Holiday Gift Review: Roku
Written by: Ashtyn at 8:30 pm
I wanted a Roku from the minute that I saw them. I love Netflix because you can watch whatever you want (within reason) instantly thanks to their instant queue system. That being said, I don’t usually prefer to watch movies on my computer. I have been using my Xbox 360 to watch Netflix (it works peachy if you have an Xbox Live account), but that limits my Netflix-ing to one room. When the Roku arrived from the company for this review, I was excited to set it up in the living room, so that I could have two places to watch my favorite movies.
It took literally two minutes to set up the Roku and begin going through the instructions. You just hook the basic red, yellow, and white outputs to the television and turn it on the correct channel or output, if it’s necessary based on your television. Once you do that you will see the Roku screen and the set up will begin. It’s pretty simple. All you do is put in your Netflix email and password to allow the Roku to retrieve your movie queue. From there, it’s a matter of choosing a few settings and then the movies are ready to play.
You have a small remote control that works with the Roku. It’s extremely basic. It offers an up, down, and side to side option. There is also a home button which lets you pick from a variety of services including Netflix. I cannot comment on the other services and how they work with the Roku, merely because I have never tried them myself.
If you’ve ever used the Xbox for Netflix, it’s pretty similar. You move through your queue until you find what you are looking for. You can read info about the movie before you play it, rate it after it’s done, and resume the movie if you haven’t finished watching one. Once you have it hooked up there should be no reason that you would have any problem using this. The Roku is virtually fool proof.
The only complaint that I can muster in comparison to the XBox 360 is that you cannot see and add new movies to your queue. On Xbox you are able to see new movies and television shows, view recently watched and/or deleted movies, and see movies from different genres that you might want to add to your queue. You can even watch movies that are available in the other categories without adding them to your queue.
With Roku you can only watch the things that are already on your queue and you cannot add anything straight from the Roku. You would need to add it and then play it. However, I will say that the additions made via a laptop show up within seconds, so if you have your computer handy it’s not too much of a complaint.
If you’re using the Roku for Netflix, you can get the $8.99 Netflix deal that gives you one mailed DVD at a time and unlimited instant DVDs. I could care less about the mailed DVD, as we mainly stick to the instant options. That being said $9 for as many movies as we go through is not a bad deal at all.
When I hooked up my Roku to my Vizio television I was sad to note an annoying feedback sound that drove me nuts. It didn’t always play during the movies, but it was so bad when choosing a movie that I had to mute the television. I had a feeling that the Roku wasn’t to blame and I learned as much when I hooked it up to another television that was not a Vizio and did not produce the same annoying noise. This was just one of many problems I have had with my Vizio, leading me to begin looking for another television despite the fact that the one I have is only about a year old.
The Roku is one of the best things that we reviewed for the holidays this year. I love it and would highly recommend it to anyone that uses Netflix. For under one hundred dollars you aren’t going to find a better, more useful gift like this. Movie lovers will definitely want one of these boxes and they will certainly get good use out of it, especially as Netflix adds a more diverse movie lineup.
You can learn more about the Roku by visiting the Roku website. The Roku also made our Electronics Gift Guide!
Technorati Tags: Roku, Electronics Review, Netflix, Vizio, Television, Movies, Instant Queue, Gift Guide, Holiday Reviews
---------------------
Written by Ashtyn - Visit Website
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ashtyn Evans is a writer, advocate, free thinker, and all around cynical person. Always quick to find the negative in anything pop culture, she loves being a part of that which she despises. Ashtyn and Dominick own numerous blogs together, as well as a full-time writing business. In her spare time she is a full-time college student studying History and Psychology. She plans to one day give up her freelance career and be a full-time blogger, novelist, and domestic goddess. She can be contacted for writing projects, fan mail, or just to say hi. She really is friendlier than we make her look.
