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This Tiny Roku Stick Hides Behind Your TV and Does Everything

When a bulky streaming box just won’t cut it (when you’re cutting the cord).

By Matt Jancer | Reviewed by Ysolt Usigan

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Cutting the cord—you know, ditching cable or satellite TV—is a relief because it frees you not just from contracts but it also frees you from having to find a space for a big, honkin’, ugly set top box that lives underneath or nearby your TV.

Streaming boxes free you from the contracts and open up your viewing not just to the many streaming channels (Netflix, HBO Max, Criterion, Hulu, and Curiosity Stream, to name a few), but live TV, too. You don’t have to run a long cable through your room to your cable internet hookup or satellite dish, but you still have a box taking up room, albeit a small one.

A streaming stick solves that problem by plugging directly into your TV’s HDMI port. You don’t even have to find a way to hide it. It’s hidden behind the TV by design. Of all the streaming sticks out there, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is the best I’ve used. It’s not the fastest, and it’s certainly not the cheapest, but it packages up the best elements of streaming television into one svelte device not much larger than a Snickers bar.

TL;DR – My Quick Verdict

The Roku Streaming Stick 4K may indeed be the best streaming stick on the market, but I’d only recommend it to somebody who can’t make use of a streaming box; those devices that sit separately and away from TV, connected by a cable rather than plugging directly into the back of the TV. The Roku Ultra 4K streaming box includes everything I like about the Streaming Stick 4K with faster performance, a wired internet option, a nicer remote, and support for better audio through Dolby Atmos.

Streaming Stick 4K (opens in a new window)

When I tested the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, I was also testing several competing streaming devices at the same time. I ran them all through a TCL QM7, a 55-inch 4K TV with support for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision; it’s the immediate predecessor of the TCL QM7K. I paired it with a Sonos Arc Ultra soundbar (via the TCL’s HDMI eARC port) and Sonos Sub 4 subwoofer. The same high-speed Verizon FIOS fiber-optic internet was used for the internet connection on all devices. After setup, I did what I frequently do in my spare time anyway: I watched a bunch of movies (and a few TV shows) in the highest quality possible.

the roku streaming stick 4k at a glance

There’s no Ethernet port—WiFi streaming only—and although it supports Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10 premium video quality formats, it doesn’t support the Dolby Atmos premium audio format. It’s also not as fast as the Roku Ultra 4K, a bulkier but more-feature rich streaming box.

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