Roku First Impressions

It's much better than the vastly more expensive Samsung P.O.S. I had before. For one thing, streaming video actually works. When I select a video to stream, it comes up on the screen and I can watch it. That's a big difference from the Samsung, where instead of getting to watch the video, I had to watch the download bar interrupt the video every 30 seconds. Like, really, every thirty seconds. After testing, I found out the Samsung was only using about half my available bandwidth, and that was on a good day.

Roku's Netflix interface is vastly superior as well. Netflix on the Samsung was OK, I could access my queue; and aside from the fact that I couldn't watch anything without wanting to chew my own arm off, the interface itself was OK.

Roku's Netflix interface, on the other hand, is more than just "OK". It's very cool. I can access my queue, but I can also search for videos and see lots of lists of recommendations; all organized in a vast two-dimensional grid, where each row is a different type of recommendation. It's actually better than Netflix's own recommendation interface.

One problem I encountered with the Roku - I can't give it its own IP address. It requires DHCP. Which means I can't run a cable directly from the Roku box to the hub that sits by my DSL modem; I have to either connect wirelessly or run a cable to my wireless modem.

That's a drawback, and it's something the Samsung device actually let me do. The reason I did it with the Samsung was because I was trying to find something, anything, I could do to increase the bandwidth and maybe get rid of that stupid status bar every 30 seconds. Giving the Samsung a static IP didn't help; but at least it let me have that one additional way to beat my head against the wall. Roku doesn't have that.

Roku also has a neat content selection option, where you can sign up for what it calls "channels", which are just free and for-pay online media. The selection process for the various channels is pretty clunky, and could be vastly improved; but the services are nice. I signed up for all the free ones, which included some neat news sources; and apparently there'll be new channels available over time. Of course that's not necessarily Roku-specific, but they provide it and it works. Now I can watch Rachel Maddow on my wall instead of my computer screen.

Anyway, bottom line, Samsung sucks ass; Roku kicks butt.