I’m no Apple fanboy, but I’m not afraid to admit that when it comes to streaming devices, Apple TV has been my go-to for years. One sits under the TV in my main home theater; my family uses iPhones and iPads, and it's the hub of our entertainment at home. But when I needed streaming devices for the older TV at our family cottage and for a second TV at home, the math got ugly — Apple's box currently costs over $200 new, and multiplying that across rooms that will mostly run rainy-day movies and the occasional Netflix binge felt like overkill.
So I bought a $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K, and then another one. Sorted. But what was supposed to be a budget compromise surprised me — the brand’s free streaming service I'd been scrolling past became the thing I use most.
Come for the hardware
Affordable, simple, and capable
Roku's current lineup runs from the $40 Streaming Stick Plus to the $100 Roku Ultra, which means I could put streamers on two extra TVs for less than the price of a single Apple TV. Sure, I could go secondhand, but even older Apple TV HDs on Facebook Marketplace can hit the $70 mark.
My pick, the $50 Streaming Stick 4K, was all I needed, though. It has 4K with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, long-range Wi-Fi (the cottage TV is off the back, in our guest cabin, where my wife prefers I watch my stories), and a pocketable design that plugs straight into an HDMI port and…