New Roku Ultra Unboxing and Review

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSmart TVs game consoles even sound bars these days they've got apps built right in you've got access to Netflix and Hulu without adding anything else so why in the world would you want something like this back in the matter is some Smart TV systems just really aren't that great and the Smart TV stuff that you get inside a game console is actually kind of limited compared to what you can get with a dedicated streaming device then you have to talk about streaming sticks they're way less expensive and they're smaller footprint you can put them in your pocket why would you go for a streaming box like the Roku ultra here over a streaming stick well we're going to answer that question and show off what this can do then all that other stuff can't starting right now let's unbox this guy shall we so lift the top there and here we go now this looks exactly like the Roku ultra from last year and a lot like the Roku 4 that came before it we're gonna dig into this a little bit more deeply in just a moment got some product literature there the remote which is a big part of this we're gonna be talking about this remote quite a bit as we go through this review and then accessories I think in here yes so we've got our power cable I'm gonna have to make room for that guy some batteries for the remote of course these are gonna be earbuds we'll pop those open in a moment and some ear tips for those earbuds so if we set the accessories aside and take a closer look at the box itself really what we want to see is on the back that Ethernet port is a big reason why this product exists when you're streaming 4k video say you have like a home media server or something like that this is essential for stable streaming and also it really helps when you're streaming 4k HDR from Netflix or Amazon Prime video HDMI output of course we've got a power cable there we've got a USB slot over here this little guy on top allows you to call the remote so if you lose the remote you press this and the remote chimes will show you that in and then of course you've got Roku's cute little tab right there oh and one more thing right below the HDMI port is a micro SD card slot that is for storage of apps so you can either store apps in the cloud and only download them when you use them or you can expand the storage and hold as many apps as you possibly can afford yes Roku ultra I agree we should get started but before I begin pressing buttons let me just point out that while we have the Roku ultra sitting here as a set-top box it doesn't actually need to be visible at all in fact you can hide it behind the TV part of the reason for that is that the remote actually operates via bluetooth not infrared so you don't have to have line-of-sight you can hide this thing away we just wanted to keep it here for visibility sake and demonstration purposes now we'll go ahead and get started with the sign-in process with Roku if you don't have a Roku account you'll want to create one and if you do have a Roku account let's say you have other Roku devices or maybe even a Roku TV elsewhere in the house the great thing about Roku is that it will automatically take all of your preferred apps and get them loaded so you don't have to go through and pick and choose the apps that you want on the Roku it already knows what you like and it's gonna put it on there and guess what you should already be signed in to Netflix and Amazon and Hulu already alright so after the Roku self updates it's gonna restart and then it's gonna prompt you to either grab your phone or your laptop and sign in at Roku comm now if you have an account you'll just log in there or you'll create one I have an account and actually I misspoke earlier it doesn't automatically sign you into your apps but it gives you the opportunity to do so from this screen so it's gonna ask you what your interests are it's gonna suggest a bunch of apps for you it will automatically detect the ones that you already subscribe to and then you'll have an opportunity to click sign in here and part of the process of setting up the Roku will be you log in to your various services so that when you're done here everything will be signed in on the Roku itself yay we are all done and yeah you know what this takes a while because I think it installed something like 128 apps many of which I don't actually want but that's you know really beside the point because I'm going to be able to order them exactly how I want to so you are gonna have to go through a little bit of an intro here it's sort of a tutorial on how to use Roku this will be really helpful for people who've never used this device before Roku is super easy to begin with but you know when you toss a tutorial on top of it like this virtually anybody can get up and running without any extra help as I mentioned before it's going to pre install a bunch of channels you didn't ask for along with ones that you did and if you want to get rid of them again hit the star and then just hit remove channel if you want to clean up your interface it's really no big deal to do that as you can see here I'm removing an app if you want to add channels that's real simple to just click on add channels it'll take you to the channel store where you can sort through them or if you know exactly what you're trying to get you can use the voice search option now that we're all set up let me show you some of the cool things that Roku OS and the Roku ultra specifically can do one of Roku's greatest strengths is in its search so let's search for something really quick show me Tom Cruise movies now the great thing about Roku search is that it's completely platform agnostic it doesn't care where the content is coming from it's just going to tell you what's available where you can get it and how much it's going to cost so here we have fallout I can watch it for 9 bucks or subscribe to services that offer it it looks like I can get it from prime video if I have a subscription which I do I just haven't logged in yet he picks offers it as well Hulu requires a subscription but those are all places I could watch this movie for free if I have a subscription let's try another one show me stranger things strings of things is actually available outside of the Netflix platform believe it or not but the first hit here is going to show us that we can watch it on Netflix so that's the kind of power that you get with a roku search it doesn't matter what you're looking for it a few more things I want to show you about the remote one over here we have volume keys it automatically is going to detect your TV's settings and allow you to control the volume and mute if you want to which is really great because if all you're ever going to do is watch your Roku you don't even need your TV remote or the power button and those volume keys are going to take care of your basic functions also we have the traditional hotkeys down here to automatically launch Netflix link TV Hulu in this case they've also added ESPN but say you want to be able to automatically launch HBO now it's not here but you've got two keys here that you can program so check this out launch HBO now that voice command is now going to happen I'm gonna press and hold the one and in a couple of seconds it beeps and now number one is gonna launch HBO now anytime I want to I can also program it to do a certain search show me John Wayne movies I don't know why I picked John Wayne but now that that's in there I press and hold - and now number two is set to search for John Wayne movies you can program these to be whatever you want the cool thing is you just have to do the search and press and hold button so the local remote is one of the best things about this device especially with the addition of those two programmable keys and I think I mentioned this earlier but it does have a headphone jack and you can plug in the provided JBL earbuds so that you can listen privately if you want to the only drag about that is that it tends to drag down the battery life pretty quickly on a remote which is why I wanted to mention that there is also the Roku app which not only lets you control the roku device with your smartphone or tablet but you can also listen privately through your phone either the phone speaker or connected headphones or wireless headphones so there's a number of different ways you can enjoy your content privately without actually having to use the volume on the television if you want to the entire Roku experience is based on roku OS and it's really great search capability and then you get some pluses with the hardware the reason you want to get a roku ultra like this is because you're a power user you watch a lot of 4k content you want that ethernet connection and you want the most lightning fast experience you can possibly get there is zero let with this platform and apps launched almost instantly so that's really why you want to go for this particular device otherwise you probably want to look at one of Roku's sticks which offer the same voice remote capability and 4k HDR stuff it's fantastic if there is one not against the Roku ultra it's that it doesn't support Dolby vision which is a different flavor of HDR I really don't understand why that is it's such an advanced device and if you can spend a hundred bucks on a streamer I feel like it should have it maybe the next iteration will but for now it remains the best high-end streaming device that you can buy right now folks thanks for watching how do you like to stream leave a comment down below and also if you have questions leave them there like subscribe hit the notification bell if you would in the meantime here's a couple of other videos we think you might like and as always visit Digital Trends calm for the latest tech news and reviewsSmart TVs game consoles even sound bars these days they've got apps built right in you've got access to Netflix and Hulu without adding anything else so why in the world would you want something like this back in the matter is some Smart TV systems just really aren't that great and the Smart TV stuff that you get inside a game console is actually kind of limited compared to what you can get with a dedicated streaming device then you have to talk about streaming sticks they're way less expensive and they're smaller footprint you can put them in your pocket why would you go for a streaming box like the Roku ultra here over a streaming stick well we're going to answer that question and show off what this can do then all that other stuff can't starting right now let's unbox this guy shall we so lift the top there and here we go now this looks exactly like the Roku ultra from last year and a lot like the Roku 4 that came before it we're gonna dig into this a little bit more deeply in just a moment got some product literature there the remote which is a big part of this we're gonna be talking about this remote quite a bit as we go through this review and then accessories I think in here yes so we've got our power cable I'm gonna have to make room for that guy some batteries for the remote of course these are gonna be earbuds we'll pop those open in a moment and some ear tips for those earbuds so if we set the accessories aside and take a closer look at the box itself really what we want to see is on the back that Ethernet port is a big reason why this product exists when you're streaming 4k video say you have like a home media server or something like that this is essential for stable streaming and also it really helps when you're streaming 4k HDR from Netflix or Amazon Prime video HDMI output of course we've got a power cable there we've got a USB slot over here this little guy on top allows you to call the remote so if you lose the remote you press this and the remote chimes will show you that in and then of course you've got Roku's cute little tab right there oh and one more thing right below the HDMI port is a micro SD card slot that is for storage of apps so you can either store apps in the cloud and only download them when you use them or you can expand the storage and hold as many apps as you possibly can afford yes Roku ultra I agree we should get started but before I begin pressing buttons let me just point out that while we have the Roku ultra sitting here as a set-top box it doesn't actually need to be visible at all in fact you can hide it behind the TV part of the reason for that is that the remote actually operates via bluetooth not infrared so you don't have to have line-of-sight you can hide this thing away we just wanted to keep it here for visibility sake and demonstration purposes now we'll go ahead and get started with the sign-in process with Roku if you don't have a Roku account you'll want to create one and if you do have a Roku account let's say you have other Roku devices or maybe even a Roku TV elsewhere in the house the great thing about Roku is that it will automatically take all of your preferred apps and get them loaded so you don't have to go through and pick and choose the apps that you want on the Roku it already knows what you like and it's gonna put it on there and guess what you should already be signed in to Netflix and Amazon and Hulu already alright so after the Roku self updates it's gonna restart and then it's gonna prompt you to either grab your phone or your laptop and sign in at Roku comm now if you have an account you'll just log in there or you'll create one I have an account and actually I misspoke earlier it doesn't automatically sign you into your apps but it gives you the opportunity to do so from this screen so it's gonna ask you what your interests are it's gonna suggest a bunch of apps for you it will automatically detect the ones that you already subscribe to and then you'll have an opportunity to click sign in here and part of the process of setting up the Roku will be you log in to your various services so that when you're done here everything will be signed in on the Roku itself yay we are all done and yeah you know what this takes a while because I think it installed something like 128 apps many of which I don't actually want but that's you know really beside the point because I'm going to be able to order them exactly how I want to so you are gonna have to go through a little bit of an intro here it's sort of a tutorial on how to use Roku this will be really helpful for people who've never used this device before Roku is super easy to begin with but you know when you toss a tutorial on top of it like this virtually anybody can get up and running without any extra help as I mentioned before it's going to pre install a bunch of channels you didn't ask for along with ones that you did and if you want to get rid of them again hit the star and then just hit remove channel if you want to clean up your interface it's really no big deal to do that as you can see here I'm removing an app if you want to add channels that's real simple to just click on add channels it'll take you to the channel store where you can sort through them or if you know exactly what you're trying to get you can use the voice search option now that we're all set up let me show you some of the cool things that Roku OS and the Roku ultra specifically can do one of Roku's greatest strengths is in its search so let's search for something really quick show me Tom Cruise movies now the great thing about Roku search is that it's completely platform agnostic it doesn't care where the content is coming from it's just going to tell you what's available where you can get it and how much it's going to cost so here we have fallout I can watch it for 9 bucks or subscribe to services that offer it it looks like I can get it from prime video if I have a subscription which I do I just haven't logged in yet he picks offers it as well Hulu requires a subscription but those are all places I could watch this movie for free if I have a subscription let's try another one show me stranger things strings of things is actually available outside of the Netflix platform believe it or not but the first hit here is going to show us that we can watch it on Netflix so that's the kind of power that you get with a roku search it doesn't matter what you're looking for it a few more things I want to show you about the remote one over here we have volume keys it automatically is going to detect your TV's settings and allow you to control the volume and mute if you want to which is really great because if all you're ever going to do is watch your Roku you don't even need your TV remote or the power button and those volume keys are going to take care of your basic functions also we have the traditional hotkeys down here to automatically launch Netflix link TV Hulu in this case they've also added ESPN but say you want to be able to automatically launch HBO now it's not here but you've got two keys here that you can program so check this out launch HBO now that voice command is now going to happen I'm gonna press and hold the one and in a couple of seconds it beeps and now number one is gonna launch HBO now anytime I want to I can also program it to do a certain search show me John Wayne movies I don't know why I picked John Wayne but now that that's in there I press and hold - and now number two is set to search for John Wayne movies you can program these to be whatever you want the cool thing is you just have to do the search and press and hold button so the local remote is one of the best things about this device especially with the addition of those two programmable keys and I think I mentioned this earlier but it does have a headphone jack and you can plug in the provided JBL earbuds so that you can listen privately if you want to the only drag about that is that it tends to drag down the battery life pretty quickly on a remote which is why I wanted to mention that there is also the Roku app which not only lets you control the roku device with your smartphone or tablet but you can also listen privately through your phone either the phone speaker or connected headphones or wireless headphones so there's a number of different ways you can enjoy your content privately without actually having to use the volume on the television if you want to the entire Roku experience is based on roku OS and it's really great search capability and then you get some pluses with the hardware the reason you want to get a roku ultra like this is because you're a power user you watch a lot of 4k content you want that ethernet connection and you want the most lightning fast experience you can possibly get there is zero let with this platform and apps launched almost instantly so that's really why you want to go for this particular device otherwise you probably want to look at one of Roku's sticks which offer the same voice remote capability and 4k HDR stuff it's fantastic if there is one not against the Roku ultra it's that it doesn't support Dolby vision which is a different flavor of HDR I really don't understand why that is it's such an advanced device and if you can spend a hundred bucks on a streamer I feel like it should have it maybe the next iteration will but for now it remains the best high-end streaming device that you can buy right now folks thanks for watching how do you like to stream leave a comment down below and also if you have questions leave them there like subscribe hit the notification bell if you would in the meantime here's a couple of other videos we think you might like and as always visit Digital Trends calm for the latest tech news and reviews\n"