The new Roku Ultra is faster, has better Wi-Fi, and comes with a backlit remote

One time aft the Google TV Streamer deed stores, Roku is announcing its ain latest streaming player. And dissimilar Google’s large plan overhaul, the caller Roku Ultra is playing things precise safe. I’d reason possibly too safe. It’s inactive $99.99, inactive delivers Dolby Vision and Atmos, and it looks precisely the aforesaid arsenic before, though the institution says determination are notable improvements inside.

The 2024 Ultra is 30 percent faster than immoderate of Roku’s different players, and it present features Wi-Fi 6. That upgrade puts it up of the Google TV Streamer, which stuck with Wi-Fi 5. Roku is present connected par with the Apple TV, but down Amazon’s flagship Fire TV streamers, which see Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. And yes, there’s inactive a built-in ethernet jack for those of you who similar wired setups.

“Plus, arsenic a HDMI 2.1 streaming player, Roku Ultra offers Quick Media Switching (QMS) delivering seamless, judder-free transitions betwixt antithetic refresh rates oregon contented sources connected premium TVs,” Roku’s Paul Nangeroni wrote successful a blog post. (Note that your TV indispensable besides enactment QMS for this to work, and we’re inactive successful the very, precise aboriginal stages of that.)

The Ultra ships with Roku’s champion remote, the Voice Remote Pro, which itself has been upgraded with backlit buttons, USB-C charging, and caller speedy motorboat and unrecorded TV buttons. The erstwhile lets you “see your personalized shortcuts — your go-to apps, your favourite dependable command, switching the captions connected and disconnected — close connected your TV screen.” The 2024 Roku Ultra besides “uses precocious instrumentality learning to expect which app you are going to unfastened adjacent and tees it up for our snappiest app loading to date.”

Roku besides continues to physique upon its forever-simplistic location surface without reinventing the wheel. It’s adding the existing Kids & Family portion straight to the location screen. Separately, contented pages volition present person thumbs up and thumbs down icons to assistance personalize the company’s algorithms to your ain taste. And the mobile distant app volition present person an amusement overlay that lets you swipe up to browse contented erstwhile you’re not utilizing the indispensable controls.

Is Roku’s dependable, no-frills container inactive your go-to successful 2024? Are you holding retired for the adjacent Apple TV 4K upgrade?