Roku Launched Two New Budget Streaming Sticks

Streaming wars aren’t only fought among streaming channels like Netflix and Hulu. They’re also fought among the companies producing the hardware, and Roku has been locked in battle with Apple, Amazon, and Google for ages now.

Yet it remains my favorite streaming service, thanks to its friendly user interface and charm. Roku has just announced two new streaming sticks: the very simply named Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus.

Roku’s naming convention is becoming convoluted with all the express this and streaming stick that. The Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus replace the Express and Express 4K, and they’re a bit smaller and slimmer, to boot.

Unlike many of Roku’s devices, the Streaming Stick Plus doesn’t explicitly say in the name that it’s capable of displaying 4K content, but rest assured. It does.

Both are available right now on preorder from Roku directly, and are expected to ship on May 6. They’re not yet at third-party retailers such as Walmart and Amazon, although I’m almost certain they will be after they launch.

same great roku user interface

I’ve reviewed both the Roku Ultra 4K and Roku Streaming Stick 4K and walked away quite a fan of both of them. In fact, I named the Roku Ultra 4K the best overall streaming box in my guide to the Best Streaming Devices.

While I’ve yet to get my hands on these two new devices, there are some elements of theirs that I can already speak to.

As I wrote in the guide, Roku’s home screen, which is shared across Roku devices, is the easiest and most intuitive to navigate of all streaming devices. The Roku home screen is the most playful, too, with a scrolling cityscape that works in dozens of Easter eggs from classic films and shows.

There are slight feature differences from one Roku device’s included remote to the other, but largely they’re all based on the same excellent design, which I find comfortable to hold and intuitive to use in a darkened room, without having to look at it in order to find the right buttons. That’s more than I can say for the Apple TV 4K’s remote.