Roku LT Streaming Player Price Review

420 of 443 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars Review for the Roku LT Streaming Media Player, November 10, 2011
By Cantatta See all my reviews This review is from: Roku LT Streaming Player (Electronics) This is a review of the newest addition to the Roku streaming media player line up, the Roku LT, of which I was given a unit to test and evaluate by Roku. I’m the owner of some number of variants of Roku players, so I have lots of experience using these great devices. Included in my stable of Roku players is the original “PICO” player, of which I bought one of the 1st two thousand units sold in the US. I also own a 2nd generation XDS player, also as a third generation Roku2 XS, the top of the line unit at the time of this writing. I have been happy with each new Roku player and am happy to have been asked to review the new addition to their lineup.

The Roku2 players are compact, being about the size and form of a hockey puck. The LT shares the same new housing and having such a small footprint means not having to worry about finding space for still another home theater device. The Roku LT will fit just about anywhere. Also, they use little power, which is a good thing, as the unit remains powered on as long as the power pack is plugged in. There’s no power switch on any model Roku player, so if you like to turn your unit off, you’ll have to think about using a switched outlet, like a power strip. I use the switched power outlet on the back of my home theater amplifier. When the amp is powered down, the Roku player is powered down.

When you open the box, you’re greeted with a packaged Roku LT player and accessories, as well as a remote control (2 AA batteries included), a power pack and an analog stereo mini jack to RCA cable for connecting the unit to your TV. But, I recommend using an HDMI cable, which is supported by all variants of Roku player. Using HDMI gives the best video (720p HD on the LT), also as surround sound. Using the RCA cable only gives standard meaning video and stereo sound. You’ll also find the standard warranty info (90 days) and warning info in a small pamphlet.

The Roku LT is the most basic unit offered by Roku, so many of the bells and whistles found on other Roku players aren’t available on the LT. For example, the LT only supports wireless connection to your home network, it has no Ethernet port. You will not find a USB port on the LT, either, so you can not view pictures or listen to MP3s on this unit like you may be able to many of the other models. For details on which Roku units supply which alternatives, interested readers should visit the Roku web site.

Setting up the Roku LT is easy, with step by step information provided on screen, also as a complete instruction booklet that also will include troubleshooting and contact info, if you experience any problems. Simply connect the unit to your TV using the provided RCA cable or an HDMI cable, and plug in the power pack. The Roku LT takes about a minute to boot up, at which time you’ll be presented with the 1st configuration screen. The 1st thing you must do is connect to your home network via wireless Internet. Once connected to your wireless network, you’ll be prompted to register the unit to your Roku account. If you do not have a Roku account still, you’ll have to go to the Roku web site and create a new account. Once you have a Roku account and you register the unit, you’ll be prompted to upgrade the unit’s software before you may be able to begin using it. This only takes some minutes, based on available bandwidth, after which the Roku LT will automatically reboot.

Once the unit reboots, you may want to be presented with the start menu, which will include a settings icon (more on this later), the Channel Store icon and an icon for the current highlight channel. You use the remote control to move around the menus. The remote has a big purple D pad, alike to a game pad, with an OK button in the center which you use to choose whatever is highlighted on the screen. There’s a Home button which returns you to the major menu from any channel. There’s also a left arrow key that will return you to the last screen. , there are Play/Pause, FFW and RWD buttons, and an choice button.

One of the best things about streaming movies or another video content is the capability to decide what you want to watch and when, also as to pause, FFW or RWD that content. The Roku remote for the LT is well made and works using IR. You may be able to use more than one remote with the same Roku player and Roku offers remote controls for sale individually on their web site, for those who could like to have more than one.

The Channel Store is equivalent to the Android Market or the app store for Apple merchandise. It will include channels that stream movies and TV shows, like Netflix, Crackle, and Hulu Plus. There are games, news and sports channels, with expertise channels for things like Anime, comic books, cooking, a NASA channel. Many of they are free, just add the channel to your player and it’ll appear on the major menu, or you may be able to now go to the selected channel and start looking at content. For channels that require a subscription fee, you’ll be given a code that must be entered on the Roku web site under your account, after you have made payment arrangements. For example, I’m a Netflix subscriber, but I also use sometimes to view new release movies. The difference is that Netflix requires a monthly payment for unlimited looking at, whereas lets you to “rent” a single title for some hours for a minimal, one time fee. New release movies on cost some dollars and you may be able to watch the title as many times as you want over a 24 48hr time period, usually. Netflix gives a big catalog of streaming titles, all of which may be viewed as frequently as you like with your paid subscription.

The settings menu gives many configuration alternatives, as well as audio, video, network and time. There’s also a screensaver that may help decrease the possibility of image burn in on your TV screen. I like to set my screensaver to show the current time, date and weather conditions. The default is a bouncing “ROKU” on a black background screen. You’ll also find an info screen that gives info on the Roku player, like current network settings, software variant and model number. There’s a Factory Reset choice on the settings menu, and if this choice can be used, the unit will be reset. When it reboots, it’ll ask you to register the unit, as if it was a brand new unit being setup for the 1st time. The factory reset won’t revert the software variant, just FYI. In the event the player locks up for any reason and you can not get to the settings menu, there’s a hard reset button on the back of the unit just above the power connector. A fast push on the button will make the unit reboot, but this isn’t the same as Factory Reset. Holding the reset button in for 45 60 seconds will cause the unit to Factory Reset, which is the same thing as using that choice on the settings menu. This info isn’t included in the troubleshooting info provided in the booklet that comes with the Roku LT.

While testing the LT for this review, I was happy to find that Roku automatically adds all the channels I’m already subscribed to after registration, free or otherwise. Note that you’ll have to supply your account info for channels that require monetary subscriptions. As for how the player works when streaming, I can say that the LT works also as any other Roku player. If you’re streaming a movie, TV show or music, it gives a smooth looking at or listening experience. The more bandwidth you have the better, and using a newer generation router (802.11 g/n) will make for easy integration with your home entertainment system. The Roku players will work with older routers, too (802.11b).

Another nice feature is that I can take my player from one TV to another and it works without a hitch. You may be able to take it with you to a friend’s house, on vacation, or just a different room in your home. This applies equally to all Roku media players. Of course, you’ll need wireless Internet access available at all times to do this with a Roku LT.

In summary, the Roku LT streaming media player is a nice entry level unit that gives lots of streaming alternatives. In comparison to the price of alike competing merchandise, the LT is easily the most cheap device on the market. It may not be the most feature rich device available, but it packs lots of entertainment value for the asking price. If you were interested in streaming media players but could not justify the cost till now, you’ll be hard pressed not to give the Roku LT a attempt. I hardily recommend it!

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234 of 255 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of five stars it is many of functionality for a reasonable price but with some drawbacks, November 11, 2011
By Steven R. Roth “AKA GeneralEclectic” (Bethlehem, PA USA) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) () This review is from: Roku LT Streaming Player (Electronics) For the most part, the initial reviews here are pretty much correct, so I am going to add just some observations that can be useful to others. Just, I like the little man quite many and it delivers many of value for not a heck of many of money. Otherwise:

The remote: Unlike many assertions that it uses RF communication (no line of sight necessary), the remote that came with the unit I just set up is common IR. This is a good thing if you’re planning to use it with most types of common remotes.

Wireless: it is Wireless “N” at 2.4GHz. I believe, this is a pretty poor design choice caused by the overwhelming crowding of the 2.4G band in many places. 5GHz “N” was around long enough that the hardware to implement it’s marginally, if at all, more costly than the lower frequency band. I suppose their excuse may be that “most people still use 2.4GHz” or “2.4GHz yields stronger signals in common houses”, but if you can not get ANY signal at all caused by crowding, these end up sounding pretty lame.

The physical box: it is small and light. It is SO light that majority (stiff) HDMI cables will push it around to where THEY want to put it, which isn’t essentially where YOU want to put it. So you may end up having to put a book or brick on it to hold it down. Or, search around for thin/limp HDMI cables. Such things do exist, but you must look for them. Because this supports only 720p resolution, the cool costly HDMI cables are a waste of money. Well, really, that is true for 1080p resolution, but that is another story. Just, cheap cables will work perfectly good.

Account setup I: here is one that was almost a show stopper for me. They need you to offer a credit card number to activate the box!!! Man, I FREAKIN’ HATE CRAP LIKE THAT! Sure, they assert that “we will not charge it unless. Blah blah blah.” but I am just waiting for the news item that goes something like “Roku site hacked and two million buyer credit card numbers have been stolen…” followed by the common “We’re sorry” (Yeah, right. Thanks many, you idiots.) email, followed by the common ritual of having to shut the stolen CC account and giving the new acct number to all the payees that use it for monthly charges. At least you may be able to block “accidental” charges by requiring that a 4 digit PIN be entered to authorize a CC charge. The bottom line here is that once having bought the device, there is NO defensible reason to require anybody to offer a live CC. This is sneaky, slimy, and abusive I believe and should be released in Big Red Letters in the “features” section of the product description.

Account setup II: Maybe I am just to get old and slow, but it took what I thought was many of fiddely annoying steps (aside from the obnoxious demand for a CC number) to get the box working. Ideally, it ought to be doable from the TV alone, as it was for my LG TV that has this functionality fitted. The LG took about 45 seconds to configure for Netflix. The Roku LT .. I am not sure. The setup procedure took a LONG time and many trips back and forth from TV to PC. Had I recognized that this was as clumsy as it’s, I’d have brought a laptop with me to the TV.

With all that considered, this is still a pretty good deal when you look at the big total of content that you may access.

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57 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of five stars Sweet! FYI remote via lacks three shortcut buttons, November 9, 2011
By K. Ryall (Boston, MA USA) See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) () This review is from: Roku LT Streaming Player (Electronics) New to Roku, so far love it. I debated which variant to purchase just as LT became available here on Amazon. Sweet! My only complaint (minor) is that the remote isn’t the ‘new’ one with three shortcut buttons. Roku buyer support claims you only get that variant if you purchase directly from Roku. He also said it is not available at their online store as an accessory. I wonder if that will change in the future? I was a tad sad but then read you can not remap those three buttons; at least for now they’re fixed. If it matters to you purchase from Roku. It does not matter enough to me to return and repurchase, or to possibly pay shipping. I can not compare LT to other variants as this is my 1st box. So far it is a winner: minima setup, easy online interface, love the channels, as well as NBC news programs updated each day. I can be joining the cable cutters soon now!

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