Roku Streaming Stick+ Review

The Roku Streaming Stick has been an economical, powerful way to access streaming media on your TV without spending a hundred dollars or dealing with boxes and trailing wires around your home entertainment center. Now it's gotten a 4K upgrade in the form of the Streaming Stick+. This new 

media streamer supports 4K video and HDR10 in a tiny $69.99 package. It's an impressive little device that lets you use the slew of apps and services available on the Roku platform. Its lack of Dolby Vision support is slightly limiting, however, and the voice search feature is underwhelming compared with

 offerings from Amazon and Apple.The Streaming Stick+ ($45.92 at Amazon) is the sleekest Roku stick yet. It's a glossy black plastic tube measuring 3.4 by 0.8 by 0.5 inches (HWD), with a male HDMI connector on one end. The last inch of the stick is covered in matte black plastic and holds the single 

indicator LED, a reset button, and a mini USB port.The svelte design of the Streaming Stick+ is partly due to the new wireless system. Roku moved the Wi-Fi antenna array to the power cable, a 14-inch wire 

with a prominent 3.3-inch bar built into the middle of its length. According to Roku, the new in-line antenna quadruples the wireless range of the Streaming Stick+ over the regular model. Since 14 inches is very short for a power cable, and you still need to connect the stick to a powered USB port, Roku includes a 42-inch extender cable and a USB wall adapter.

 

The included remote differs very little from the remote that came with last year's Streaming Stick. It's a 5.6-inch matte black plastic wand with curved sides, distinguished by a prominent purple direction pad near the top and a purple fabric tag with the Roku logo on the bottom end. A microphone button under

 the direction pad activates voice search using the pinhole microphone near the top. Playback controls sit under the microphone and menu buttons, with four dedicated service buttons for Hulu, Netflix, PlayStation Vue, and Sling TV below them. A volume rocker sits on the right edge.

As of the current wave of Roku media streamers, you can now control your TV's power and volume directly through the remote. The connected media streamer (in this case, the Streaming Stick+) detects the connected TV over HDMI and instructs the remote to use the appropriate infrared commands to trigger the TV's volume adjustments and to toggle its power. It's a handy little extra that means you don't have to reach for your TV remote when you want to adjust the volume.