Roku is revamping its product suite for Americans with its smallest streaming sticks ever and a new lineup of Roku TVs for 2025, in addition to some nice new features in its iconic TV operating system software.
The newly announced Roku Streaming Stick and Roku Streaming Stick Plus devices are said to be 35% smaller than the company’s existing models, as well as rival offerings such as Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks. The company says it’s making them smaller due to its own research, which found that the vast majority of consumers want a more streamlined product that’s barely noticeable once it’s plugged into the back of their TV.
The new sticks are also very inexpensive, with the new Streaming Stick entry-level model priced at just $30 for those who can make do with HD resolution. As for the Streaming Stick Plus, this will cost $40, with the extra cash getting you support for 4K resolution and HDR capabilities, in addition to the usual streaming smarts.
According to Roku, the new streaming sticks will start shipping on May 6, but they're available to preorder now from its website.
Roku offers a whole bunch of different streaming sticks and its lineup was fairly confusing, with names like the Roku Express, Roku Express 4K Plus and Roku Streaming Stick 4K, making it unclear what the differences are. Hopefully, the new names will simplify things for consumers when they replace the first two models in its lineup, which will continue to be sold while stocks of the sticks last.
The company added that it will continue to sell its more expensive streamers, the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K, which comes with Dolby Vision HDR (as opposed to just HDR10 and HLG on the new Streaming Stick Plus), and the higher-end $100 Roku Ultra Box.
The two new sticks are joined by three new Roku TVs for 2025, namely the Roku Select, Roku Plus and Roku Pro.
The latter two models both feature Mini-LED backlights that should ensure more realistic pictures, while the entry-level Roku Select model is a regular LCD TV without the backlights, though it is available in the widest range of sizes.
Last year’s Roku Pro TV also came with a Mini-LED panel so this is not a new feature, but the 2025 version is said to have twice the contrast of last year’s model, which it replaces, as well as an improved Smart Picture technology that enables scene-by-scene picture adjustments.
The Roku Plus TV gets a Mini-LED backlight for the first time, leading to significantly greater brightness compared to the 2024 Roku Plus. The company also touts an improved processor that ensures faster app launch times and a beefier 2.1-channel sound system.
As for the Roku Select, the updates are much less significant, but it does come in a wider range of sizes, with the smallest model starting at 32-inches and the biggest maxing out at 85-inches. Last year’s biggest Roku Select TV was just 75-inches.
To be honest, none of the Roku TVs can be described as high-end models, and the overall picture and sound quality is likely to fall well short of the latest and greatest new OLED TVs, such as Samsung’s S95F and LG Electronics’ G5 OLED TVs. But their much lower price points and the integrated Roku OS experience should make them decent mid-range and entry-level options.
The company didn’t say when the TVs will launch, promising more information “soon”.
Perhaps the most exciting news from Roku today was not about its Sticks or TVs, but rather its future plans for Roku projectors. The company said it’s releasing a Roku TV Smart Projector reference design for third-party manufacturers, in case they want to build a projector based on Roku OS.
Roku did something similar before, releasing a reference design for its TV partners, such as TCL and Hisense. It’s essentially just a blueprint that details how to build a projector with the ideal specifications for the Roku operating system. The company said little else, but the announcement should pave the way for projectors running Roku OS, similar to how there are already numerous models that come with the Android TV and Google TV operating systems.
Roku promised an update “soon”, so hopefully we’ll see the first Roku projectors launch later this year.
Roku also announced some updates to its iconic operating system, with the latest version of Roku OS set to get more content discovery features, personalised sports highlights, a new “Coming Soon to Theatres” row that features upcoming Hollywood blockbusters, plus a Daily Trivia quiz.
The Roku OS software is widely regarded as one of the best TV software platforms around, enabling viewers to stream content from hundreds of sources and watch tons of free content on the Roku Channel. However, viewers are growing increasingly concerned about ads infesting the platform.
Roku's biggest market is the U.S. and the new products are all destined for that market, so it's not clear if we'll see them land in Europe later this year.
