Roku Ultra: Does This $90 Streaming Box Deliver?

Summary

Despite widespread recommendations, a recent test found the Roku Ultra streaming box to be a disappointment, underperforming even cheaper alternatives. While the hardware design is sleek with useful ports, the user interface is a major drawback, heavily featuring unremovable ads and offering minimal customization, mirroring the experience of the much cheaper Roku stick. Performance is also sluggish, feeling slower than competitors like the Apple TV 4K and the $40 Onn box. A key issue is its limited support for CEC, the feature allowing control with your TV remote, forcing users to juggle remotes for different inputs. Video quality, while supporting HDR, struggles with various subtitle formats, transcoding files to lower quality, similar to a smart TV's native apps. Ultimately, the reviewer concludes that for its price, the Roku Ultra offers a worse experience with more ads and lower quality video compared to options like the Onn box or a used Apple TV, failing to justify its cost.