- So you're getting ready to buy a streaming stick
and you're wondering which one you should go with.
Well, we got a couple of new ones last year.
And the question here is
whether they can stand up to the mainstays of streaming
in Roku and Fire TV.
So let's dive in.
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All right, now, today is all about your budget.
We're looking at streaming sticks.
For whatever reason, you're looking for a streaming stick.
Maybe it's your first one.
Maybe it's a gift for somebody else.
Whatever the reason may be,
we are going to be talking about those sticks.
We're leaving out the premium options
like the Nvidia Shield, the Apple TV, even the Roku Ultra
which is about twice as expensive as the Roku
we'll talk about today.
So like I said up top,
there are a couple of new ones on the market,
but let's start with a couple of tried
and true streaming sticks,
kind of see where they're at these days
and how they stack up.
So, first up is the Roku Streaming Stick Plus.
This is the Roku
that I almost always recommend for somebody.
It usually goes for between 40 and 50 bucks.
The Roku Streaming Stick Plus handles
4K HDR and HDR10 but not Dolby Vision,
which probably won't matter for most people.
But if you have a TV that handles Dolby Vision
and that's something that's important to you,
you should know it.
So for that,
if you're looking for Dolby Vision
stick around for the other devices that we'll talk about,
they all have it.
Now the Roku Streaming Stick Plus
was updated a couple of years ago
to improve the range of the wifi receiver.
So if you're setting your device up
in a remote corner of the house, that could come in handy.
It's probably not going to be a big deal
if you have the router in the same room as your stick,
but yeah, like I say,
if it's in a remote corner of the house, it'll be nice.
Now the Roku platform itself,
the interface that you interact with on your TV
remains the most neutral and the simplest to navigate.
Other devices that we'll talk about,
they do cool stuff with their menus and whatnot
but the learning curve on those is much steeper.
With the Roku you log in
and there are your apps, right there.
You don't have to skip through a bunch of ads.
You don't have to navigate which services,
you know, some show is available on.
All of the services are just right there.
Now, if you get a Roku you also get the Roku channel
which is a really nice free content channel.
It's becoming pretty good
and they're getting a lot of content on there.
In fact, Roku is right now, as I record this,
negotiating for the rights to Quibi's content.
Now we can talk about Quibi another time.
It was a failed streaming service from 2020
but they did have some good content.
So that may show up on the Roku channel.
So who should get the Roku Streaming Stick Plus?
Well, streaming newcomers or those who value simplicity
or those who value platform neutrality.
Arguably the best thing about the Roku system
is the platform neutrality.
What that means is that
when you search for a title on your Roku,
that title will come up
and Roku will tell you exactly where you can watch that,
all of the different streaming services that carry it.
And the really nice thing is that they rank those by price.
So if you are already subscribed to Netflix
and you can get something on there, it'll tell you that.
Or if you're going to have to pay $3
to rent it from Prime Video, it'll tell you that as well.
Now let's talk about Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K.
The Fire TV Stick 4K
retails for a little less than 50 bucks.
This thing does do 4K and HDR10 plus
and Dolby Vision and all of that stuff.
So it does have Dolby Vision
unlike the Roku Streaming Stick Plus.
It also, because it's an Amazon product,
integrates with Alexa.
Which can be really nice
if you have a lot of Alexa stuff throughout your home.
Now the Fire TV interface,
what you interact with on the screen
is not as good or as intuitive as what you get with Roku
but it still is fairly easy to navigate.
Somebody who's new to streaming
is going to figure it out just fine.
But you will have to navigate through
more ads than you would on Roku.
And it's always going to point you toward Amazon content.
So if there is something
that you're going to need to rent or buy,
it's always going to be pushing that from the Amazon store.
Now, one of the things about the Fire TV Stick 4K
that makes it really popular with power users,
with advanced users,
is its ability to side load apps.
Normally you would need to go to the app store,
see if what you want is available in that app store
and if it's not, you're out of luck.
Like, well, on the Roku device, that's the case.
But on the Fire Stick
you can actually get third-party apps
that will allow you to load software on there
that you wouldn't normally be able to get.
It's a little bit risky
and it is for advanced users,
but it is pretty cool
some of the stuff that you can do with that.
We'll deal with that in another video though.
So, who should get the Fire Stick 4K?
Well, like I said,
advanced users are going to find it very attractive.
The biggest drawback to it is, like I said earlier,
if you're not all in on the Amazon ecosystem,
it pushes Amazon content on you constantly.
So if you are all in on Amazon then it is pretty great
and you can actually integrate it really well
with your Echo devices
and make them do some pretty cool stuff for you.
But otherwise, if you're not all in on Amazon's ecosystem
or if you're a beginning user
then I often point people toward Roku instead.
Now, let's talk about the TiVo Stream 4K.
This one came out last year.
It debuted at 50 bucks
and TiVo said they were going to send that price up to 70.
So you better buy it quick.
Well, instead, now the price is down to just under 40 bucks.
So, so much for that,
(Craig chuckling)
but I actually really like this one.
The TiVo Stream 4K,
like the Fire Stick it does handle 4K
and Dolby Vision and HDR10 plus, and all that stuff.
All the visual bells and whistles that you're looking for.
Now, this one, the TiVo Stream 4K
operates on a customized Android TV platform.
What that means is that
you get the Android TV platform you're used to,
if you've ever used another one of these devices,
but they also have a customized platform.
You can click on the TiVo button on the remote
and that takes you to their TiVo system.
And the nice thing about this,
the thing that they integrated
that a lot of people have been asking for for a long time
was a my list or my watch list
where you could pull in content
from a lot of different platforms.
So unlike with Roku or your Fire TV,
you don't have to go to each individual app
to look up what your playlist is.
You can pull all of those into a centralized playlist
where they're all available to view.
Most of the streaming services are available on that.
Some are left off.
Now because it's built on Android TV
it does integrate with Google Assistant.
But the problem here on this device
is that the voice search
doesn't bring up the results
as well as typing your search in.
So what happens is if you type a search
it will tell you,
much like I was talking about with the Roku,
it'll tell you which services each program is available on.
The only problem here
is that it doesn't tell you
what price you're going to have to pay.
So if you search something
and you see it's available on four different platforms,
you're just not going to be sure
until you go into that platform
if it's free or if you're going to have to rent it
or if it's only available
if you sign up through Stars or whatever the case may be.
So it is nice that they have that
but they could go a little further.
Now the TiVo Stream 4K does a lot of the same stuff
as the new Google Chromecast, which I'm about to talk about.
But this device will feel more familiar
if you're used to a traditional Android TV interface.
So should you get this one?
I actually really like this device.
And what I say is, if you're used to Android TV
maybe on a more expensive device like the Nvidia Shield
and you need to replace that device for some reason
or you want somebody else to have the joy of Android TV
without having to buy a $200 streamer
then yeah, this one is a good option.
But most of the time I would skip this one
and go to the new Chromecast.
So let's talk about the new Chromecast.
The new Chromecast or the Chromecast with Google TV
debuted in 2020.
It retails for 50 bucks.
This is actually my favorite new streaming device
but that doesn't mean it's without its fault.
But let's start with the positive stuff.
It handles 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, the works,
just like everything else
except for that Roku Streaming Stick Plus
that I mentioned earlier.
Now, it has an excellent recommendation algorithm.
This is one of the best things about it.
So, it pulls in information from your Netflix, your Hulu,
your HBO Max, whatever queue you've got
or whatever you use to watch stuff,
it's going to pull that into its recommendation algorithms.
So you can find stuff to watch really easily
with the new Chromecast.
It actually has a whiff of Roku in it's ways to watch.
So when you click on a program,
it'll show you that there are three ways to watch
or four ways to watch.
And if you click on that
it will tell you which services it's available on
and it will tell you what the price is
or if you need to subscribe or whatever the case may be.
So that thing that I love about Roku
is available here as well.
And you would think
that they would always steer you toward Google content,
obviously I'm sure they would love it if you did that,
but they do a pretty good job
of sending you all over to the different services.
Not necessarily trying to get you
to constantly rent and buy on Google.
The interface here has easy navigation.
It's got smooth operation
and it does have Google voice search
which works better than it did on the TiVo Stream 4K.
And like the Fire Stick,
this is really great for ecosystem integration.
So if you have Google equipment all over your house,
that's who your voice assistant is in your house,
then this one is going to integrate really well
with all of that.
And that alone would earn it a recommendation.
Some of the problems though
with the new Chromecast are kind of glaring.
There's a continue watching segment on your home screen
which I was really, really pleased to see
when I started using this device.
The only problem is it's kind of unreliable.
It's supposed to be pulling in
what you're watching on every different platform
so that you can simply continue watching it from right there
but it doesn't always work.
It doesn't always pull everything in.
It's like it's not really checking these streaming services
all that often to see what it is that you've been watching.
So that should get better, I hope,
in future iterations of this software.
The other thing that I read ran into
is that there's just not enough space on this device.
You don't have a lot of space for tons of apps.
Now you may not need a ton of apps
but that could be a problem if you are somebody
who likes to say, load to game onto your streaming device
or if you're somebody who likes to simply scroll through
lots of different content providers.
There's just not enough space on here.
I think the operating system here is so robust and so nice
that it's just taking up all the space on the device itself.
So should you get the new Chromecast?
Like I said, I really like it.
I know I just said there were a few things about it
that I didn't care for, and those are real
but I'm hoping that future is iterations of this
will fix some of that stuff.
Now, in my opinion, if you have a Roku or a Fire Stick,
you're used to that software, you're used to that platform,
it's probably not worth switching yet.
A V2 of this device,
a second version of this device I should say,
might be worth it.
But if you've got an old Chromecast
definitely upgrade to this one.
It does everything the old Chromecast did
plus much, much more.
So, I hope that helps.
Let me know which device you're leaning toward
in the comments below.
On your way down there
don't forget to like and subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching everybody.
I will see you next time.