Roku’s $50 Streaming Stick 4K has been considered one of our favourite units for years. It’s low cost, pocketable and has nearly each function you’d need in a streaming gadget. This 12 months, Roku is lastly including a long-awaited function to its new 4K stick: Dolby Vision HDR. That’s one thing the Roku Ultra began supporting final 12 months, and it is a significantly massive deal for residence theater followers. Additionally, the brand new Streaming Stick 4K boots up round 30 p.c sooner than earlier than, and its revamped wi-fi receiver makes Wi-Fi speeds as much as twice as quick, in accordance with Roku.

Like the HDR10 format, Dolby Vision permits for increased peak brightness ranges and extra nuanced darkish scenes. But it will possibly additionally achieve this dynamically, tweaking its distinction and brightness ranges for each particular person body in a movie or TV present. That’s one thing HDR10 cannot do, although it is since been added to the newer HDR10+ format, which the brand new 4K streaming stick additionally helps. There’s much more Dolby Vision content material on the market right now, although, so I’d wager most individuals can be extra excited for Dolby Vision than HDR10+ assist.

While the 4K streaming stick ships with Roku’s normal voice distant, you too can go for the $70 Streaming Stick 4K+ bundle, which packs within the firm’s new Voice Remote Pro. Normally a $30 improve, that smarter clicker provides hands-free voice looking (as a substitute of hitting a button), in addition to a chargeable battery. And if you happen to’re on the lookout for one thing a bit extra highly effective, the $80 Wal-Mart unique Roku Ultra LT can be getting Dolby Vision, a sooner processor and higher Wi-Fi this 12 months.

For most individuals, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is probably going all of the streaming participant you want. You can get sooner speeds and extra connectivity with the $100 Roku Ultra, or a nicer interface and sport ecosystem with the $179 Apple TV 4K. But with regards to simply streaming video in the very best codecs, there’s little have to spend greater than $50. You’ll have the ability to discover the brand new Roku Streaming Stick 4K someday mid-October within the US, and within the coming months throughout Canada, Mexico and