I've had my Roku XD unit for almost a year now, and I'd miss it if they took it away - but I think all these glowing reviews are just a little over the top. I got mine because I was watching Netflix on my computer with a cable, and a streaming player sounded good - and it was. Additionally, we wanted our Roku to play music in the background, something we were doing with our Direct TV link, but that quickly became unsatisfactory due to the limited content and repetition. We looked forward to Roku's many options for streaming music.
We set our Roku up on our home Wifi network, and it installed fine - we almost never lose signal on our problem free home network, but we soon found the Roku would frequently lose signal - most of the time, that can be fixed by assisting Roku to 're-find' the signal - not difficult, but an annoyance. Sometimes that doesn't work, and you must restart the Roku box itself - you then discover that the Roku box does not have an on/off switch - you must pull the power cord out and re-attach it. You won't find any discussion of that fact anywhere - it's just something you're supposed to know intuitively.
Frankly, I'm not much interested in 'buying' On Demand stuff, but it didn't take long to discover that that's Roku's real business, not selling these units! So, if you simply go to Roku's Channel Store, you won't find much free content there - and most that is called free, has some kind of strings attached, like time limits, or limited content, etc. But there is free content available if you are willing to do the digging yourself - go here [...] and read up on how to add free channels even though Roku hasn't approved them.
Another annoyance of mine is the simple-dimple remote that Roku gives you - it really doesn't do much of anything! Maybe it's me, and maybe I'm just dumb, but I'd love to find a way to have a remote that both controls Roku and controls the volume too. I've tried to program my TV remote to include Roku - Nope! And the Roku has so few controls that I'm actually using three remotes when I have to switch from Roku to TV (The Direct DVR and the Vizio TV can't sync either). If anyone knows how to go about syncing these remotes, I'd love to know.
As I said above, I really do like my Roku device - but it could be so much more enjoyable ..., especially if they'd cut a deal with the NFL, and begin doing college football - then I'd stop paying Direct $80 a month! Tell me again why we're paying Direct $80 a month.
| Brand Name | Roku |
|---|---|
| Item Weight | 7.2 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 4.9 x 4.9 x 1.2 inches |
| Item model number | 2050X |
| Batteries | 2 AA batteries required. (included) |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Color Name | Black |
