The Ultra is Roku's top-of-the-line media streamer, packing 4K and HDR support and all of the company's powerful and unique features into a single box. At $99.99 it's Roku's priciest model, and the company now offers 4K streaming for less with the $70 Streaming Stick+. The $30 difference here gets you wired connection options and a headphone jack on the remote. It's a worthwhile upgrade for some, though the Streaming Stick+ is equally appealing and can save you a bit of money.

Design

The latest Roku Ultra is physically identical to the previous model. It's a plastic slab measuring 0.8 by 5.9 by 5.9 inches (HWD), with curved, glossy black sides and a flat, matte black top. The top panel features a shiny black Roku logo and a small button shaped like the included remote, which activates the Remote Finder feature and causes the remote to make an audible tone. A USB port sits on the right, opposite Roku's signature purple fabric tag on the left. The back of the Ultra holds an HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and a power connector. A small white indicator light on the right side of the front shows when the box is on.

The USB and Ethernet ports present the biggest advantages over the smaller, less expensive Roku Streaming Stick+. While we were impressed by the Stick+'s performance in streaming 4K HDR content over Wi-Fi thanks to its new antenna array, we still recommend using a wired network connection whenever possible to ensure the best quality. The USB port, meanwhile, lets you play content from a connected USB drive. Since the Streaming Stick+ doesn't have an Ethernet port, and its mini USB port is used for power, the Ultra is the only current Roku device with those connection options.

Remote

Roku has added all of its bells and whistles to the Ultra's remote, just like it did with last year's model. The remote is a candy bar-shaped matte black wand with a prominent purple direction pad near the top and a purple fabric tag on the bottom. Besides the standard menu navigation and playback controls, the remote features dedicated service buttons for accessing HBO Now, Hulu, Netflix, and Sling TV. It also incorporates motion sensors, and has A and B buttons near the bottom end that let you turn it sideways and use it as a gamepad for certain games available on the Roku Channel Store (though we generally find the gaming experience on most media hubs to be markedly inferior to dedicated game consoles and mobile devices).

A headphone jack sits on the left side of the remote, enabling one of our favorite Roku features: private listening. If you plug in the included earphones or use your own, the Roku Ultra automatically mutes the audio going to the TV and streams it through the remote instead. This is very useful if you want to watch something without disturbing anyone. Private listening is available on other Roku devices with the Roku app, using your smartphone or tablet in the same way, but the remote is more convenient to use.

A pinhole microphone near the top of the remote is for the Ultra's voice search feature, though currently it only lets you look up content and apps through Roku. It's a step behind voice assistants like Alexa on the Amazon Fire TV, Google Assistant on the Nvidia Shield TV, and Siri on the Apple TV 4K, all of which can provide useful information and even control smart home devices. The remote also features a small speaker that will generate a tone to help you find it when you press the aforementioned Remote Finder button on the Ultra itself.

Roku has taught its remotes a new trick for 2017. The Ultra will automatically detect your TV over HDMI and program the remote with the correct infrared commands to control the TV's power and volume. It's very limited functionality, but it lets you turn your TV on and off and adjust the volume without reaching for your TV remote, and makes the Roku viewing experience that much more convenient.

Like all other Roku devices, you can also control the Ultra through the Roku app for Android and iOS. It provides menu navigation controls, text input, voice search, private listening, and even lets you stream content from your mobile device using the Play On Roku feature.

Roku Channel Store

Roku remains one of the most robust platforms for streaming apps and services to a TV, with a Channel Store that covers nearly all of the big names in movies, music, and TV shows. You can find Amazon, Crunchyroll, DirecTV Now, Google Play Movies & Music, Hulu, Netflix, Sling, Spotify, YouTube, and Vudu among some of the more prominent services, along with hundreds of topic, genre, and regional apps covering health, news, sports, technology, and nearly anything else. The only major service missing is iTunes, which Apple typically keeps strictly on the Apple TV.

Streaming Compatibility and Performance

The Roku Ultra is a 4K media streamer, sharing the same video output capabilities as the Streaming Stick+. It supports high dynamic range (HDR) content using the HDR10 standard. HDR increases the range of brightness and color that each pixel is capable of showing, and can look stunning on a TV that supports it. However, HDR10 is just one of two streaming HDR standards, and the other one, Dolby Vision, isn't supported by the Ultra.

Some streaming services offer HDR10 content, but Dolby Vision has been embraced by Netflix and Vudu for many HDR releases, which means you can only stream them using standard dynamic range video. Currently the Apple TV 4K and Google Chromecast Ultra both support Dolby Vision, though the Amazon Fire TV is HDR10-only, like the Rokus.

I watched an episode of The Man in the High Castle on Amazon in 4K using the Roku Ultra. The network connection seemed slightly more sluggish than on the Streaming Stick+, but it was also a bit sluggish with a wired connection, so the issue could simply have been network congestion in our test lab at the time. The episode initially appeared very low-fidelity and full of artifacts, but after about ten seconds the stream updated to match the available bandwidth and I saw a crisp 4K picture.

Outside of media playback, the Roku Ultra is very quick and responsive. Menu navigation is instantaneous, and switching between apps only takes a few seconds. The performance is comparable with the Streaming Stick+, which shares most of the Ultra's features.

Conclusions

The Roku Ultra is a capable, full-featured media hub, but the Streaming Stick+ presents just as good a value. The Ultra's larger price tag and design get you an Ethernet port, a USB port, a headphone jack in the remote, and the ability to make the remote beep when you can't find it. Those are reasonable extras for the additional $30, but they aren't necessary for everyone. The lack of Dolby Vision is the Ultra's biggest weakness, just like with the Streaming Stick+, but that's only an issue for certain services, and only if you have a TV that supports Dolby Vision. Otherwise it's a missing feature you wouldn't be using anyway.

For the broadest HDR support and the lowest price, the Google Chromecast Ultra is currently the best deal. It completely lacks a remote or on-screen menu system, however, and can be hard for less tech-savvy users to wrap their heads around. In the other direction, the Apple TV 4K and Nvidia Shield TV are both incredibly full-featured systems that support both HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and the former can access iTunes' massive media library while the latter has the benefit of extensive gaming features. They're also much more expensive, at $180 and $200 respectively. For the price, both the Roku Ultra and Roku Sreaming Stick+ are solid 4K media hubs, and either one can easily suit your streaming needs.

Roku Ultra (2017) 4.0 See It $98.00 at Amazon MSRP $99.99 Pros Lots of streaming apps and services.

Wired network connections.

Headphone jack in the remote. Cons No Dolby Vision support.

Voice search is very limited. The Bottom Line Roku's top-end 4K media streaming box, the Ultra, is packed full of handy features, but whether they're worth the $100 price depends on your viewing needs. For many, the $70 Streaming Stick+ will be just fine.

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