- Let's talk about budget streaming devices,
which ones are good, which ones aren't.
I'm gonna go over five different categories in this video.
I'm gonna talk about Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast,
TiVo, and Onn.
Yeah, O-N-N period, don't forget the period.
That's Walmart's device.
The purpose of this video,
isn't to do a very deep dive on each one of these devices,
I tend to do those individually.
So you can check for my playlist up here
to see more about each device,
but we are gonna do an overview and kind of give you an idea
of which device would be right for which person
and which category you might fall into.
So let's dive in.
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So first things first,
how are we defining a budget streaming device?
Well, it's very simple, I have one criteria
and that is, it needs to be 50 bucks or less.
There are other devices out there that are more expensive.
You got the Apple TV 4K, the Roku Ultra, the Nvidia shield,
lots of premium devices out there,
but I wanted to keep it to budget stuff for this video,
so that those who are out to not break the bank,
I mean, hey, that's why you're cutting the cord
in the first place.
Can find devices that will fit their budget and their needs.
So let's get started with Roku.
So I'm starting with Roku,
because it's the most obvious
and it's kind of the most obvious for a reason.
If you're looking for a streaming device,
Roku should be probably the first place you look.
And then we branch out from there
to see if something else fits your needs
a little bit better.
But Roku comes with a bunch of different devices
from the mega budget devices,
all the way up to the Roku Ultra, which is a premium device
that's actually really, really nice.
But sticking with the budget ones,
you've got a few different options.
I'm gonna keep it simple and talk about too,
first of all, is the Roku Express 4K.
I think it's the Roku Express 4K+ whatever.
Now, like I said, there are other devices
you could get the regular Roku Express,
but I really wouldn't recommend that.
The thing about these devices
and the tears that they come in
is that you don't wanna go the very cheapest
unless you absolutely have to.
If your budget only allows you to spend
20 or 25 bucks on a streaming device,
then those are there for you and they're okay.
But as soon as you get up just a little bit further,
you're gonna get much, much better performance.
So the Roku Express 4K+,
allows you to stream in 4K like it says, and HDR,
it also gives you a remote with voice control options.
And so it's just got a little bit more
of the bells and whistles,
but what's on the inside is very important.
Not only does it allow you to stream in 4K,
but the performance of it is gonna be a little bit better
than the very bottom of the barrel Roku Express.
So as you're clicking through menus,
as you're trying to type in email addresses and passwords,
that performance is going to matter.
Whether you're getting a quarter second of a delay,
every time you click the button or a half second
or three quarters of a second delay,
it may not sound like much, but in your day to day usage,
as you've got that remote glued to your hand,
and you're watching TV,
it's gonna drive you a little bit crazy after a while.
So that's the Roku Express versus the Roku Express 4K+.
But what about the Streaming Stick+?
This is actually the Roku device
that I recommend most often.
It usually retails for around 40 bucks,
sometimes it goes up to 50.
Sometimes it goes all the way down to 30, but yeah,
usually it's around 40 bucks and it is very, very nice
compared to the other two devices.
It's much quicker, much more responsive
and you do get a few more bells and whistles
and it's much, much easier to hide.
It's a stick, it goes right behind your TV,
which also brings up something
that people may not often think about
with a tabletop device like the Roku Express,
it's going to operate usually on an infrared signal.
So when you're trying to use your remote,
you have to point it right at the device
for it to read the signal.
However, with a streaming stick,
like the streaming stick+, it goes right behind your TV,
you can't point it right at it.
So it uses a radio frequency instead,
which means you don't have to worry
about where you're pointing the remote.
And it's the little things like that that make a difference
on a day to day basis.
It's a similar story over on the Amazon side,
talking about Fire TV.
Now there is a Fire TV cube,
we're not talking about that today
because it does retail for more than our $50 threshold.
So sticking with the budget devices,
you've got the Fire TV stick and the Fire TV Stick 4K.
I'm trying to remember the names of all these.
It's going to be a similar story
to what we were talking about with Roku.
When you bump up from the bottom tier to the next one up,
it really is a jump in performance
and the Firestick 4K is no different.
Now, obviously with these 4K sticks,
it's pretty clear if you want 4K, if you want Dolby,
if you want, whatever the bells and whistles are
that they come with, then great go for it.
But let me just remind you
of what we were talking about with the Roku,
which is the speed, the performance, the ease of use.
And so when it comes to the Firestick 4K,
it usually only retails for five, maybe $10
more than the regular Firestick,
but the performance on it is so much better
that as far as I'm concerned,
it's easily worth that extra five or 10 bucks.
Now we should also bring up the Fire Stick Lite.
This device is well, it's just what it sounds like.
It's a light version of the Firestick.
I usually don't recommend it
because they're shaving off a few extra dollars
by taking away some of the features
that you would find very nice, like voice control,
like TV controls.
So controlling the volume and the power of your TV
from your Firestick remote, very convenient.
You may not wanna give that up.
It may be worth saving the five or 10 bucks for you,
but usually I would recommend
doing what you can to bump yourself up to the Firestick 4K.
Next up, we've got the Chromecast and unlike previous years,
there are now two versions of the Chromecast.
You've got the old one, which you can still purchase.
It usually runs for about 30 bucks.
And the way this works is essentially you get no remote
because your phone is the remote.
So it works with Android, it works with iPhone,
but you plug it into your TV
and then you can cast things from your phone to your TV.
So you download something like Netflix onto your phone,
you pull up the title
and then you tell it to throw it over to the Chromecast
which is hooked up to your TV.
A lot of people love it as a solution,
but I always thought it was lacking something,
namely a remote.
So the new Chrome cast has a remote, it has an interface,
it operates a lot like the other streaming devices now,
but the thing is,
it does it just a little bit better in my opinion.
The new Chromecast retails for 50 bucks,
which is going to be the most expensive thing
on our list today.
However, in my opinion, you often get what you pay for.
So with the new Chromecast,
you're getting a better interface, you're getting a remote,
you're getting a very slick, fast system
with excellent recommendations.
So if you're somebody who always has trouble
figuring out what to watch,
the new Chromecast is your best friend.
It has excellent recommendations
plus it pulls all of your continue watching tabs
from different apps like Netflix, like Disney plus,
like HBO Max, pulls them all into one place
so that you can see without skipping around from app to app,
what it is that you've been watching
for the last day or week or month
and so you can kind of catch up on that.
It makes it much, much easier.
I really, really liked this device.
Next up is the TiVo Stream 4K.
I did a full review of the TiVo Stream 4K when it came out,
frankly, I was blown away, I really liked it.
It's an Android TV box that plugs into the back of your TV
on a little dongle kind of thing.
At first glance, there's not much remarkable about it.
It's an Android TV box that plugs into the back of your TV,
just like a Firestick or like a Chromecast.
But the difference here is that TiVo went the extra mile
and created an Android TV platform specific to themselves.
And they tried to do some of the same things
that I talked about with the Chromecast just a moment ago,
like pulling in your continue watching list
into one centralized place.
The only problem is although TiVo did it first,
they didn't necessarily do it best.
I think the Chromecast does a much better job
with centralizing all of your content.
But the difference is that
this is now going for much cheaper than the Chromecast.
You can get this usually for about 35 bucks give or take.
The Chromecast like I said, retails for 50.
So if you're looking for a device that has a nice remote,
a good interface, and isn't gonna break your bank,
then the TiVo Stream 4K
although I don't think it's as good as the Chromecast
is still a very good option.
And lastly, we've got the Onn devices.
Onn that's Walmart's electronics brand.
Now they've got two streaming devices
on the market recently,
a streaming stick and a streaming box.
The difference between the two in price is pretty minuscule,
the stick goes for 25, the box goes for 30.
But considering it's $5 difference,
the performance between the two is night and day.
The box will allow you to do 4K, it's also much speedier
kind of like we were talking about before with the Roku
or the Firestick devices.
When you bump yourself up to that 4K level,
you're also buying performance inside the box.
So more RAM, a better processor, a speedier experience,
which like I said before on a day-to-day basis
is going to be a lifesaver.
Generally speaking, I wouldn't recommend either device.
If you're looking for a super budget device
that runs Android TV for cheap, then yes it's okay.
Especially if you get the box, don't get the stick,
just don't waste your time, get the box, spend $30,
get the box and it's okay.
But at that price point,
I would probably send you over to Roku
and get that Roku Express 4K+.
That would be the device that I would recommend
over the on box.
Speaking of which let's wrap this up
with some recommendations.
Now, like I said,
I don't really recommend the Walmart Onn boxes.
If you're looking for an Android TV specific device,
then I would probably point you sooner
toward the TiVo Stream 4K.
If you're somebody who's brand new to cord cutting,
or maybe you're getting a gift
for somebody who's brand new to it,
then I would definitely recommend Roku.
That is the best device for beginners,
because it's so simple, the layout is easy,
it's a tiled layout,
you don't have to figure out how to navigate it.
You just think to yourself,
I wanna watch Netflix and boom, there's the title,
you just go right to it.
With the other devices,
it gets a little bit more complicated with the interface.
It probably won't take long to learn it for most people,
but it still is a bit of a learning curve
that you don't get with Roku.
If you're a cord cutter
with at least a little bit of experience under your belt,
then I would definitely go for the new Chromecast.
$50 is the most expensive thing on our list,
but like I said before, you get what you pay for.
I think it's absolutely fantastic
for somebody who knows the ropes a little bit
and knows their way around the streaming landscape,
this is gonna be the best way
to pull everything from your streaming experience
into one nice interface.
At least that's my take,
I wanna hear what you have to say though.
So, you streaming veterans out there
let me know what your recommendations would be.
Or if you're brand new to cord cutting,
then ask any questions you've got.
Either I'll go into the comments
or somebody else will answer them for you.
We're nice like that.
And again, don't forget to join me on Fridays
for our live streams.
We can hash this topic out.
We kind of talked about it a little bit last week,
but I'm sure it won't be the last time.
So join me on my Friday live streams 2:00 PM Eastern time.
Thank you so much for watching everybody.
Don't forget to like and subscribe,
I'll see you next time.