The Roku 4 is currently not available in Europe but it should be available at a price of 100 pounds, when it releases. Meanwhile, it is clear at this point that entrenched content providers have clearly won the fight.
It is not possible for a single streaming service to win the rights to everything and as a result, consumers have to subscribe to multiple numbers of services in order to fully access everything that they wish to watch. In the process, consumers will end up paying for a whole bunch of stuff that they are never going to watch.
This is certainly frustrating and looks more like that of the old cable TV system. The boxes available nowadays should be able to stream as much stuff that is technologically possible. Google Android TV, Chromecast, Apple TV and Amazon’s Fire TV boxes can all stream content from various big names like that of Hulu, HBO and Netflix.
However, in the end, all of them end up providing the highest priority to the media that emerges from the companies’ respective stores. This is one of the reasons why Roku boxes are so greatly recommended. This is the only platform-agnostic media streaming device available in a market where all other players come with their specific agendas.
Compared to previous three Roku boxes, the Roku 4 appears quite different and it is thinner with a much larger footprint. This provides ample room for the optical audio-out that is located on the back and it should also serve the purposes of efficient heat dissipation. Keep in mind that the new Roku won’t fit everywhere the old Roku did.
In terms of overall styling, the device is quite similar to the older ones. It comes with a textured matte finish and a flat top, a remote button along with a number 4. The sides are curved and glossy and its black, it should appear to be matching with most cable boxes, routers, consoles, receivers, Blu Ray players and much more.
However, the main reason to buy this box is its support for 4K content and TVs. With the new HDMI 2.0 support, it can display all of it at 60 frames per second. If you take a look at the latest Apple TV, even that delivers content at 1080p. As a result, the Roku 4 remains at a great advantage until such time when Apple decides to come out with something new and improved. However, keep in mind that there’s a catch with the 4K moniker.
Whatever hardware you are connecting your Roku 4 to, should have the ability to support HDCP 2.2, if you want to stream 4K content or even run Roku’s UI at 4K and this is something that a lot of 4K-capable TV hardware lack. In case you are buying a new TV or receiver today, there are good chances that it will come with at least one HDMI 2.0 port which has HDCP 2.2 support.
In terms of hardware, Roku 4 has been nice so far but in certain cases, it appeared quite sluggish in nature. With Roku 4, the company has stepped up their device with a RAM upgrade to 1.5TB from 512MB and has a quad-core ARM processor as well.
The difference can be immediately noticed once you smooth navigate around the much-improved Roku OS 7. The other Roku devices where pretty good in the performance department but you will definitely notice the increased responsiveness of Roku 4. Roku 4 is also the first product in the Roku series, which offers support for 802.11ac MIMO Wi-Fi.