Jun 27, 2013

Roku 2 series Snap review

Although the Roku 2 series media players are smaller and cost less than their predecessors, they’re jam-packed with multimedia apps, offer multiple A/V outputs along with microSD and USB expansion, and are significantly less power-thirsty.


Pros and cons…

Pros:
  • Over 300 content channels and growing, including all four top VOD sources: Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, and Hulu Plus.
  • Extremely easy to setup and use.
  • Rock-solid stability.
  • Low power consumption, fanless, and silent.
  • Extremely compact.
  • The presence of composite video lets this device support older TVs.
  • Top-end model includes “casual gaming” capabilities.
  • Top-end models have non-directional RF remote option.
Cons:
  • Lacks support for playing media from Windows (samba) and UPnP shares; the third-party apps tend to require proprietary servers (or in one case a webserver) to be installed on the PC or Mac side.
  • Roku’s 1D menu system can’t provide quick-and-easy access to more than a handful of the 300+ available channels; Netgear’s NeoTV approach, though still simple, works far better.
  • Lacks AirPlay rendering.
  • Lacks web browsing, whereby users could stream specific URLs or view web pages.

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