That’s very helpful! thanks, ftg!
StG
The Roku 3 arrived today and I am quite impressed with it - the picture and sound quality is very good - it has a good selection of channels and apps and it’s very simple and intuitive to use.
The only thing that’s conspicuously ‘missing’ is a web browser - there’s an experimental one in the app list, which I’ll try, but I’m a little surprised it doesn’t have a native browser.
For that I’d probably use some sort of screen mirroring from a real PC. Web browsing is one of the more intensive things the average user uses now. I wouldn’t expect good results from the low powered Roku devices.
Roku uses the same kind of architecture as many mobile platforms such as phones and tablets, which have had no real trouble running browsers.
I’d say that the absence of a browser is probably more likely linked to an absence of any intent to require keyboard input. The onscreen input of text in most apps and channels is poor, because it only needs to be simple - , because you only do it either to set up a password (once), or to enter the first few characters of a search that includes autocompletion.
I used to want my PS3 to browse the web, but it was disappointing. The ease of text entry and general ease of use is nowhere as good as a PC and browser software. I kind of gave up after that until if/when I heard about someone having a positive browsing experience on a non-computer.
That said, there are custom channels on Roku that will browse the web, some are listed here: Roku
One more hat in the ring for Roku. I’ve got all my DVDs and audio CDs ripped to a Plex media server and the Roku app is fantastic for playing them back. Then Pandora takes up the slack for audio I don’t own.
This thread is over a year and a half old, and all these things have already been mentioned.
Let’s drive traffic to a brand new article just published today. And it’s the same site as in your profile.
Reported. (shawn18)
Hopefully the OP has made his decision by now.
But while this thing is resurrected and I’m here…
I used to have a Roku that I would primarily watch YouTube with, but the performance of YouTube’s Roku app was awful. It would usually be fine initially, but would quickly degrade to completely unusable; button pushes would take 5-10 seconds to register, or never register at all, videos will take 2-3 minutes to load, then not load at all, fast forwarding/reversing crashed the app as often as they worked, and eventually it would just freeze entirely and crash the whole thing. Totally useless.
Has Roku’s YouTube app improved?
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IMHO: No. Well, selecting a video seems to work fine, but once it starts, it’s as bad as you claim, and then some.
I’ve been using Roku for years. I agree the Youtube app is not the best, though I never had the problems you did. You can ‘cast’ youtube videos from your phone to the roku though. Because the phone app does have better searching and browsing functions in my opinion.
I’ll weigh in on TV selection too. I’ve just recently purchased the TCL P series Roku TV. It is a 4K tv with the Roku built in and is highly rated by CNET and Wirecutter. If you’ve bought into the Roku system and are looking for a new TV I would consider it as you get a low price, high quality tv and don’t need to spend the extra $80-$100 for a standalone roku box.
I have a Roku 2 and the YouTube app is…usable. I won’t say it’s terribly show, but I just don’t like the interface.
Recently I took an old desktop, installed Ubuntu on and and everything that I cared about just worked. Amazon and Netflix’s HTML5 players worked out of the box in Firefox. Youtube works great too. Installing and setting up Ubuntu to do basic web browsing is quite simple, too.
We have an HTPC that mainly serves as a family room PC and to record web based videos (like a web DVR) using PlayOn software.
But while it is great in general, I like the less hassle of the dedicated box.
We have a fire TV and fire stick, both are nice. My biggest complaint is they do not natively support Vudu. As we are building a nice Vudu library, that sucks. I have side loaded the Vudu player for Android boxes, but the down side is no updates and it does not play in HDX on the bedroom TV.
I think I would prefer Roku. It seems to do everything we want. My MIL got one for Christmas and it seems quite easy to use.
The main reason I do not get one is we were given the Fire devices and I see no real reason to spend the money to get Roku since the others work.
I’m not hugely impressed with the Fire stick. It’s good, but not great, and searching is a pain. There is a phone remote app but I don’t particularly care for that either.