Roku 2

As promised from my Roku 3 review I am now writing my review on the Roku 2. After purchasing the Roku 3 I was so pleased that I went to get a second one. At the time I was using the Roku 3 in the living room and I had a WD Live TV box in my bedroom (I will do a write up on why I will not recommend that product to anyone later). Given the advantage of having the headphones in the Roku 3, which I discuss here, made it an excellent candidate for the bedroom, which meant I needed to replace the one in the living room.

As is my nature I started shopping around for deals. During that time I was reminded of the price difference between the Roku 3 and the Roku 2. I purchased mine from Best Buy but I encourage you to seek out deals from other stores as well (Amazon). I naturally started considering the feature enhancements that come with the Roku 3 and whether or not I truly needed them in the living room. I am after all a firm believer that it doesn’t make sense to spend money on things you do not presently or can not foresee needing. Needless to say I decided I did not need the headphones in the living room and therefore the Roku 2 was a satisfactory decision.

First, I would like to point out that the Roku 2 offers the same great quality and functionality as the Roku 3 (minus the bells and whistles). The first thing that stood out to me when I opened the package was that the remote was different. The Roku 2 has an infrared remote instead of the NFC (near field communication) remote that comes with the Roku 3. This was a duh moment for me because if you remove the need for headphones there is no sense in having the extra hardware in the remote. This also really was not that big of a deal for me since you can also download an app to your smartphone to control any Roku player if you don’t want to use the remotes at all. All it did mean is that you have to actually point the remote at the Roku box to control it (oh my… the horror! I know… hahaha). For those who remember the days when changing the channel required getting up and turning the knob this is probably even less of a big deal.

Outside of lacking the headphones and advanced remote control the Roku 2 and Roku 3 are very similar and I would even dare to say identical. I’m sure there are hardware differences on the inside but functionally and performance wise they are the same. The Roku 2 has become a welcome addition to our home and it was an even more exciting day because it allowed me to retire the WD Live TV box, which caused nothing but headaches.

That is all I have. Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions and continue the discussion.

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Welcome to my blog!

Hello and welcome to my first of what are intended to be many blog posts. I grew up in the age of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), MySpace (though I never had an account), and Windows98. I like to think that I experienced the initial phases of the technology boom that not only our country underwent but the world. This is when PCs were starting to enter every home and having a 3 GB hard drive was equivalent to 500 GB today.

I have always been a very analytical thinker. I love researching for the sake of learning and finding the best of the best for the right price. Last, I really enjoy tinkering with electronics. When I was younger my mother came home and found me staring at a pile of miscellaneous parts and when she inquired what I was looking at I responded, “my watch.”

Any time my family has questions or needs advice in regards to computer hardware, software, or other digital devices I tend to be the go to guy. I figured that at this point it would only make sense that I start blogging about the very things that I am sharing with them in regards to my understanding of technology and what is the best of the best while still being competitively priced. My hopes are that I will be able to provide people with an honest non-biased overview on different forms of technology and why and/or how they may be able to satisfy the very need that brought them to my blog in the first place.

Also, I am a firm believer that my opinions and decisions are not the be-all-end-all to the decision making process. So, I look forward to hearing what other people have to say and am very excited to see what may become of this blog. So, here is to the start of a wonderful journey for all who care to join and I hope you become informed and enjoy reading what I have to offer.

Regards,

TJ

Roku 3

The first item I would like to offer a review on is the Roku 3. I personally own a Roku 2 and Roku 3. What led me to want to purchase the Roku 3 or a similar device is probably the same reason you are reading this review now. I feel that cable companies (Optimum, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.) over charge and under deliver for their service. I also have a server at my home that contains quite a bit of data on it and I was looking for a way to stream pictures, music, and personal videos to my TV. Last, I was interested in having a device that would turn my TV into a “smart TV.”

During my searching I came across a variety of options and narrowed it down to Google Chromecast, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Roku. I ultimately settled on the Roku for a number of reasons. There will be another blog where I will go into detail the differences I found between each of the above devices and why I ultimately decided on the Roku 3. The purpose of this post is instead to discuss what my thoughts are on the Roku 3.

Roku offers a variety of products (Roku Streaming Stick, Roku 1 – 4) each offering a variety of features and in my opinion all reasonably priced. This is the part where I get very honest. While I love my Roku 3, the only reason I chose it over the Roku 2 was because I got it for only $10 more. If I had to pay the true difference (currently $20) I may not have pulled the trigger on the Roku 3. I purchased my Roku 3 (and Roku 2) from Best Buy but you can also get it from Amazon. They will from time to time offer some really good discounts. So, I encourage you to check them out from time to time. The reason I may not have spent the extra $20 was because the only difference that I was able to discern, when purchasing, was that the Roku 3 came with headphones that you could plug into the remote, which did not strike me as a worthwhile $20 upgrade. WOW WAS I WRONG!

Now, besides the headphone feature I also found out that the remote does not have to be pointed at the Roku base station to operate it. In hindsight this is a bit of a “duh” because in order for the headphones to work information needs to be communicated between the remote and the base station and it would be very inconvenient if the only way to accomplish this was to have the remote continuously pointing at the base station.

The Remote

The reason I personally enjoy having the remote that comes with the Roku 3 is because it means I do not need the IR (infrared) sensor pointing at the base station. This is convenient because if you are like me you like to have a clean setup (minimal wires and minimal devices to stare at). In addition to that my wife is a very light sleeper and claims that the LED light on the front of the Roku wakes her up. True or not, its a non-issue with the Roku 3 because I can tuck it behind the dresser and everyone is happy!

The Headphones

As I mentioned before I did not think the headphones were worthy of a $20 upgrade. However, now that I have them, I do not know what I would do without them. It is very convenient to have these when I am trying to watch a show or listen to audio and my wife is either working on her school work or trying to sleep. I don’t know about you but I used to try and turn the volume down so that it wouldn’t disturb her but I could still watch. This was probably the worst idea I ever came up with because I couldn’t hear a thing and it would wake her before I could get it loud enough to enjoy whatever I was trying to watch.

Something else that I really enjoy about the Roku is that it isn’t proprietary (they aren’t in bed with anyone in particular like the Chromecast, Firestick, and Apple TV). So, I felt that as technology moved forward there was a better chance that Roku would continue to evolve and adapt to an ever changing market without limitations.

In the end I would strongly recommend the Roku 3 or Roku 2 (review to come) to anyone who was looking to enhance their home entertainment experience without paying costly prices for cable.