You’ve got the 4K TV. You even made sure to check that the movie you’re going to fire up says “4K” on it. You’re about to ease back into your couch and let that glorious screen’s 8,294,400 pixels stream their beautiful vibrant light right through your corneas. What else do you need, right?

Wouldn’t it be funny if you had all that, and yet an oversight meant you were watching 720p or 1080p all along instead? Funny, funny, funny. Well, not that funny. Only if it’s happening to someone else, but not you. You made sure you had a 4K-capable streaming device, and that if you decided to bypass the TV’s built-in streaming interface—many of which can be pretty awful—and plug in that old streaming stick you had lying around, it was explicitly designed for 4K, right?

Getting nervous? Here’s how you can grab control over your TV’s streaming capabilities by choosing the service you like best. Whether your TV has a proprietary streaming interface that just plain sucks, or if it comes with, say, Fire TV built into it and you’d prefer Apple TV, here’s what to know about streaming devices that’ll let you enjoy that brilliant, dazzling 4K the right way.

the best 4k streaming devices at a glance

• Best Overall: Roku Ultra 4K
• Fastest: Apple TV 4K
• For the Traveler: Roku Streaming Stick 4K

how i tested

I plugged ’em into my TV and watched a bunch of movies and TV shows on them. Speed was important when I was judging each streaming box and streaming stick. Not just its speed when playing the films and episodes themselves, but also when navigating through the menus. Just like how a slow computer can make the simplest tasks maddeningly frustrating, so too can a slow streaming device. Menus had to be intuitive and easy to navigate, too. The best user interfaces (UIs) didn’t bury commonly used functions behind a lot of screens.

Remote controls are underappreciated when it comes to streaming devices, even though you’ll have it in your hand a lot. I care more about the remotes than the devices themselves, which hide behind a TV or sit on a shelf, and so I judged their comfort in the palm, as well as the number and types of buttons on them and how well their voice search functioned. They needed to be easy to charge, and I appreciated features such as backlights and shortcut buttons.

To reduce variables in each device’s testing, I ran them all through a TCL QM7, a 55-inch 4K TV with support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision; it’s the immediate predecessor of the TCL QM7K. I paired it with a Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar (via the TCL’s HDMI eARC port) and Sonos Sub 4 subwoofer. The same high-speed Verizon FIOS fiber-optic internet was used for the internet connection on all devices.

Best Overall: Roku Ultra 4K

Of all the streaming services, Roku has the easiest and most intuitive UI. And it’s the only one with a sense of whimsy and humor, as the scrolling background of Roku City, packed with Easter eggs, demonstrates. But all Roku devices enjoy these, not just the top-of-the-line Roku Ultra 4K. So what makes it number one?

For one thing, it was the second-fastest streaming device I tested. Over WiFi it never stuttered or struggled to play a 4K movie and television show. All was smooth as butter, and it never faltered and had to reduce itself to 1080p resolution the way that my old TCL, with its built-in Roku, did. Its processor was powerful enough to stream everything I threw at it, including live sports.

Roku offers two remotes. Both are, more or less, the same comfortable shape. Hands down, Roku has the most ergonomic remotes. I could sit with one in my grip for hours as I fail to decide what to watch. Hell, I do it all the time. The Ultra 4K comes with Roku’s fancier remote, which includes a button-activated voice function and hands-free voice activation that you can turn on or off via a switch.

It works pretty well. It has a no more difficult time understanding my directions as does the Google Assistant and Google Gemini for Home on my Google Nest Hub. There’s also a programmable “quick access” button alongside the four pre-programmed channel shortcut buttons.,

The Roku Ultra 4K isn’t quite as fast as the Apple TV 4K, but it’s nearly as fast and costs not much more than half the price (at $99). And the remote is better.

fastest: apple tv 4k

No streaming device is as fast as the Apple TV 4K. It’s an absolute screamer. Navigating menus happens so quickly that it feels telepathic. The home screen is clean, if a bit sterile. I just wish Apple wouldn’t put the channels in the sidebar because it makes screen navigation slower.

The remote is a mixed bag. It’s very Apple, minimalist to a fault. As a chunk of aluminum, it’s gorgeous and feels nice to the touch, and the button presses are crisp. But those sharp edges make it uncomfortable to hold for long. Decisive TV viewers might not care as much as I do. There are no channel shortcuts or hands-free voice activation, as on the Roku remote, although there is a voice-control button that you can push when you want to speak your demands to the device.

This is the third-generation model, and although Apple released it in 2022, it’s still the latest Apple TV 4K on the market. There’s no word yet on when to expect the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K, and even at nearly four years old it’s still a speed demon. I wouldn’t at all worry about buying the third-generation Apple TV 4K and worrying about obsolescence for a long time.

The only thing the Apple TV 4K does more quickly than speed through menus and start up shows is empty your wallet. The Apple TV 4K 128 GB retails for $149 and rarely goes on sale. That’s almost twice as much as our top pick, the Roku Ultra 4K. There’s also a 64 GB model for $129, but you lose the Ethernet port for wired connections, and it’s still expensive. So how much does that speed and that crisp, clean Apple UI mean to you?

For the Traveler: Roku Streaming Stick 4K

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K can’t match the speed of its bulkier sibling, the Roku Ultra 4K. Navigation through Roku’s (still admittedly awesome) UI happens more slowly with the stick than the big, honkin’ Ultra 4K box, even though the Streaming Stick 4K had no problem playing 4K shows and movies without stuttering or downgrading the resolution to 1080p. It’s more of a slight frustration that comes from the mild but noticeable delay between button presses and on-screen action.

But the Streaming Stick 4K beats the Ultra 4K when it comes to hiding a streaming device. You don’t have to find a hiding place for the device itself to keep it out of sight, since the Streaming Stick 4K just plugs directly into the back of the TV, entirely hidden even if the TV is wall mounted. Streaming boxes need to either be tucked away somewhere or left out in plain view, and not everybody is a fan of that aesthetic.

Remember that you’re still going to have a black power cord running from the Streaming Stick 4K to the wall outlet, so unless you use a cable channel hider (I use D-Line), you’re still going to see a cable. But you don’t have the Ultra 4K’s or Apple TV 4K’s HDMI cable, which runs between device and TV, to hide.

Other than that, the Streaming Stick 4K, sitting at around $50, comes with the same excellent Roku remote as the Ultra 4K. And because it takes up such little room in your suitcase, you can bring it with you when you travel. Just plug it into the hotel’s TV, and you’ll have all your subscriptions so that you can pick up on your shows where you left off. Because really, when was the last time you had a hotel TV that actually worked right?

do i need a 4k device to stream 4k tv?

Yes, with a caveat. Even if your TV is a 4K-capable TV and even if you make sure to select a movie, documentary, or show that’s streaming in 4K, you’ll only be able to watch it in lower resolution if you don’t have the right streaming device.

Now, the caveat: Pretty much every TV sold these days is a smart TV that has a built-in ability to stream content. Some include one of the big names baked right into the TV, such as Amazon’s Fire TV or TCL’s partnerships with Google TV and Roku. Others, like Samsung and LG, use their own proprietary streaming services.

Why would you bother paying for a separate streaming box or streaming stick? You can choose your own streaming service. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the one packaged into your TV. If you have an Amazon Ember TV but don’t like Fire TV, you can just bypass Fire TV by purchasing a Roku, Apple TV, or Google TV Streamer. Likewise if you aren’t crazy about Samsung’s or LG’s proprietary alternatives.

finding the right content

Don’t forget to make sure your streaming channels allow you to watch in 4K. Netflix and HBO Max, in particular, have made it very expensive to stream their content in 4K. Other streaming channels, such as Hulu, Disney, and Prime Video, let you watch in 4K on their cheapest plans. Double check that your subscription plans, whatever channels they are, include streaming in 4K resolution and not just 1080p. It’d be a shame to spend big on the hardware needed to stream your shows in the best quality but find out later that you were only being delivered a part of the full experience, like driving a sports car with a potato wedged unknowingly in its tailpipe.

Plenty of movies and shows are available to stream in 4K these days. Even many older films have been remastered, and because film has an extremely high quality it can be rescanned into 4K digital format without becoming a blurry mess. But certain older titles, particularly older TV shows, only come in a low resolution. Upscaling is when a device uses its on-board processor to make lower-resolution content (usually 720p or 1080p these days) appear as 4K content. In my experience it doesn’t look as good as true 4K shows and movies, but it’s better than just watching a blurry 720p mess on a 55-inch screen. All three of our picks in this guide support upscaling.

the bottom line

Most 4K smart TVs have their own built-in methods for streaming 4K content, so a 4K streaming device isn’t an absolute necessity these days. What you gain, though, is a choice in which service you want to use. You’re not stuck with Google TV if you’d really rather have Roku. And in my experience, the major platforms served by separate streaming boxes run faster and are updated more frequently than those built into TVs.

You spent so much on the 4K TV, the 4K streaming channel subscriptions, and the internet service to watch movies in their highest quality. Spending $100 or less, in most cases, for a faster, better streaming device to round out the experience is a relatively small surcharge, in the grand view.