Roku Express - HD Streaming Player

I used to watch NFL football games with the DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package. But it just became way too expensive to continue. I thought I would be stuck missing a lot of my favorite team's games on TV until a buddy told me about Roku and the NFL Game Pass app. This Roku streaming player is much like Amazon's Fire TV except it is much smaller, and you don't have to pay anything to watch a lot of its available content. There are apps you can subscribe to that you do have to pay for, but these are clearly marked, and you can create a PIN to make sure others don't sign up for these without your consent. After connecting it to an HDMI port on my AV receiver I simply turned on the TV (also connected to the AV receiver), and the little Roku streamer will walk you through getting it set up. If you don't have your TV connected to an audio system you can connect the Roku device to an HDMI port on your TV. I had no difficulty at all in getting it set up and paired with my home Wi-Fi. The Roku device itself is very tiny. It comes with a strip of double stick tape to secure it to your TV, but I used some Velcro to stick it to the upper edge of a shelf on my entertainment center. The included remote control is almost twice the size of the player, but it is simple to operate and not overly large. The Roku player provides you access to many free apps to stream content, and there are also many subscription services available. In my particular situation, I used Roku to download the NFL app. After paying for the NFL Game Pass subscription (which, by the way, is about a third the cost of the NFL Sunday Package cost) I was able to enter my information into the NFL app on Roku and stream NFL football games. It works flawlessly. Even if you are not a sports fan, Roku gives you access to many movies and TV shows that are free of charge to watch (you do have to endure some advertising, though). It is a fun and inexpensive way to gain a lot of TV content that may not be available to you on satellite or cable TV. I highly recommend it.

I only give out 5 stars when a purchase exceeds my expectations. I have streamed shows from Hulu, youtube, and comcast on my desktop computer and only youtube was mostly glitch-free. Even though I have fast cable from Comcast, even streaming from them was nowhere near as enjoyable as regular cable viewing. I expected the same lower-quality from the Roku, but it seemed a better choice that connecting my laptop to the TV so my wife could watch all the shows on Acorn. The Roku is surprisingly small and while a wall adapter is provided, it can also be powered from a USB port if your TV has one. You can also use the included adhesive strip (Command removable?) to secure it to the side or bottom of your TV. Setup is pretty easy and while you don't have to register with a credit card, you should if you are going to pay for any services like acorn. The Roku comes with a nice remote, but now we have 3 to deal with where we only had one before. The comcast remote was the only one we needed, but now we need to have the TV remote around because we need to change the "input" from HDMI2 to HDMI3 to use the Roku. It would be nice if the Roku had an button you could program just for changing the TV input. We selected to have about 8 channels including Acorn. All of the programs I tested were as clear and stable as normal cable viewing. The picture quality is really very, very good. I showed my wife how to use the Roku and now she has started bingeing for the first time. She's pretty happy which is a good thing. I am thinking about getting another Roku for myself. Perhaps the Express+ that has composite jacks for older TVs. We have a treadmill in the basement and I am thinking about setting up the Roku with a nice (but old) little 13" TV that we used to have in our kitchen. It would be nice to watch some shows while endlessly walking and getting nowhere. If you travel very much you should consider that this thing is tiny and will work with any TV that has an HDMI jack. And it will work anywhere in the world if you have WIFI Internet access as long as the connection speed is good.

We love our Roku players. We have four (4) Roku devices in our house and we love using them. They are super easy to use and very simple to set up. We cut the cable about a year ago and these devices allow us to stay current on the shows we watch, but without the huge expense of the cable or satellite bill. The Express-HD is fast and responsive with great video streaming quality. Unlike the Amazon devices, the Roku has the Vudu app along with a YouTube App (FireTV removed their Youtube App recently). We are now a Roku house. We have mounted both of our Roku Express players to our TV's. The device comes with the mounting strips and they don't look out of place on the TV's. Pros: - Super easy setup - Mounting to the TV is very simple and the device comes with mounting strips - Availability of streaming apps. There are a ton of apps available and we use a bunch of them. - Small form factor. These are almost hidden and work great. - The remote is simple and easy to use. - Fast and responsive. For such a small device, it packs a lot of power. It is very responsive and streams in great quality. Cons: - Wish the remote could be programmed to control the TV volume. We ended up getting a "SideClick" remote so we only have one device that controls the TV and the Roku.

I'm impressed. Tiny little thing, dirt cheap, works great. For various reasons my router has to be at the opposite corner (in 3D space) of my house from the TV, and the Roku box warned me it thought the signal strength was sub-optimal, but it doesn't seem to have made a bit of difference. I actually get better streaming behavior on my TV through the Roku box than I do on my computer, which has a wired connection to the router. Admittedly my TV is not bleeding edge, only 1080p, so that may make the Roku box's job a little easier. Easy to set up. The Roku folks seem to have good UI sense, nothing was confusing or too geeky. Not quite Apple level of minimalism, but the remote has relatively few buttons, which mostly make sense (plus four possibly superfluous ones stuck on there for co-marketing reasons I presume, but you can't have everything). It's a little weird that some of the keyboards you have to type passwords and stuff on are ABCDE and others are QWERTY, but that inconsistency is no big deal. Two things I didn't expect that may be a problem for others, though they caused me no difficulty: (1) you can't install it completely stand-alone, you have to have access to something with a browser (computer, smart phone, tablet, whatever) to register it and get it running, and (2) as near as I can tell you can't register it without supplying a credit card or PayPal account, even though I didn't have to pay for anything. The latter, in particular, seems a little dodgy.

Two years ago, we “cut the cord” with our satellite TV provider and began video streaming over the Internet using Roku devices. I recently had to replace one our three Rokus – the 3500R Streaming Stick – when it stopped working. My choice to replace it was the Roku Express HD Streaming Player. It was an inspired choice. As is the case with our larger Roku 2 and 3 devices, the Roku Express HD Streaming Player performs very well. Both its HD video and digital surround sound are of superior quality. It is much quicker to process inputs from its remote than the 3500R was – almost on par with our Roku 2 and 3 devices. We have seen no evidence of video buffering or pixelization caused by the device. One of the Roku Express HD Streaming Player’s best features is its size. It’s much smaller than our Roku 2 and 3 devices. It is about the same size as the 3500R, but instead of hanging dongle-like from an HDMI port on the back of our TV, it sits almost invisibly on the tabletop in front of the TV to which it is connected. The Roku Express HD Streaming Player has turned out to be an excellent replacement for our malfunctioning 3500R streaming stick. With its small size and low price, it’s ideal for use on any TV. Highly recommended.

I am a HUGE fan of Roku Express! At a mere fraction of the price of some of the other streaming devices, you get everything you could want in TV, movies, and online steaming programs. We were contemplating “cutting the cable” in our household, so to see if we liked online streaming as well as we liked regular TV, I chose Roku Express, strictly based on the price. I thought if we didn’t like it, I wouldn’t be out all that much money, so no big deal. Turns out - we LOVE it! We can watch the programs and episodes we want, when we want, or rather - when we have the time to sit down and watch. We can rent or buy movies. We can stream news and live TV. We can start watching a program in one room, pause it and resume watching it in another room it’s great and really fits our busy lifestyles. And even with our individual online app-channel subscriptions, we are only paying a fraction of what we were paying to our cable company for less channels and viewing options on our regular TV package. Plus - no more do we suffer with the chronic noise and interruption of commercials. I bought my first Roku express unit and hooked it up in the kitchen. Then I bought a second one for the Living Room. Then I bought two more for the Family Room and back bedroom, and finally I bought a Roku TV for my own bedroom. If I travelled a bunch (I don’t) I would have probably bought a Roku streaming stick, too, since you can take it with you and use it anywhere you have a WiFi connection and a device with a serial port or HDMI slot (like in hotels) for your personal TV experience, on the go! No matter which model you choose, Roku is wonderful! I highly recommend it.

When considering which Roku to purchase it was between the Roku Express and the Streaming stick. After reading some of the critical reviews on this one, it was with some apprehension that I went ahead and purchased it -- namely to save a few bucks. I bought a refurbished one and device protection, which means I saved a few additional bucks. After an easy installation, I started perusing all of the channels that Roku has availalbe. *Note*: you will need a laptop for installation and good WiFi for streaming to use any of the Roku products. Since my father has Comcast basic (but no WiFi) I am able to stream some of the Comcast channels (HGTV, USA, Comedy Channel and A&E) there's more, but those are the ones I am interested in. There is also the Xfinity beta app IF one has comcast wireless; I don't so that is not available to me. Some Comcast channels will be a challenge to get working, but a quick internet search will provide the answer. I am amazed at the wealth of channels available for viewing -- some at a cost and some for free. There's enough to entertain for days on end. I was never much of a couch potato, but having this device certainly encourages that behavior! Good news, there are channels where you can also workout so there's that. Some of the reviews that mentioned some lagging and actually stopping are correct, I had this happen, BUT it has been a rare occurrence (so far) and I have had to re-boot once. I will say that I am catching up on a lot of shows so I am streaming for hours. The streaming in HD has been smooth and trouble-free, but I also have a high streaming internet package (155 mps). One last thing, according to the Roku site, we should not be able to mobile cast with the Roku express; however, it certainly CAN be done with the proper app in the Google app store. All-in-all, I am very happy with this device and I would highly recommend it to others.

I wanted to use this in my home theater so I plug this into an HDMI switch which goes to an HDMI audio splitter to send optical audio to my HT audio system then the splitter HDMI goes up and over to the projector. The picture looks like it missing a primary color, it really isn’t usable. I also have the Roku with the audio jack on the remote and voice control, it displays an HDCP error in the same setup. You might say my system exceeds HDMI capabilities but the HTPC, Xbox, BR player and FireStick TV all work without a problem. I have had two BR players and the other worked fine also so that’s five devices that work and the two Rokus that don’t. I now have this one in my workshop and the one with remote audio on the kitchen TV so I can use earbuds listening to music while I cook. I like the available apps, the user interface is great, the one with voice control locks up once in a while so I have to power cycle it every month or two. It seems they need a shorter path to the TV than other HDMI devices. Update 9/2: I like the Roku channel and I prefer the Roku UI enough that I revisited the issue. I added a cheap powered HDMI repeater right before it hots the wall plate so it's; devices, cables, switch, cable, audio stripper, cable, repeater, cable, wall plate, 25' cable to the projector and it works. My HTPC also went higher in resolution so I was clearly on the performance edge. When I was young we had 4 channels on a 19" B/W and I was the remote, AND WE LIKED IT!

I bought it so my kids can watch Netflix and YouTube videos. Works perfectly, the remote is very simple and sturdy. Does what I needed it to do.

Pratique tellement petit qu il est presque invisible très facile à installer et fonctionne parfaitement Je le recommande à tous les amateurs de séries puisqu'il donne accès à Netflix

Very simple to use, great way to add smart tv functions to your tv

We love our Roku. We love that we are able to stream different programs. We got it so we could stream Pureflix and Jellytelly. Works great.

Bought for a secondary set (bedroom). Works great for that. Very easy to set up and get new apps/channels. Would’ve loved for the Roku remote to be able to turn on/off my set and adjust the volume but at that price point I understand this unit doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that my AppleTV has. Also noteworthy: this device has an IR sensor so the remote needs to be pointed at the unit (as opposed to most other Rokus). Again not a dealbreaker since I can use the iPhone app but noteworthy. Would buy again.