I love my Roku! I love it so much, I have my own Roku channel for my own video-on-demand podcasts… yes, you can write to their open APIs to develop your own apps and channels if you are a developer!
Also, a Roku 3 has a “built-in” Chromecast! (Basically.) Your Roku 3 will appear in your Chrome Browser, if you have the Chromecast plug-in, and you can 'cast your web surfing to it wirelessly! That, and the Roku 3’s wireless audio to the remote, so that you can use earbuds to listen privately is VERY nice!
Check out the Channel Store for “Dr. Bill Bailey.NET NETcasts!” Just sayin’!
Has anyone used the roku stick. It appears to have the features as the othes just not headphone remote. If I want to use headphones I will watch on my tablet. Debating between 3 and stick and for the price the stick seems the better deal.
Roku has a lot of options as far as available ‘channels’ but I found a Blu-ray player with wireless streaming to be more useful. Just need to be sure the device has the capability to stream what you wish to watch.
It’s Roku Media Player. I was using Plex for a while, but ended up moving everything over to Serviio. They both worth very similarly, so it’s really a matter of user preference.
I would be all over one of these if they had a web browser capable of streaming video imbedded in web sites instead of just what is available on YouTube and the various apps. Any suggestions for a device that can do this?
I have a Roku 3 and a Roku 2xs, and both now have a “Roku Media” channel which works very well. Apparently it is a revision of the old Roku USB channel. It is better set up for music than video, but handles both well.
I’ve been using Plex, but once my old network HDD died and I replaced it with a new one (WD My Cloud), the Roku built in Media Player is in many cases faster, easier, and more reliable than Plex. It is also better organized, and compatible with more file formats, than the the DLNA media option on my blu-ray player (which, BTW, is also for sale on Woot today–the Panasonic listed on sellout wootplus). for one thing, the Roku media player automatically breaks up any media into groups of (I think) 50 items so you can scroll through quickly by alphabetical order.
The Roku media channel does not do much with metadata for video, compared to Plex, meaning you have to find things by filename. On the other hand, this also means that it doesn’t completely mislabel things as Plex often does.
The music player on Roku Media is very good–it looks alot like the old Mog channel in terms of supplying artist, album, & track names and even displaying album art.
How usable the channel is really depends on your network set-up and equipment, but the software itself is pretty good.
I am going to sound like an elitist but unless you do not have HDMI don’t buy anything less then the ROKU 3. 5x faster and the head phone jack are 2 options you do NOT want to go with out.
I have owned 4 generations of ROKUs and they keep getting better but ROKU 3 was the first time I replaced all 3 ROKUs in my house with the latest generation, it is that much better.
Friends were very happy to get all my older ROKUs, untill they come over and see how fast the 3 is. Then they buy a ROKU 3 and give away the one I gave them.
Shocked no one has mentioned it yet… If you use ROKU for NETFLIX, Roku 1 and 2 WILL NOT take the software update that holds multiple profiles. We have a three person household (three different generations and vastly different tastes) and with the profiles on netflix, we all have our own lists and it produces unique recommendations based on our watching habits. Since Mom is 82 and nephew is 4, I really don’t need cartoon recommendations. The profile software only works with apple TV, ROKU3 and up according to Neflix customer support.
This ALONE was why I replaced our ROKUxl. Wanna buy it??
I have 2 different Rokus (Roki?) and likely going for a third today. From my experience, they are the same in speed and responsiveness - the only difference between the models are the features. And like you said, for $30 bucks, how can you go wrong. In fact, I think that is the justification I used to buy my first Roku.
[Edit] I see that scubajoe disputes my point about them all being about the same speed. I will defer to him on this. In fact, this will probably sway me to get the 3 instead.
I have two Roku 3s and they are saving me over $120 PER MONTH in cable bills. I got my first one a little over a year ago when our cable bill broke $160 a month for basic cable (no box, just what comes out of the wall), telephone (the number was on every telemarketer list in the world), and the slowest internet they offered. Just ridiculous. We tried the Roku 3 for about 2 months to make sure we could live without cable. The answer was obvious. The Roku has actually made me start watching TV again. I have an antenna for the local channels and Plex for local media. Oh yeah, more freaking Roku channels than I could ever possibly watch! I saved so much on my cable bill that I upgraded to the high speed service and like I said, I’m still saving $120 a month, so they have paid for themselves many times over. We bought another one for the bedroom in short order. I need two more for the guest rooms, so expect an incoming order Woot. The downside, sports. I’m not a sports fan so it wasn’t a big deal, but if you are, the sports channels have you boxed in with cable.
i bought the roku-3 last time it came through woot and have been very disappointed. it keeps dropping my wifi when trying to watch programs, especially the world cup through the watchESPN app. to make it worse, the numerous steps to get back to the program, coupled with the very difficult-to-know-where-you-are fast forward function, makes this a very painful process. and yes, i did all the recommended steps to correct the problem.
i’ve decided to watch the world cup via my xbox 360, which has worked flawlessly.
I have a Samsung SmartTV but Netflix and VUDU were EXTREMELY slow with intermittent HDX and even HD streaming…on a hard-wired ethernet connection! In addition, I have one of the few Samsung SmartTV’s that do NOT support Amazon Prime
Hearing about the speed and such from other Roku 3 owners (including around the office) I made the dive. I. Love. It! Not only is the interface nicer (cosmetically), but I have had no issues with streaming in the last 6 months for anything in HD or above mode…and I’ve been strictly using the wi-fi connector and not the ethernet cable…so definitely give it my approval!
Actually the sd card slot doesn’t do much unless you are subscribed to tons of channels. I tried sticking an sd card in my Roku 3 that got wedged and won’t come out. Talking with the Roku folks they said the sd slot was only if I have a billion channels (which I don’t have that many) and the Roku won’t (and didn’t) recognized the sd storage anyway. Mind you the also didn’t offer to let me send it in so they could take the card out.
Sigh waste of a micro sd that I probably could have used in another device; but then again I have like dozens of micro sds anyway.
I have the Roku 3 and I love it. I have it connected to wired internet. I use the headphones to the remote so I don’t bother other members of the house by watching anime.
If I had any real complaint (other than me getting a micro sd card stuck in the slot only to find I didn’t need one) would be if you do use the headphones on the remote the batteries crap out fairly quickly. Especially if you are binge-watcher.
But oh hay! Woot usually has a battery sale on one of there Woot sites, so I’m usually well stocked with batteries!
The major difference between most BlueRay’s and Roku is the number of channels and the responsiveness. If you are just doing Netflix or Amazon, your BlueRay may suffice. But I have found the user interface awful on most BlueRay players. To me, the Roku is worth the money just for the quick navigation.
As mentioned in a couple of comments above and in the Specs for the Roku 3 the microSD card is only there for local storage of games/channels (and you’d have to have a ton installed to need one). The write up hasn’t been corrected and still says
This, however, can be achieved with the USB slot. Only the Roku 3 has either of those slots.
The downside, sports. I’m not a sports fan so it wasn’t a big deal, but if you are, the sports channels have you boxed in with cable. 
