PRICE $39.99 (sale $29.99- black friday sale $19.99)

AT A GLANCE

Plus

Compact and easy to take on the go.
Quick navigation
Easy Roku setup and use

Minus

Doesn’t have Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos
Requires USB connection for power
Must be close to WiFi Router with strong signal

THE VERDICT

THE VERDICT

Roku makes solid streamers, and the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is a good performer. It may not have the highest-quality specs, but it’s a good budget choice for on-the-go use or on a secondary TV.

Every year, Roku updates a model or two of its streaming players, and this year it updated the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. This model fits between the basic HD Streaming Stick and the Roku Streaming Stick 4K. It lacks some of the capabilities of the Streaming Stick 4K, like Dolby Vision and a long-range WiFi receiver. Still, the Streaming Stick Plus is 4K and HDR-compatible, including HDR10+ and HLG.

The Stick Plus is so named because an HDMI connection is built into its stick shape. The whole streaming device is about the size of a finger. It has a USB-C port and comes with a cable for power from either the TV’s USB port or a wall adapter. It’s this easy connection and small size that make it convenient to take with you, whether on a business trip, vacation, or to a friend’s house to bring your subscriptions and content with you.

The Roku OS is the same on all of their current TVs and streaming players. A customizable home page displays a grid of apps that can be freely rearranged to put the ones you use most at the top of the screen.

While many other streaming devices emphasize recommended videos and titles, placing them at the top of the screen, Roku puts apps on the first home screen. If you prefer to view suggested TV shows and movies, they are readily accessible in the “What to Watch” submenu.

Features

Most of the Roku Streaming Stick Plus’s features are software-based, but the hardware tweaks enable them.

For example, it can play 4K content up to HDR10+.

In previous versions, users could listen with headphones by connecting them to the Roku app on a phone. The Streaming Stick Plus has a headphone mode that connects directly with Bluetooth headphones.

Roku released the Roku OS 15 update in early November. Significant new features include a natural language AI-powered search. While Roku has always had a good global search across all apps, the upgrade will understand casual conversation and answer follow-up questions like “What are more movies like that?”, “Which one is more fun?”, “How scary is The Shining?”, and more. While this feature is part of OS 15, it isn’t yet available and will roll out over the coming months.

While the “What to Watch” page has had a list of titles across most apps for suggested titles and shows to continue watching, updates to the “What to Watch” page include rows listing the Top 10 Movies and TV shows for each service.

Below the rows of what to watch on each service is a search row with popular Roku genres, like car shows, free funny videos, shows for dogs, heist movies, and romantic movies. When you go to those genres, some rows show what you can watch for free and what’s available based on each of your subscriptions—Hulu, Disney+, Roku Channel, and so on. Unique algorithms list titles in each zone/genre. In the romance genre, there are zones for “twisted romantic comedies” and “romantic comedy girl gangs.”

Show details now include the IMDb rating, and many have a button to watch the trailer. This is particularly useful in the “In Theaters Now” row, where it lists movies that aren’t yet available to stream. A quick clip adds the title to your Save List. You’ll be notified when they are released on Roku and where to stream them.

Powered by QVC, the Shop submenu has demo clips of products. Users can connect their Roku to the QVC website or phone app to buy the products shown.

In the Sports menu, displayed live games and matches show the current score for those who want a quick update without playing the video. It’s easy to hide the scores by pressing the “*” option button and choosing “hide scores.”

Surf mode takes channel surfing to another level. Instead of flipping through a list of channels, there are several clips in various genres, including reality TV, how-tos, and old series. Watch a clip and click to play the episode from which the clip was taken, or go to the series to see what other episodes might be of interest. Pressing the down button scrolls through similar shows. Genres change but may include Unsolved Mysteries, reality shows, America’s Test Kitchen, How It’s Made, Martha Stewart, Project Runway, or old shows like The Rifleman.

Setup

Connecting with this all-in-one stick device is a breeze. Plug it into an HDMI port on your TV, connect the USB-C cable to the stick, and then to a USB port on your TV (or use a USB wall adapter if your TV lacks a port). Once connected, you’re ready to start streaming.

If you’ve used a Roku device before and log into the email associated with that account, the setup process is one of the easiest you’ll experience with a streamer. Previously downloaded apps are automatically added to your home screen, and some apps are even logged in for you. While you may need to organize the home screen to suit your preferences, much of the setup is done for you.

Performance

Given that the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is the entry-level 4K streaming model, it delivers a perfunctory 4K picture with HDR10+. And it’s quick to navigate and open apps.

Due to its compact form, it’s easy to carry the stick in a purse or pocket when traveling. However, this is where the stick’s biggest weakness becomes apparent. It lacks the boosted Wi-Fi antenna (long-range Wi-Fi) found in higher-end models. I discovered this issue during a hotel visit where the signal was weaker.

I plugged the Stick Plus into the 1080p TV. It detected that it was an HDTV, not the 4K I have at home, and automatically switched to the proper resolution. Connecting to the hotel’s WiFi, the signal was only at about half strength. The Stick Plus’s WiFi antenna couldn’t handle the weaker signal, and it would buffer frequently when trying to watch various movies and TV shows on the Apple TV app, as well as Netflix and Hulu. Although it stopped playback about every 10 minutes, it would buffer for less than a minute and resume playback right away.

At home, my router is closer to the TV, and the issue never occurred, even when playing 4K HDR. All playback was smooth and without delay, even at the higher resolution.

While AI search is not yet available, Roku’s global search is excellent. I was able to get a long list of results when searching for Diane Keaton movies, including Wildflower, which Keaton directed but in which she does not star. The results were global across many services and organized first by free ways to watch.

Roku offers many ways to find titles when you’re unsure of what to watch. In “What to Watch,” there’s a “Popular on Roku” row featuring forty of the most-watched movies and TV shows on Roku right now. It’s also broken down into the most popular shows by app.

The “In Theaters Now” list should also be in “What to Watch,” but instead, it was buried at the bottom of the “Featured Free” menu. I was glad to watch trailers of current films and add them to my save list to watch when they become available. (Ooh, there is a new Now You See Me: Now You Don’t movie.) However, I shouldn’t have to scroll through all the popular shows on each app and multiple rows of sports games and matches (which are easily found in the Sports submenu) to see it.

At the end of the app grid on the home page are eight categories ranging from Documentaries to Movies, Comedies, and more. In the Movies and TV Shows categories, I found lists of the top 10 most-searched titles on Roku. These lists are hidden within the categories and would be more useful if they were easier to access at the top of the “What to Watch” page. It seems ’tis the season to search for Christmas movies, but I found the newest Jurassic Park movie and played it instantly on the Peacock app.

The Surf mode in “What to Watch” is also hidden, and it would be better if it were on the home page or at the top of the screen. While flipping through various clips, the Project Runway teaser piqued my interest. Since I’d never watched the show before, I clicked the “watch now” button and watched the episode.

The detail pages are much improved with the addition of trailers. After reading the description, I can get a sample of the title to get a better idea of whether I’d like to watch it, then click the streaming service to play it immediately.

Conclusion

It’s fast enough, easy to use, and it’s only going to get better as the AI search launches. If you are looking for an inexpensive stick for a secondary TV or for travel, this could be a good choice. Still, it’s only $10 more to get the Roku Stick 4K with Dolby Vision, and more importantly, the stronger WiFi antenna.

Specifications

• Dimensions: 3.7 × 0.80 × 0.45 inches
• Weight: 0.90 ounces
• Ports & power: Built-in HDMI plug; USB-C port for power input
• Networking / connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11 ac) supporting 2.4 GHz & 5 GHz
• Picture/video output: Up to 4K UHD (3840 × 2160) at 60 fps; HDR support: HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG
• Audio: Digital stereo over HDMI; DTS Digital Surround pass-through over HDMI; Pass-through of Dolby-encoded audio over HDMI
• Remote / control: Includes a voice remote with direct app access buttons, TV power, volume, and mute buttons