Roku Express Review: Faster Than Last Year’s Express

Roku Express is Roku’s cheap, easy to use streaming box, and a new iteration of it launched this October. It comes with a remote at an affordable price, but is that enough to make it recommendable?

ROKU EXPRESS REVIEW

As opposed to last year’s model of the Express, the 2017 build is fast. CNET was critical of the 2016 iteration for this reason, yet their assessment of the latest Express was more positive on this point, noting how there was little delay in app utilization.

The remote is unsurprisingly easy to control, offering a D-Pad and a few buttons for shifting through the accessible user interface. Some buttons also serve as shortcuts for popular apps, like Netflix or Hulu. The UI is kindly unbiased in its app curation, allowing you to organize your apps however you want without promoting some services over others. Moreover, a companion app can be downloaded for smartphones. When the remote and smartphone app are synchronized with each other, you can use voice commands.

Roku’s Express is small, enough so that it could be strapped anywhere on your TV, so long as it’s connected to it, and remain fairly indiscreet. The box will need to front-facing in order to read your remote, but that shouldn’t be a hassle. Moreover, Roku included a sticker you can use to adorn the box on to your TV. Other included accessories are a pitifully short HDMI cable and the power supply.

In its own right, the Roku Express is a solid, useful device. It comes at a nice price point, too, at $29.99. However, Roku’s Streaming Stick is ultimately the more effective tool, and it costs $49.99. If you want a Roku-helmed box, splurge and spend the extra $20 for the Stick.