Roku is folding in a few small upgrades to its older Roku Streaming Stick – but the competition is fierce.
The Roku Streaming Stick (2021) isn’t quite the massive overhaul we were expecting for Roku’s popular mid-range streaming stick, but it does offer some nice upgrades. Among them are support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ as well as a new processor that should speed up the startup process. Elsewhere, Roku is working on improving the Roku mobile app to be more helpful when you’re not right next to your streaming stick and the Stick’s unique selling point – longer Wi-Fi range – remains intact. Still, there’s a feeling of iteration here that’s hard to shake. And while it might offer a few good upgrades for folks just starting out with cord-cutting, anyone with a relatively recent streaming stick probably won’t see much of a reason to upgrade. The new Roku Streaming Stick 4K became available in mid-October 2021 and was released alongside the Roku Streaming Stick 4K+ that includes the Roku Voice Remote Pro. In terms of pricing you’re looking at $49.99 / £49.99 (around AU$70) for the Roku Streaming Stick 4K and $69.99 (around AU$100) for the Roku Streaming Stick 4K+. Compared to the competition, that’s incredibly close to the brand-new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max that costs $54.99 / £55 / AU$99 and the Chromecast with Google TV that came out last year and goes for $49.99 / £59.99 / AU$99. Both of those players offer similar features to the new Roku Streaming Stick 4K and, for some, might even be better values. The new Roku Streaming Stick looks a lot like the old Roku Streaming Stick. It’s about the size of a USB thumb drive and it plugs right into the HDMI port on your TV.
