As with CES 2014, Roku’s 2015 Vegas outreach will skew heavily towards their TV partnerships. Last year, Roku introduced TCL and Hisense televisions with the Roku experience built right in (versus questionably successful “Roku Ready” MHL-like stick accessorizing). Indeed, I found the end product so compelling that I ordered two 40″ sets for Mom (review to come). And, apparently, I’m not the only one enamored with Roku’s boxless design as two new manufacturers have joined the fray. While Haier televisions aren’t so interesting, Best Buy is also unveiling a line of Insignia Roku TV models… which we fully expect will outsell and outperform the largely forgotten TiVo TV.
As so many televisions incorporate “Smart TV” capabilities these days, you may as well choose a decent one (to use until feature obsolescence, anyway). And the Roku platform certainly exceeds all others in app selection, even if it may lag the Samsung Smart Hub in regards to advanced functionality like DLNA. As to me, my new (but maybe soon-to-be-former) Vizio television runs the Yahoo TV platform… with not enough apps and limited smartphone interface. Fortunately, Roku 3 remains our go-to streamer, perhaps emphasizing the benefit of dedicated hardware.