Roku Ultra | Streaming Media Player 4K/HD/HDR with Premium JBL Headphones

I've used an Amazon Fire TV and Fire Stick for two or three years. Here's my honest opinion after using the Roku Ultra for a few days. Setup: Setup was a breeze. Hardware-wise, it's basically the same as a Fire TV so I just swapped it out. It's annoying to have to sign into all of your accounts again, but it wasn't more difficult than any other device. Now that I think about it, maybe I could have plugged in a keyboard (there is a USB port) so I could type in my account info but I'm not sure if that would work. Apps: So one of the main reasons I got this device was because the Apple TV app isn't supported (yet) on the Fire TV. It IS supported on the Fire Stick, which honestly just pisses me off but I digress. The apps available on Roku are much, much better than those on the Fire TV. I always felt like Fire TV had a ton of silly apps that you would never actually download onto your device. Apple TV and Adult Swim are two apps that are available on Roku and not on the Fire TV. Remote: - Roku's remote controls your TV, meaning it can power on/off, volume up/down, and mute all on the Roku remote. No more having to keep up with two remotes all the time! The only time I've needed to use my TV remote is to change the input (like switching to a gaming console, etc.). - Additionally, the remote itself feels high quality. It's weighted nicely to where it doesn't feel cheap, and the buttons have a nice feel to them. - There is a headphone jack in the remote that you can use if, say, someone is sleeping in the next room, but I doubt I'll ever use it. - The voice control works well. No issues yet. - It's awesome having the Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, and Sling buttons on the remote. I use Netflix, Hulu, and ESPN a good bit. I wish I could reprogram the Sling button since I won't be using it, but that's not a big deal. If you watch as much Netflix and Hulu as me, you'll love having actual buttons to press. Use: Man, this thing is smoooooth. I know it's brand new, but there's absolutely zero delay. I have had issues with apps crashing (it's happened I think two times) but other than that it's been perfect. I may just need to restart it to fix that issue. It's also nice to have a "home screen". I hated having to scroll through every recently used app to find the one I wanted to open. The Roku has all of your apps on one screen, and you can set it up like your computer desktop. The other big reason I switched to Roku was the amount of slowdown I experienced with my Fire TV. Some days it would be pretty much unusable. The Roku is faster out of the box, and will hopefully hold up better over time. I'll try to remember to update in 6 months or a year. Overall: Why did I wait so long to get this thing? Why did I ever bother getting the Fire TV? I got this on sale for $50, but I would easily pay full retail now. It was worth every penny, and if you're in the middle of deciding between devices, I hope you pick this one!

The setup was simple, the settings and controls are user friendly. I think anyone could learn Roku quickly. I bet there are a thousand shows to watch at any given time! You can be up and running in a matter of minutes. It easily installed on the tv, updated and was ready to go. It is absolutely everything now I've had time to get used to it and away from cable. The remote is the super remote with a lost finder signal, on/off which controls the tv, volume up and down and mute on the right side. It also has headphone jack and headphones on the left side so you can watch silently while someone is doing something else in the room. High quality and heavy feel in the hand so it isn’t flimsy cheap feeling at all. Buttons are super responsive. There is a voice control too so you don’t have to search with the remote spelling out words! YAY. The remote also contains a back button which is really helpful and a options button to see if any options are available for that particular channel. There is a pause in the center of the navigation arrows. The remote also has a rewind, fast forward and end button to take you through a movie quickly if you want to rewatch a scene. Finally this remote will also pair with other Roku TV’s! The Ultra and remote are super portable if you want to take them with you also. Plug and Play! Every movement on the remote is smooth as can be. The remote has a preset of Netflix, Sling, Disney and Hulu. I wish it had no presets but just programmable buttons but it isn’t a game changer for sure since I have both Netflix and Hulu. There are two programmable buttons, however to put your favorite channels on. There is a home button to easily return to Roku. There are free screen savers and nice themes with sounds. I haven’t paid for any channels on Roku at all. I love how you can interface the website with the TV making adding streaming services easy on any device and it transmits to the TV. I’ve had to factory reset my TV and there was Roku, waiting for me as I left it with the same settings and channels. You can set it up so your favorite channels are up top on the feed. I am getting excellent picture quality and fast responsive movement and streaming. I like to go to the Roku site online to add my channels, however, you can add them on any device with the Roku app or right there on the Roku Ultra. I purchased an antenna for the TV and it scanned for local channels and found quite a few. This way I can switch over in inclimate weather or for local news. Another cool feature of the Roku phone/device app which pairs up with your Ultra, is that you can use it also as a remote if you like, changing channels and most all of the features of the actual remote on your phone or device. This thing does it all. You do need it so get it right away. I will never get another streaming device except Roku after this experience.

After being frustrated for years with Fire Stick and Visio smart TV, I decided to give the a Roku a try. It has been a game changer. Setup was a breeze. Immediately. I noticed a drastic improvement in picture quality and sound. My 4K tv finally looked like a 4K tv. I could get surround sound on channels such as Disney+! (My Fire stick didn’t support surround sound on many apps such as Disney+.) The Roku is fast and responsive. The device responds well to the remote. When you make a selection, the Roku responds in a snap. It just feels better. No more repeatedly clicking a remote wondering if an app will respond. The Roku design and layout makes it easy to manage multiple streaming apps. It is clean and easy to customize. (Just learn how to move things around with the click of the * button). No more hunting for the app you want, the way Amazon’s interface often does. With the Roku, you lay out your apps the way you want, and that’s the way they’ll be every time. Adding and removing apps is easy too. Roku has a deep library of apps to choose from. If you already have a free Roku account, setup is even easier. If you watch Disney+ using a fire stick, this device is worth getting for the improved viewing experience alone. The same goes for YouTube. It a completely new experience. Videos load quickly, are sharp, and sound great. My recommendation is to get a high quality HDMI cable. If you have 4K, get a 4K cable. And have your passwords ready. You will have to log into your apps the first time. I also discovered a really nice bonus. The remote has a headphone jack. Plug into that and you can listen to high quality audio. This cancels the sound on your tv monitor and you can control headphone volume from your remote. Overall, I was up and running in a matter of minutes and didn’t even need the guide. Very happy with this device. It’s made viewing a much better experience!

I have about 6 Roku boxes in my home on every TV. Several are the basic Roku Express. I connected this Roku Ultra to my living room TV (70") and it works just like all other Roku boxes plus some additional features. For one the Roku Ultra uses a RF remote (not just IR), so you don't have to point the remote at the Roku for it to work. You can use the remote even if it's under a blanket. Second it has a headphone jack that you can plug the included JBL headphone to, and listen to the audio without disturbing your family. I use this a lot. Once you plug in the headphone, the audio out of the HDMI to the TV is muted automatically. It does have voice control but I don't use that feature much. Opening apps is easy with a press of the button rather than press the mic. That's just me. Couple of issues: 1) I did experience this Roku crashing while trying to watch the video. This would happen once every 1-2 weeks. It normally reboots on its own, but one time I had to pull the power plug to reboot. Kinda surprised since the Ultra suppose to have a better processor. 2) Sometimes the remote navigation button sends out a different command to the Roku. I have seen the navigation button execute a command to install a new app even though I did not select it. This is a very random thing and it's happened 4-5 times since using it over the past 5 months Final Verdict: I still like it and it does what I need it to do. Which is help stream my Netflix, Youtube, Youtube TV, Amazon Prime video. No monthly fee to Roku. Just your subscriptions to the paid streaming service. User interface is done well and performance is very good.

I've had this Roku for almost a year... this my my first foray into switching to streaming instead of using a satellite provider for television. First. the excellent: The setup was a breeze; no problems at all (everything should be so easy). I am grateful for the reviews that stressed reading and following the directions, as the order is important. Even if one doesn't pay for any streaming service, the Roku service itself is pretty impressive; we like older shows, and Roku has a good selection (including some shows we've never seen anywhere else!). I love the included ear buds! I don't use them that often, but if I want to not disturb others, it's great! The good: Streaming generally works well; there ARE glitches once in a while, but that could be the provider or the internet service, and not the Roku, so I don't count it against the device. The questionable: There is no "off" or "standby" mode -- this device is on all of the time, unless one unplugs it. I don't think it draws that much power, but I would like to be able to power it off -- or at least to standby, where it can get updates. The bad (or things that irritate me): The electronics in the remote seem to be very inferior. It is routinely losing it's connection (pairing?) to the Roku box and having to re-sync. This is annoying when we go to pause (or resume) and the remote is not working. This happens quite a bit, and it's not that far from the remote to the device. Another aspect that I attribute to inferior electronics is it appears that if I accidentally press multiple keys, it seems to activate some other feature. I have only ONCE used the voice feature on purpose, but I have accidentally activated it at least a dozen times. There is no cancel that I know if, so I have to wait for it to time out... if we're having a conversation, it does pick it up reliably, so the voice recognition works well... but either the button needs to be moved, or else the electronics need to be improved. A third thing I attribute to inferior electronics is that sometimes I press the volume button, and the volume doesn't move once - it continues to increase or decrease. This has happened a few times, and the button doesn't appear to be stuck - it just seems like (maybe) poor circuit board design. Another review spoke of the mute & volume buttons at the side. I didn't think this would be a problem, but I do find myself accidentally muting the sound when I pick up the remote. This is just an less-than-optimal design, but at least it's to fix. There are enough of these irritations for me to take off a star, but generally, I've like it.

The Roku is easy to setup, took only 3 minutes. There is no activation or setup fees that others have claimed. The screen tells you to go to Roku.com/link and walks you through the rest, no phone calls to be made. The Roku Ultra is a lot faster than my older model and I really like the programmable remote. All Roku remotes have shortcut buttons like Netflix and Hulu. This model has two extra programmable buttons I use these for LOCAST and Disney+. LOCAST is an amazing channel that provides all the local channels for free. So you can get local CBS, NBC, ABC, WGN, PBS and Fox for local news, sports and weather. The Roku Channel is a great free channel (app) that has hundreds of free shows and movies. Right now they are also offering a lot of free content from HBO, Showtime, Stars etc... Roku itself offers 10,000 channels, the vast majority of them are free. Of course I was able to add my Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Video accounts within minutes. I will be spending a lot of time exploring the other channels while staying home for the next few weeks. Finally I really like all of the connections this Roku players offers. The biggest selling point for me was the ethernet port to reduce the WiFi strain on my home network. The Roku Ultra also offers a USB Port to directly connect your phone or hard drive to easily share pictures and videos. There is also a MicroSD card slot that allows you to download more of those 10,000 channels. This Roku also offers a lost remote finder button, which is great since the remote is pretty small and I can imagine getting misplaced.

Awesome piece of technology. Best of all–Roku finally gave the remote a flat bottom so it no longer rolls off surfaces (which was incredibly annoying). It also doesn't feel bulky in the hand like previous remotes. What I like most with the Ultra is that remote headphone listening is enabled OVER YOUR CELL PHONE, saving the batteries in the remote (which won't last two days with heavy headphone use). Unfortunately, the audio connection using a cell phone is intermittent - it drops out for a half second (and continuously). This is with a Galaxy S9 over a 5 Ghz signal at a distance of about 12 feet. 》I WONDER WHY THE CELL PHONE REMOTE DOESN'T HAVE THE OPTION TO USE BLUETOOTH? Bluetooth might be more stable than WiFi for audio.《Another tiny quibble is that the shortcut key labels on the remote (Netflix/Hulu/ESPN/Sling) are molded into the rubber keys. And they don't appear to be re-assingable. On the other hand, there are two option keys (labeled "1" & "2") that can be assigned to spoken commands. I'll have a lot of fun playing with that! THE MAIN REASON I UPGRADED TO THE ULTRA: My version 3 Roku seemed to be struggling a lot to play content. Not always, but now and then. Time will tell if that problem is eliminated with the Ultra player. (So far everything is good.) Another cool feature is the option to use a new power button on the remote to turn your TV on and off. If the button doesn't already work, the Ultra will lead you through identifying (and entering) your television make and model. The volume control will also operate the television's volume so you don't need to keep reaching for the TV remote. (Of course, the TV remote is still required to switch the TV input to the Roku.) The sale price the deal too good to pass up.

Roku's 2019 Ultra makes minor revisions to the original Roku Ultra4K (2016), with a more powerful CPU under the hood, but looks virtually identical. You're wondering if you want this or the stick? Go with the stick if you have a wall-mount TV and no space to put the Ultra. Or if you're budget-constrained. Otherwise, for everyone else: the Ultra is superior for its better CPU and your ability to reposition it for optimal WiFi reception. And it has a wired ethernet port. Remember that your TV itself blocks RF transmission... Changes (from the original Ultra): * Better CPU. Channels (apps) open in 20-30% the time it took before. * Navigating inside each channel is faster. * More ergonomic remote with different button layout. * "Find my remote" feature. * Remote finally adds a mute button! * No more optical/digital audio output. HDMI is pretty universal now. * Different power connector. (you can't use that the old power adapter with the new Ultra) Problems encountered: * Remote didn't initially control external receiver volume like the old one did, using same settings... After I pushed a new "find my remote" dataset to the remote, it started working... Presumably the remote needed a software update? * HDCP 2.2 compliant connection needed for 4K display. That means any intermediate hardware (like my receiver) and cables have to be HDCP 2.2 rated. * Signing into your existing Roku account on your new device doesn't bring over ANY settings. You have to customize your app layout again, re-login to every service, and re-do any other customizations. Considering all the Roku hardware out there, not propagating settings seems like a major omission. If you're not locked into a particular brand's ecosystem (hello AppleTV) Roku is still the move-- snappy, multi-service, and designed to be effectively and continuously updated. This Ultra model is far better than the quickly obsolete, slow-performing software that ships integrated in SmartTVs. If you've already got an Ultra, it's a modest but still noticeable upgrade. Recommended.