Roku updates $29 Express and $99 Ultra players, adds new discovery tools to OS
The new Roku Express with its remote. [credit: Roku ]
Ahead of the holiday season, Roku made some minor updates to its media-streamer lineup as well as its Roku software as a whole. You won't find any totally new Roku devices this year, but you'll find an updated, $29 Roku Express player that's smaller and uses less power as well as an updated, $99 Roku Ultra set-top box with a new remote that has customizable shortcut buttons.
Roku Express remains the company's most affordable streaming device at $29. The new version is 10% smaller than its predecessor and comes with an adhesive strip so you can attach it to the back of your TV. But more exciting are the updates to its internals-the new Express runs on less power than the previous model, and it can draw power from your TV if you plug it into one of the TV's USB ports. That means you don't need to plug this device into a wall outlet or other power source in order to use it-just plug it into both a USB port and your TV's HDMI port to start streaming.
On the other end of the spectrum is the Roku Ultra, the company's top-tier streaming device that costs $99. The new version will remain at that price point, but it has a faster quad-core processor and more memory, which should help the device launch channels faster than the previous model. Instead of overhauling the Ultra's design, Roku focused more on performance in hopes that it could remove as much lag and slowness as possible so users can get to their content faster. This will purportedly come in handy with content that cord-cutters gravitate toward, like live news and sports coming from any number of free and subscription services.
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