Roku Express | HD Streaming Media Player with High Speed HDMI Cable and Simple Remote
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'We now have three of these devices in our home to help save on our cable bill. We use them for the spectrum app and they work great! Very easy to set up. A word to the wise - I read a couple of reviews about an activation fee. I set two of these up today and there is no activation fee!! If you are being asked to pay a fee you are in the wrong place! Do not google the set up website - type in the address as it is when prompted on the screen and you will be fine.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I finally decided to buy one to help keep my TV relevant. Most of the apps from my 2011 model TV don't work anymore and was limited in functionality. I wish I bought one of these years ago though. Now, reading through previous comments, there is someone who gave 2 stars and complained about being single banded WiFi. This guy doesn't pay attention to what hes looking at. Yes, this is clearly stated that it only uses 2.4GHz band. No, they didn't go backwards in any form with this. With a quick search, and all Roku Expresses, which is what this is, have been single band. And 2.4GHz is fine when only going 1080p for HD.\n\nNow about using it. Setting everything up doesn't take long, around 10-15 minutes. Once you have it set up, it's eay to use to get on Netflix, or Amazon Prime to watch your favorite shows. You can also download some other apps to get some free TV to you flip through another couple hundred channels and complain about there is nothing to watch, because we all know we do that. When watching something, the picture does take a minute to download, buffer, and catch up, so the first little bit may be a bit blurry, but it evens out. There is also the Roku app for your phone, and this adds some ease of use. Instead of using the remote to attempt to hit the sensor on the device, you can connect to the Roku on your phone as long as they are on the same WiFi network.\n\nIf you want to stream easier on your TV, or your TV doesn't have the Smart features you want, I would recommend this. If you want 4K video, then you need to look at something else because this doesn't off it. Also, if you really need to use 5GHz WiFi, then also, look elsewhere. Now, I can't compare this to other models, but this works well for what I wanted it for. Would recommend."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I have been working on overtime, a 2nd job and my damn nerves, to do what??? Spend all my money on cable and diet water??? Not anymore!!! I decided to invest in a Roku to alleviate half of my stress! I had no idea the number of free channels at my disposal. And they are full of shows that I will actually watch and like!!! I am actually glad to come home to my spinster life of watching tv with my pets and practicing Spam Sculpture Art. I have watched classic tv shows and new and fresh ones now. Grab one while the prices are low!!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "I bought this Roku to expand into a fourth room, and I was happy to see that it was offered at a fraction of the cost of my other Roku models. Of course, this bare-boned unit asks for you to sacrifice some of the options on the more expensive units, such as a TV on/off button, volume control, and an earphone plug-in on the remote. All of these minor issues are easily solved by using both the Roku and the TV remotes or by employing the free Roku mobile app for iOS or Android.\n\nA major issue for some consumers might be the 2.4 GHz wireless connection. After several days of use, we have seen no issues. Streaming has been perfect, no lagging or interruptions, and load time seems no longer than any of the other Roku units we own.\n\nInstallation was easy and there should be no hiccups for the majority of users. This was the first time that Roku asked me to sign up with a Google account, so it took the extra few minutes for me to set that up, but otherwise it was no harder than usual.\n\nIf you are looking for a solid unit and a great price, you can't do better than this unit. Five stars."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "This is my 5th Roku and it works just as good as the rest. Don't be scared off by the 2.4 GHz wireless connection, I'm watching YouTube TV at full 1080p with plenty of speed left over. Unless your network has a history of problems with 2.4 GHz connections, or you require 4K UHD quality, this is a great device that can be powered by your TV's USB port."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-4 review-rating', 'review_body': "Overall, was I eventually moderately satisfied. The initial setup was a breeze. However, I got a rude shock when the video from a lot of channels wouldn't stream - instead of video, I got only sound and error code 020. (Of note, I was trying to run our Roku through an HDMI signal switch.)\n\nAs it turns out, a lot of HDMI signal switches/splitters sold on Amazon are NOT HDCP compatible. (HDCP is a form of digital copy protection; I only learned about this when trying to troubleshoot this Roku). A lot of channels available on the Roku use HDCP. So, as a result, content from those channels could not be streamed from the Roku to our TV through our HDMI switch/splitter. It took some Googling to figure this out - the Roku support article regarding HDCP error messages mostly discussed unplugging and replugging things, and turning things on and off again. It did not mention HDMI signal switch/splitter incompatibility. I would have been up and running more quickly, and ultimately more satisfied, if that had been the case.\n\nAfter figuring this out, I plugged the Roku directly into the TV, and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I had to rearrange all of our other HDMI inputs in order to do this.\n\nIf you are reliant on HDMI switches/splitters, figure out if your switch is HDCP compatible before getting this incarnation of Roku.\n\nAlso, it is advertised that the Roku mobile app has a keyboard function - on my iOS, the the mobile remote control functions that I've tried work, with the exception of the mobile keyboard. Hopefully a Google search will yield a fix, but I would be even more satisfied if this keyboard feature worked right out of the box.\n\nEDIT:\n\nThe remote control stopped working after a month. It's a good thing there is a mobile Roku app. Otherwise, we'd have to order a new remote."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "I had to return it today though I only had it for 1 day or so. Reason: There's activation fee of $100, which was not specified on the webpage when I made the purchase. Based on the description on the webpage, I was under the impression that I just have to pay for the device & get all the free channels I want. It described that I only have to pay for the channels that were not free. However, when I finally got a chance to install the device on my TV & tried to activate it using the code on the TV screen, it told me that it failed. I called the support phone# & was told by someone with heavy accent who rudely rambled on & on about all kinds of benefits of activating the device WITHOUT giving me a chance to talk. After he was done advertising for his company's product, he finally said it would cost me $100 to create an account in order to activate it. He told me also before I hung up the phone that if I decide to pay to create an account, I'd have to call Monday (it was Saturday when I called). This might have been a good product, but the company should've made buyers aware upfront of the activation fee. In all, I was totally disappointed."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "I just bought this product and when I attempted to activate it it came up as an error and informed me to call an 866 number from a company named IDA to activate my Roku. I was informed that there was a one time activation fee of $69.99. I informed him that nothing on Amazon stated that there are activation fees and I refused to pay it. This 866 number popped up on my screen during the activation process appearing to be legit. He told me this was an independent company working for Roku. I said BS and hung up. I then contacted Roku's website directly and activated without any further problems. Please be careful and do not fall for their nonsense. It even states on Roku's screen that they will never charge for activation or updates. Amazon should look into this since it will create a lot of ill will towards Amazon. If the 866 number comes up during activation do not call. Go to Roku's website and enter code and it will be activated at no charge."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-2 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Why have they gone backwards from a few years ago and are producing new devices (this is not the first so be careful) that support only the oldest 2.4 ghz wireless band. They talk about high speed streaming needing a strong wifi network and internet connection but limit you to the slowest option on your modern router. My Roku 2 second gen devices from 4 years ago do only support wireless N but they do so on both the 2.4 and 5.0 wireless bands. This makes a big speed difference on any network but if you happen to live in a populated area it makes a HUGE difference.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2019', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'This lil device is great for the price. Set-up was not difficult even for a Luddite like me (just make sure you have your passwords to any streaming services handy). However, BEWARE, and apparently this happens a lot (you can google it), when given a code and prompted to register my device, I entered the URL on the screen in my mobile device web browser and clicked on the first website that came up, which turns out to be a scam website. Someone on that site with barely intelligible English told me I did not have a Roku account (I did) and that due to a lawsuit I would need to pay $70 to register my device. Luckily I hung up and went over to my desktop to enter the URL in the top, which took me to the Roku website where registration was free and easy. So far I am very impressed with the device; the loading of programs seems much faster than my old Roku player and the image quality is very good considering my ancient TV and slow DSL connection.'}]