Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: The new best streaming device

Our Verdict

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is just as not bad as its predecessor, and offers one big perk over the Roku it replaces: Dolby Vision.

For

First-class 4K HDR quality
Dolby Vision, finally
Snappy perfomance
Practically every app you need
Excellent interface and abode screen
Voice-entry for user ID and password

Against

No Dolby Atmos
Amazon offers better live TV integration

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is merely as great as its predecessor, and offers one big perk over the Roku information technology replaces: Dolby Vision.

Pros

+
Excellent 4K HDR quality
+
Dolby Vision, finally
+
Snappy perfomance
+
Practically every app you need
+
Excellent interface and abode screen
+
Voice-entry for user ID and password

Cons

-
No Dolby Atmos
-
Amazon offers amend live Telly integration

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K arrives with a heavy chore on its shoulders: replace our pick for the best streaming device. Yes, this $50 stick replaces the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, and while it's not a huge bound over that model, it fixes i of the biggest flaws of that model and keeps everything nosotros loved about it while doing then.

And while that sounds like it might be a minor update, the major new feature added is Dolby Vision, which could be enough to make some upgrade today. Roku's besides claiming faster performance, which is a trickier thing to mensurate on a streaming device. That said, this Roku Streaming Stick 4K review will bear witness why it's a worthy successor to the throne, and sitting at the top of the all-time Roku devices list besides.

The all-time streaming services, ranked
Check out our Roku Streaming Stick 4K Plus review

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Specs

	Roku Streaming Stick 4K
Starting toll	$49.99
Resolution	Upwardly to 4K UHD at 60 fps
Processor	Quad-cadre CPU
Wireless	802.11ac MIMO dual-band Wi-Fi
Dimensions	3.7 10 0.eight x 0.5 inches
Colors	Black
Audio	Dolby-encoded audio, DTS Digital Surround, Digital stereo
Video	Dolby Vision, HDR10/10+ and HLG
Remote	Roku Voice Remote with Television set power and volume buttons

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Price and availability

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K costs $50, the same price as the $50 Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and the Chromecast with Google Television.

That Chromecast has been one of our tiptop picks for the all-time streaming device, though, so check out our tightly contested Roku Streaming Stick 4K vs. Chromecast with Google TV face-off.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K box on a windowsill — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is on pre-society and comes out on October 17, 2021.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Design

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K and its remote, power cord, adapter and batteries — (Epitome credit: Henry T. Casey)

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K (like all streaming sticks) is designed to never be seen again. Identical to its predecessor (the Roku Streaming Stick Plus), the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is primarily a 3.vii x 0.viii ten 0.5-inch dongle with an HDMI plug that goes into the dorsum of your TV. But it'southward got a trivial actress in its USB power cable: a 3.3 x 0.half-dozen x 0.3-inch long-range Wi-Fi receiver. Editor's Notation: this review won't explain how much that improves things, the furthest testing can exist done from our router is 8 feet away.

Also in the box, you lot go the Roku Vocalism Remote with Goggle box power and volume buttons (with ii AAA batteries it needs), and a power adapter. You could opt to forego that power adapter, and plug the USB ability cable into your TV, but I establish that this means the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is turned off when my relatively-recent LG Boob tube. And I don't savour waiting for the Roku boot-up animation to finish, when it could just be on standby.

The Amazon Fire Television Stick 4K is a slightly larger rectangular dongle (4.three x 1.3 x 0.5 inches) while the Chromecast with Google TV is fifty-fifty larger (6.iv x 2.four 10 0.5 inches). Merely, as I said before, these all just exist in the limbo behind your Boob tube.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: RokuOS 10.5 interface and mobile app

Roku devices have one of the best (if non the best outright) interfaces there is. We like the look and lack of ads in tvOS on the Apple Goggle box 4K more than, but that $179 device is hardly comparable to the $49 Roku Streaming Stick 4K.

Instead, the Roku home screen is best compared to the $50 streaming devices in its class: the Amazon Burn Tv Stick 4K and Chromecast with Google Goggle box. Both of those competitors go for a content-first approach, which feels a bit advertising-heavy on Burn Television receiver and recommendation-heavy on the Chromecast. Roku'due south simplicity is laudable. You simply see a filigree of the apps you have, and the search (more on that afterwards) can help you lot find stuff you lot don't have.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's home screeen — (Paradigm credit: Henry T. Casey)

RokuOS 10.5 brings a bunch of updates that revolve effectually vocalisation — something that those who purchase the Roku Streaming Stick 4K Plus with its always-listening Phonation Remote Pro may appreciate more than those with the regular Roku remote in the Streaming Stick 4K.

Then, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K responded quickly when I asked it to "Play Squid Games on Netflix" and to "Play Fiona Apple in Spotify." While the latter jumped directly to an advisable playlist, the Streaming Stick 4K had me option what episode of Squid Games to lookout, which fabricated sense.

And while I personally rarely always use voice controls, the Roku OS 10.5 update gives me one feature I will utilize. You can now spell out email addresses, passwords and PIN numbers when logging into an app. This is important for anyone who uses the kind of long and complicated passwords that security folks say we should utilize. Apple'southward offered this in tvOS, while the Chromecast with Google Tv set and Fire TV Stick 4K lack it.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's live tv section — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

Roku'southward also assuasive yous to edit the grid in The Roku Channel's Live Television set section, though this is where I found myself disappointed.

This department just allows The Roku Channel's free linear Television receiver content (which is made upwardly of advertisement-supported content from names you may be familiar with, such as This Quondam House, ABC News Alive, NBC News Now, Vice), and your mileage may vary.

The Burn down TV's Live Tv grid, though, integrates with cord-cutter services such equally Sling TV — a huge boon for cord-cutters like myself.

The Roku mobile app allows you to have individual listening via whatever headphones you use. Roku's added optimizations for wireless headphones this yr, for reducing latency (of which I saw none) betwixt sound and video. I had one bad-mannered moment with private listening via the app, though: I heard pocket-size beeps during the first few minutes of testing. They went away speedily.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Performance

Overall, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is snappy, and fast enough — with zero glaring bug. And that's how it should be. Roku'southward added a new quad-core processor in the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, for what it claims provide thirty% faster app boot times vs. the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. Unfortunately, nosotros don't have a Roku Streaming Stick Plus on mitt to test that against, simply we did have the top $50 streaming devices: the Chromecast with Google TV and Amazon Burn down TV Stick 4K.

And in terms of app load times, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is simply skilful. I don't hateful that as an insult, it's more than just the fact that the app load times on the major streaming devices are hard to exam and can vary greatly. To endeavor and put them all on an even playing field, We restarted the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, the Amazon Burn down TV Stick 4K and the Chromecast with Google TV, and and then on the stopwatch app timed how long it took to open up Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, Sling Telly and Apple tree TV Plus.

The times, equally you'll see beneath, are pretty similar throughout.

	Roku Streaming Stick 4K	Amazon Burn down Tv Stick 4K	Google
Netflix (load fourth dimension in seconds)	3	23	2
YouTube (load time in seconds)	7	7	5
Disney Plus (load time in seconds)	nine	10	12
Sling TV (load time in seconds)	10	27	eight
Apple TV Plus (load fourth dimension in seconds)	eleven	9	eight

And there is going to be some modest margin of error here, since it involves timing taps on a screen and a remote in tandem. The biggest takeaway from this testing is that the Roku Streaming Stick 4K may be a second or iii slower on Apple TV Plus, Netflix and YouTube, but information technology'due south non got the terrible load time bug the Fire Tv Stick 4K sees on Sling and Netflix.

But those are just the beginning load times after a reset (and how often do yous reset your streaming device?). Most of the time, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K and these other devices are pretty similar in speed. The merely issue I ever noted about load times is that there'south a pocket-sized delay in loading YouTube on Roku (and not just on this device), where a square YouTube logo appears before the app itself loads. It's something I always forget nigh, until I see it once again.

Christoph Waltz in Most Dangerous Game, streaming on the Roku Streaming Stick 4K — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Audio and video

For a while, I e'er looked a bit sideways at the Roku Streaming Stick Plus because it lacked Dolby Vision — which both the Amazon Burn TV Stick 4K and Chromecast with Google TV both pack. Now that that'south complete, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is going to stream all your shows and movies only every bit beautifully as annihilation else, which I saw when I rewatched some of the best Netflix shows (which stream in Dolby Vision).

The reddish and blue hues of the paper-throwing game in Squid Game episode i popped and the green and pinkish hues of the iconic house that Beth Harmon lives in also rendered properly. In the scene where Beth chugs her beginning beer, the blackness tone of her sweater looked pitch-black, with excellent contrast. The Roku Streaming Stick 4K besides supports HDR10 and HDR10+, which also enable night black tones and quality contrast.

The crisp UHD image quality continued through to the opening scene of Thor: Ragnarok, where individual engravings on the Mjolnir hammer looked well-baked equally it flew around a cave, demolishing baddies.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is lacking on audio standards, missing the spatially-focused Dolby Atmos sound technology. And then, while I heard some dimensionality to that fight scene, as the hammer circled Thor (information technology was likely using either Dolby-encoded audio, DTS Digital Environs or Digital stereo) it possibly could take been ameliorate (my Tv does support Dolby Atmos). The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Chromecast with Google Television set both too have Dolby Atmos.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K streaming Thor: Ragnarok — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Search

There'due south a whole lot of stuff to spotter these days, and the seemingly ever-increasing number of streaming services are making finding those shows and movies even more disruptive. When I searched for Fast and Furious movies in Roku, I discovered that the Roku has a Zone (substantially a style to view a collection of related movies) for the Fast & Furious movies, then you can see where each movie is stored.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K helps you navigate the broad world of streaming well, even when you're not able to sentinel at the moment. For example, say I'chiliad out at a nice outdoors bar, and a friend tells me I need to see the anime pic Paprika. I could throw that recommendation into my favorite list-making app Todoist (ane of the all-time productivity apps), or I could add together it to my Salve Listing in the latest version of the Roku app. I but blazon the movie'south name into the search field, select information technology from the results and tap "Add to save list."

While I couldn't find the Save List in the Roku interface, I didn't need to. Y'all can open Relieve List movies on your Roku when you lot're back at home, by opening the Remote app, and (if you're on the same Wi-Fi network as your Roku), yous tin beginning streaming movies on your Roku from the Salvage list in the Remote app.

The 1 affair I didn't similar virtually Roku's search is its list-based search results, which I got when typing in "Vin Diesel." I adopt using Vox Search on the Roku remote gave me the visual results window, with thumbnails of the movies in question. Vocalization Search on the new Burn Television set Stick 4K Max ($55) sometimes left a little to exist desired, every bit it would skip the results and go directly to a (wrong) result when information technology thought it knew where I wanted to go.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's search results screen for "Spider-Man" — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

One small way the Roku Streaming Stick 4K beats Amazon's Fire Tv is in its understanding of language. In our Fire Television set Stick 4K review, we noticed that Alexa hears "4K movies" equally "four k movies," which leads to minimal related search results (and a bad time trying to brand the most of the new streaming stick on your ultra high-def TV). Roku does better by hearing "4K movies" as "4k movies" and including a 4K Movies and TV Zone (with everything from Avengers: Endgame to Breaking Bad) as ane of the search results.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's Zone of Fast and Furious movies — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Remote

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's remote — (Epitome credit: Henry T. Casey)

The included Roku remote is the standard Roku remote, which means it's pretty basic. Information technology's got standard navigation buttons, both for moving around menus and scanning throughout a show. That means y'all get a directional-pad, Dorsum, Dwelling house and Options buttons for moving throughout Roku OS, instant replay, play/pause, fast forrad and rewind buttons for going to the right moment.

While I wish the Roku remote had the input-selection button that the Chromecast with Google Television set remote has, none of the other remotes in question have that instant replay push button — which I always wind up using when I miss some thing I don't call back I heard or saw right.

The $69 Roku Streaming Stick 4K is $20 more, and gives upgrades that some may dear. That includes a headphone jack for private listening over headphones (you can do this over the Roku app with your phone if that's nearby), programmable shortcut buttons and a USB-port for recharging (information technology does not use batteries).

Of course, you yet get those annoying branded app buttons: putting Netflix, Disney Plus , Apple tree TV Plus and Hulu. I mostly ignore these buttons, simply I detect when an app I value drops away. The Roku Ultra 2020's remote (which uses batteries and doesn't accept always-on listening) had a Sling TV button, which I (as a Sling user) thought was neat.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's remote in hand — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

That wouldn't be an issue if the Roku remote had the programmable buttons that the Roku Voice Remote Pro has.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Content and apps

Roku is practically perfect when it comes to the apps you need. The one abrasive exception is that the YouTube Tv set app is no longer in the Roku Channel Shop, cheers to a spat between Google/YouTube and Roku. At present, you need to sign into YouTube Boob tube inside of the YouTube app, which isn't awkward at all. While the functionality is yet there, the situation does reflect poorly on both sides involved. Roku doesn't publish how many apps in that location are in its store, but the site 42matters claims there are more than 26,000 apps at this betoken. The Burn Tv set supposedly has 12,700 apps. Just I can't figure out annihilation missing from other side.

Also, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K supports screen mirroring (which isn't as dandy every bit the Casting you can do with a Chromecast), while the Fire TV Stick 4K doesn't.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K just tin't do the other kinds of streaming. The Burn Goggle box Stick 4K lets you check on live smart home photographic camera feeds, while the Chromecast with Google Telly can open up up Nest cam feeds and game with Google Stadia.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K tuned to The Roku Channel — (Paradigm credit: Henry T. Casey)

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K's library includes all of the best streaming services and the best cable Television set alternative apps are there, though equally I noted before YouTube TV is nestled in the YouTube app. Information technology's too got the likes of Spotify, Vimeo, Movies Anywhere, Benchmark Channel, Plex and many more than.

Roku Streaming Stick 4K review: Bottom line

Those looking for a great 4K streaming device have a relatively like shooting fish in a barrel conclusion to make. No thing if you lot selection the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, or one of its competent competitors, you're going to become (by and large) speedy Ultra HD streaming, with not bad motion picture quality. But every bit this Roku Streaming Stick 4K review has shown, each has its own tradeoffs.

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K dongle in box — (Image credit: Henry T. Casey)

If you lot know you lot want the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos, you will want to go with the Chromecast with Google Television set or Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, though each of those characteristic an interface that kind of gets in the style of your apps, recommending content and serving ads, respectively. Also, Netflix and Sling tin can (sometimes) have forever to load on a Fire Television receiver Stick 4K.

But nosotros yet dear the Roku Streaming Stick 4K but a lilliputian bit more than than those devices, primarily for its straightforward apps-get-go interface. Plus, it's groovy to see how the Roku mobile app is getting smarter and smarter. This all goes to show, though, that the fight to make the best $50 streaming device is closer than ever. Your slightest preferences could brand the deciding cistron.

Henry is a senior editor at Tom's Guide roofing streaming media, laptops and all things Apple, reviewing devices and services for the past six-plus years. Prior to joining Tom's Guide, he reviewed software and hardware for TechRadar Pro, and interviewed artists for Patek Philippe International Mag. He's also covered the wild world of professional wrestling for Cageside Seats, interviewing athletes and other industry veterans.