Windows 8.1, Ricoh Theta, Pentax K

Roku player is everything that it advertised. When the description says you will be up and running in just a few minutes, you can believe it. I opened the box and plugged in the power cord. I took a gamble and did not directly attach it to my router. (Linksys WR42G) I wanted to see if it saw my network. I turned everything on and immediately saw the set-up screen for the Roku player. This initial set-up and test (including connecting to my wireless network) took no more than 10 minutes. After that, I was ready to start watching.

Remote is the stellar feature which has a headphone jack with volume buttons for private listening experience. You have to plug-in the audio jack, as soon as you do it the TV becomes mute and you can listen all the sounds via headphones. Volume control buttons on the left side of remote can adjust the volume. Another cool feature is that you can leave the TV volume un affected if you enter the personal listening mode. The remote is connected through WiFI Direct which means you don’t need to point it to the box if you need to change something.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of earbuds - and even less of the ones that typically come packaged with consumer electronic devices. The earbuds that come with the Roku 3 are really no exception. If you're a fan of the format, you may not mind the fit or the sound quality. In fact, you'll probably appreciate being able to get horizontal with this set and not worry about the cost after you roll over and/or drool on them in the middle of the night. However, I'm a stickler when it comes to things that I strap on my face or stick in my ears.

The remote is probably the biggest difference with the 3 over previous Roku generations. It may not seem like a big thing that it’s RF, but this is a fantastic boon to usability. You don’t need to point the remote at the device, meaning you can mount it wherever you want. Flip the remote sideways, and it’s a controller for a bevy of casual games (like Angry Birds). Even cooler, there’s a remote jack on the side, so you can stream the audio from your chosen video directly to the remote, keeping the peace with your spouse or roommate.

My initial rating was 4 stars due to the lack of YouTube. After a few days with [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTevEGpsvxY roku 3] I upgraded it to a 5-star. I still wish Roku supported YouTube natively but the lack of it is mitigated by the major improvements this new Roku has over its predecessors. Amazon's reviewing guideline suggests that 5 stars means "I love it" and I absolutely do love Roku 3. Indeed, I can easily switch to my PS3 or Blu-ray player if I wanted to watch YouTube but there's no other device with such a great selection of channels and the better, faster user interface alone is worth one extra star.

We'd like to see Roku do more to become an entertainment hub / extender with cloud-based games or more apps that tie into pay-TV services like Comcast or DirecTV. It's already made strides in that direction with channels like TWC TV and HBO Go, plus a few games / apps, and it feels like the platform has a considerable amount of headroom going forward. It's greedy, sure, but many with a Roku can envision a future where it's the only box connected to their TVs, and the software hasn't quite brought it there yet. The competition