Planning to buy something that can stream videos from Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, Hulu, etc? But stuck on what you should buy, Roku or Amazon Fire-stick? Then this article will make you take a wise decision about what to buy according to your needs.
Firestick vs Roku Comparison 2020
Here, we are going to discuss what these two streaming platforms are and will compare the similarities and dissimilarities between them.
Amazon Fire-Stick
Amazon Fire Stick was released on Nov 19, 2014, as a smaller version of the Fire TV Stick. It has a dongle form factor that plugs into an HDMI port and maintains the functionality of the larger Fire TV. It has got two generations. One which does not have a voice search and the other comes with an Alexa Voice Remote.
The specs of Amazon Firestick is given as follows
First Generation-
- 1 Gb Ram
- 8 Gb of internal Storage
- 1.0 GHz Cortex A-9 processor
- Broadcom Video core IV GPU
- Dual wifi band
- Bluetooth 3.0
The second-generation specs are as follows
- 1 Gb Ram
- 8 Gb of internal Storage
- 1.3 GHz processor
- Mali 450 GPU
- Dual-Band wifi
- Bluetooth 4.1
Another version of Fire Stick TV was the Fire TV Stick 4k
Specs are as follows-
- 1.7 quad-core processor
- 1.5 Gb DDR4 Ram
- 8 Gb of internal Storage
- s 4k
- HDR 10+
- Dolby vision
- Dolby Atmos
- Hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 decoding
- Bluetooth 5.0
The Firestick first came with Fire OS 3.0 which was based on Android Jelly Bean 4.2. Then it switched to Fire OS 5.0 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop and then Fire OS 6 based on Android 7.1 for the 4k version
Roku
Roku players are a series of online media players manufactured by the American company Roku, Inc. They provide over the top media services in the form of channels. It receives data via a wired or wi-fi connection. The data is output via an audio cable or HDMI port.
Roku announced the first Netflix Internet video streaming receiver box on May 20, 2008. The device ran on Linux.
At start Roku SD, HD and HD-XR were released which streamed 480i, 480i & 480p and & 720p content.
Specs of the Roku
- 256mb Memory
- 256 Mb storage
- BCM 600Mhz processor
The 1st and second versions of Roku were pretty basic but the third generation contained a faster processor and a wifi-direct remote instead of Bluetooth which also included a headphone jack.
The 4th generation of Roku TV had 4k streaming capability and Roku OS 7.
The 8th generation of Roku has the best specs and was released on 19 Sept 2019.
Comparison between Amazon Fire Stick and Roku
So you might be confused between these two streaming devices. This comparison will provide a better insight on what to buy
Price
Amazon Fire-Stick – $44 approx
Roku- $30 approx
Accessibility
Both streaming devices have access to approximately plenty of TV apps, including all of the major ones.
Responsiveness
Both Roku and Fire TV are super responsible and reliable with a strong internet connection
Remote
Both Roku and Fire TV have offer TV volume and power buttons to control most TV’s
Compatibility
All the newer models of Roku and Fire-Stick can stream up to 4K videos with voice and headphone jacks built into the remote.
Interface
Amazon has a more polished and modern interface whereas Roku’s interface is more customizable.
Firestick
Roku
Screen Mirroring
Roku has a mirror technology known as Miracast. It is a wireless version of an HDMI cable.
But surprisingly in Amazon Fire Stick models, mirroring only exists in older versions. The newest versions do not have the mirroring feature.
Shows and Movies
Roku is the best streaming device that has every on-demand video and streaming applications. It also offers a vast library of private channels
Whereas in Amazon Fire-Stick, the lack of a YouTube app is a big disaster. But you can easily access YouTube via a browser. But other streaming platforms are easily accessible
Hulu vs Firestick: Winner?
So, this will be totally according to your needs.
If the price is a factor, then Roku remains the first choice for you as Roku is fairly cheap than Amazon Fire-Stick. It will be chosen for a bare- bone streamer.
And feature-wise, Amazon Fire-Stick has the upper hand as it offers better features like voice remote, Alexa compatibility, voice remote. Also Amazon Fire- Stick sometimes can be of $30 in the sale, so watch out for the best time to buy.
Conclusion
I hope this article was beneficial to you and you have successfully decided what to buy. If you have any doubts regarding the information provided, feel free to comment down below. Your is valuable to us and we will get to it as soon as possible.