Roku Express 4K | HD/4K/HDR Streaming Media Player, Black

Our old Roku box was showing its age being slow and no longer getting firmware updates. So, when we upgraded our lounge TV, we also purchased this 4K Roku box. Wow, what a difference - both in terms of speed of response and picture quality! Our main APPs are NowTV, the Roku Channel, PLEX, Discovery+, Pluto, and Prime Video. All work perfectly with no issues. Picture and sound quality are stunning. To be fair, modern smart TVs have many of these APPs inbuilt. However, they often don't include the Roku Channel, Pluto and PLEX. PLEX is particularly important to us as we have a large media database on our home NAS. It also supports a lot of interesting "live" streaming TV channels. Set up is straightforward and it took just a few minutes to get our favourite apps sorted - and the others removed. The WiFi connection is also much faster as dual band wireless is supported on this device (HD Roku boxes only support 2.4GHz WiFi). Getting a power adapter is handy too. The remote is simple to use. It is IR rather than Bluetooth but I have had no issues - as long as the Roku box is in line of sight. Indeed, my only minor gripe is that the supplied HDMI cable is rather short to ensure this line of sight visibility for the remote control. Fortunately, I had a spare 2m HDMI 2.2 cable that works a treat! All in all, at less than £30, I am very impressed with this little device. Indeed, I am about to buy another for our bedroom TV! The whole family is rather chuffed! 😁😁😁

Cheap, good quality, and with a simple to use and speedy interface that I've found is much easier for an elderly relative. It's not marred by ads. I've found the Wifi is perfectly adequate, but as a bit of a techie, I've also found that UGREEN USB to ethernet adapters are compatible with this to connect it to a router. The remote control is also very simple, and the HD video quality is up to par. Roku are very well regarded - what's not to like for the price?

I have only had it for a few days so I have only just scratched the surface of what it can do. The first time I tried the BBC iPlayer app I was impressed by how smooth and fast it worked compared with the same app built into my old Panasonic TV and my TalkTalk YouView box. I can finally seek forward and back with confidence. The Roku is certainly a cheap way to upgrade an old TV that is otherwise still working fine. Apple AirPlay and Android casting also work well. Now comes the not-so-good points: To activate the device you need to provide a payment method. This is a source of irritation even though the payment method can be removed from the account afterwards. The accompanying smartphone app has a keyboard feature that is supposed to give you an easy way to enter text. It did not work when I tried to use it to log into apps such as All4. The search feature is supposed to search for content across the myriad of apps that the device supports. Unfortunately, the results are incomplete. For example, at the time of writing, Battlestar Galactica and Pretty Little Liars are available for free viewing on the BBC iPlayer, Nashville is on ALL4, yet a Roku search for these programmes only shows options that require subscription or payment. This has immediately made the optional Roku Voice Remote so much less appealing. The Roku Media Player is the app that plays videos from a DLNA server. While it handles mp4 content reasonably well, all transport controls fail when playing ts files (ts is the typically format for videos that are recorded from over-the-air broadcasts).

Roku Express is the type of device that you install forget about but when you remember - it is well worth it. Let's be honest there are a lot of junk channels, quirky channels and some excellent "must-see" channels. Which are which? Well, my junk may be your essential and vice versa but there is so much - on-demand, premium subscription, sports, religious, entertainment... basically, you name it, it is probably somewhere on Roku. This is my third Roku device: original set-top; USB and now this HDMI 4K version and I have watched it move from ok to excellent. The selling-point on this one is that it is 4K - and great 4K at that. It will check your equipment and stream at the highest quality manageable so that means get a good quality HDMI cable that can handle a 4K stream. It is a bit quirky, it may display a menu at 720p but goes to 1080p when you start streaming. On the right channel a black screen flashes and suddenly it is broadcasting in 4K with 5.1 surround sound and you are in your own cinema. The Roku menu is fairly intuitive and customisable. It is worth spending some time looking through the channels and putting them on your home screen, reorganising the order to suit your preferences and, off you go. The menu is a little bit clunky but, honestly, who cares? It's all about the content, baby. It is currently discounted and so the price is good. It comes with all cables and a cute little remote that can be lost down the sofa in an instant. If you are thinking about buying a streaming device stop thinking and click 'buy now' - definitely worth it.

Seems to work ok ..was easy to plug and play .. not used it much though as took it abroad and programs are more limited at moment

Excellent product. Added to an older Samsung non-smart TV. Does everything I want and more. Large range of streaming channels including all the popular ones. Will connect to local media streaming server - I use with Windows media server to serve foreign satellite TV recordings from a computer on the LAN. Just need to convert them to best format for Roku - which I'd say is MKV - simple and quick with MKVToolNix which can also embed subtitles. Means I no longer need to have a PC squatting in the living room. Simple to use IR remote, plus the option to use an app on your mobile as a remote, so you can type and issue voice commands to Roku. It is probably better than the options provided on many smart TVs, and for a small fraction of the price! Be sure to get the Express 4K model, because this one can also connect to a usb stick via a simple OTG splitter Y cable, to play direct from the stick. You can also get one of the ethernet adapters mentioned on the Roku support pages as working with the Roku Express 4K. I purchased the inexpensive UGREEN adapter to avoid any vagaries that a WiFi connection brings. Works well.

Turns your TV into a smart TV able to pick up all the free streaming channels like BBC iPlayer and ITVX plus the paid-for services like Netflix and Prime via your wireless Internet connection. Brilliant piece of kit and very easy to set up. No subscription needed for the device itself but you will need separate subscriptions for any paid-for streaming channels. Needs an HDMI input on the TV.

We purchased this to connect to our 43" (not "Smart") HD TV, as the Humax Smart TV/Recorder box we have been using was beginning to show signs of age. Whilst the Humax will still be used for recording, the ROKU Express 4K device will allow us to continue streaming as and when required. We chose the "4K" version - even though our TV isn't 4K - as the specification seemed so much better for the extra ten quid. And so it proved! Picture (and Sound) quality is far better than we have ever experienced before. Installation was quick & easy - although registering and signing in for each individual channel is a bit of a pain! - so we were up-and-running in no time. An excellent product, and outstanding value when compared with the cost of a new Smart TV.