming Stick+ instead. The differences between them is that the Roku Streaming Stick+ offers four times the range thanks to its antenna and supports 802.11ac wireless compared to the 802.11b/g/n that are supported on the Premiere. Now, if the whole “4K HDR on a budget” promise sounds familiar, it’s because Roku introduced the Roku Streaming Stick+ a year ago that delivered just that. Like the Roku Streaming Stick+, the Roku Premiere’s strong suit is providing 4K and basic HDR performance at a reasonable price. Lost in Space, available in HDR, looks great (Image Credit: Netflix) (Image credit: Netflix) Performance

#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS TV#

This next-gen format is something Apple supports on the Apple TV 4K, Microsoft supports on the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, and myriad TV manufacturers support via their built-in operating systems. For it to be missing here seems like a big misstep. If we had to nitpick, one thing that’s disappointing about the Roku’s newest models is that they don’t support Dolby Vision.

#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS PLUS#

All things considered, Chromecast Built-in is definitely a plus to have. This is a super handy feature if you’ve got friends over and they all want to take turns sharing YouTube clips, or if you found something on your phone on a streaming service that you want to see on the big screen.

#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS PC#

Perhaps just as good as Roku’s traditional OS is the fact that the Premiere and Premiere+ come with Chromecast Built-in, which allows you to cast content from your phone, tablet or PC to the player.

#PLEX MEDIA PLAYER ON ROKU REVIEWS FREE#

Now, you’re likely buying the Roku Premiere because you’re a Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime Video member already and currently have a content library to stream from, but if not, Roku now offers something called Featured Free that offers dozens of shows and movies here, all of which can be streamed without paying a dime. On the remote itself you’ll find quick buttons for Netflix, Hulu, Sling TV and DirecTV Now, making it easy to jump from one to the next without navigating through the home menu – which, admittedly takes slightly longer than we’d like due to a few milliseconds extra due to pop-in load times. Whether you’re an Amazon Video watcher, a Hulu enthusiast or would rather stick to the half-dozen or so free, ad-driven video services, Roku has you covered, and it’s only getting better.

If your entertainment cabinet is big or you don’t want to keep the player right next to the TV, you’re going to need to get something a bit longer.īut no matter which device you decide to go with you’re getting Roku’s egalitarian OS that’s second to none. Roku supplies one in the box, though, unfortunately it’s not very long. In terms of connections along the back of the player there’s not much to talk about – the Roku Premiere only has ports for power and HDMI.ĭon’t have an HDMI cable laying around the house? No worries. The Roku Premiere, on the other hand, uses a standard IR remote without voice support… which is a bit of a disappointment. To that end, the Roku Premiere+ doesn’t need a direct line of sight from the remote to the player, and offers both power and volume buttons that can control your TV through HDMI-CEC and comes with a microphone built-in.

The differences between the Roku Premiere and Roku Premiere+ are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things: They have the same form factor, the same processor and the same performance, but one has an IR remote while the other uses Bluetooth.

Plex media player on roku reviews