The IT Nerd

The Roku Express has been around for a while now. But for 2019, it has become a bit like the Six Million Dollar Man. Better. Stronger. Faster.

It’s undergone a major makeover when it comes to looks. Before it was a thin box that resembled a compact pencil case. Now it looks a lot more attractive with a rounded more rectangular shape to it. It comes with an HDMI cable which is on the short side. And it comes with an adhesive strip so that you can semi-permanently mount it somewhere that allow you to use the included remote which is a line of sight one. One nice touch is that it can be fully powered by most TVs to reduce clutter around the TV via a USB cable.

The Roku Express is a device that outputs to 1080P and uses 802.11 b/g/n WiFi to do so. That makes it perfect for someone who is starting out in the streaming game. And I had no issues setting it up and getting it going. Nor did I have any issues when I was testing it by streaming the rather large library of content that the Roku platform has to offer. Any sort of navigation was fast and fluid as well. So I think it would be safe to say that you’ll have no issues as well.

Gripes? Admittedly these are first world problems. But besides the rather short HDMI cable which could make positioning it a challenge, the remote control is one of Roku’s line of sight remote controls without voice control functionality. If you want that functionality, you need to download their app to your smartphone which isn’t the biggest deal in the world. Another gripe is that no Roku device supports AirPlay 2 functionality which is weird given that Apple TV+ is available on the platform. And that casting from Windows 10 devices and the like is supported. But none of those gripes should deter you from buying the Roku Express.

The Roku Express goes for $39.99 CDN which is a very low barrier to get into the streaming game. Given what is on offer here, the Roku Express is very much worth a look if you want to add streaming functionality to your TV.

This entry was posted on November 13, 2019 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Products with tags Roku. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.