Roku have released a brand new streaming stick at the price of £49.99. If you are unfamiliar with Roku and what exactly a streaming stick is, don’t worry.
Roku’s new streaming stick is a simple small device that plugs into the back of your T.V. that then gives you access to 450+ channels that include films, sports, news, music and your favourite TV shows. The ability to do this with technology under the name of Roku is not a new venture for them; they already have a smallish box that does exactly the same but is almost double the price with the most expensive model costing £99.99, this is called the Roku3 with cheaper models being the Roku1 and 2. Roku’s streaming stick costs the same as Roku1 and has more features to it. The streaming stick is better than the Roku2 as well with the Roku2 costing £30 more. The main beauty of the streaming stick is the size, it is a small usb stick that can easily fit in your pocket so it will give you the ability to take it to your friends house or simply have less mess around your TV.
The main reasoning behind the release of the streaming stick puts it in direct competition with Google’s Chromecast and NowTV Box. Chromecast cost’s $25 the reason that there is only a $ value is because Chromecast is not released in the UK at the moment, Chromecast allows you to take the information from your PC and stream it direct to your TV, this is a very nice feature that Roku does not have at the moment.
The main competition that the Roku streaming stick will come up against in the UK is the NowTV box. The NowTV Box comes in with the cheapest model costing £9.99 this gives you the basic access to iPlayer and 4OD, it will basically give you the access that you get from your computer. In order to make the NowTV Box a more desirable device there are different ‘bundles’ the ‘sports bundle’ allows you to watch the biggest matches and event live with access to all six Sky Sports channels without a contract. The ‘movies bundle’ gives you access to 800 movies on demand with 16 new premiers added every month, finally the ‘entertainment bundle’ gives you access to 10 of the best TV channels you don’t get on freeview. If you wanted to enjoy a NowTV Box fully with it being there by itself without any help from freeview or freesat you will have to fork out over £100 but this is not how your are supposed to use the NowTV Box. You will have this along side your freeview so that you can keep up to date with your sports or films when they are not available on the freeview channels.
Author: SamLevy
