All-in-one smart TVs may have won the streaming war, but there’s still very much a place for the better streaming sticks in your entertainment life. The Roku Streaming Stick Plus might be the best and more reliable 4K stick on the market, especially now that it has dropped back to its old price of just $37 at Amazon.
The Stick Plus outputs 4K with HDR10+ support, covering the full range of HDR formats you will encounter on most streaming services. Some sticks at this price top out at standard HDR10 without the scene-by-scene brightness metadata that HDR10+ adds; the Stick Plus does not cut that corner. It also powers directly from your TV’s HDMI port using a USB-A cable, with no wall outlet required in most setups. You end up with one less cord routed to a power strip, and the stick that stays flush in the back of the panel.
Smaller Than Small
The ultra-compact Stick Plus is narrow enough that it will not block neighboring HDMI ports, which matters on TVs where the ports sit close together. Setup takes a few minutes: plug into HDMI, run the USB power cable, connect to Wi-Fi, and you are through to the Roku home screen. The remote pairs automatically and handles TV power, volume, and mute via HDMI-CEC, so you can drop the TV’s own remote for day-to-day use.
Voice search works through the remote’s built-in microphone rather than requiring a separate smart speaker. Searching across services simultaneously, rather than checking each app individually, is more useful in practice than it sounds. Subscription management runs through a single Roku account, covering sign-up, cancellation, and renewal for Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+, and more than 70 other services in one place. The Stick Plus also travels: Plug it into any HDTV’s HDMI port, connect to Wi-Fi, and your full setup follows without needing to access someone else’s account.
Can’t Beat Free
Don’t sleep on the free content library that the Stick Plus brings to whatever TV you plug it into. The Roku Channel aggregates free ad-supported content across live TV, news, sports, and on-demand titles without any subscription. Local news streams live in a number of markets. The home screen surfaces personalized picks based on viewing history and provides quick access to sports and entertainment categories. Compared to streamers that funnel you toward paid apps first, the free-first presentation is something you notice after a week of use.
There may be more capable Roku streamers — the Ultra adds Ethernet, a headphone jack, and a lost remote finder — but the $37 Amazon price tag makes the Stick Plus the ideal solution for travel or older non-smart TVs. If 4K and HDR10+ on a simple, low-clutter setup is what you need, the Stick Plus delivers that at a price that leaves little to second-guess.
