Review on 📺 Roku 2 XD Streaming Player 1080p (Previous Model) by Brian Wolf

15 months ago I bought my first Roku 2, Roku 2 HD. Can't say enough good things about it. When I upgraded to a 1080p HDTV in the living room, I moved this 720p Roku 2 HD to the bedroom and added a Sony "Smart" Blu-ray player with Netflix, Revain, Crackle and a few other channels for the new 1080p HDTV. to bypass adding Roku 1080p entirely. Although I mostly watch the channels that played on the Sony Wi-Fi Blu Ray Player, I still wanted Roku 1080p, so I bought an XD last week. The reasons I prefer Roku over a "smart" Wi-Fi Blu-Ray player is that Roku is much faster to watch since Blu-Ray has to boot from a cold boot and Roku of course has a much wider range of channels including the ability to add private channels. Adding private channels is something a Blu-ray player cannot do. Roku uses very little power, less than a night light, and is always ready. Every time I launched the Wi-Fi enabled Blu-ray player, I muttered that I needed a Roku. I've always wanted to buy a new Roku 3, but the Roku 2 XD went on sale during Mother's Day week and I figured I'd be just as happy with it for less money, so I made an impromptu purchase that turned out to be the right one a good. I didn't need Roku 3 wireless headphones in my living room, and I suspect this feature drains the remote's batteries faster. I don't play video games, I watch TV, so I don't need the Roku 3's video game feature. My first Roku 2, the HD model, had no issues installing it, so I've never had any issues. Contact Roku Support. However, I kept getting the error "011" on XD. I first connected to Roku's chat support, waited in a queue for about 10 minutes and was connected to CSR. After explaining the problem and sending the IP CONFIG data requested by the CSR, I was immediately disconnected from the chat. I pressed the button to reconnect to chat and started calling the support phone number on the ROKU support page. The published support phone number leads to a phone tree that prompts you to "press 3" for player support. I pressed 3 and immediately heard a beep indicating I was disconnected. Right, Roku hung up. I tried calling 3 more times with the same result each time. After about 15 minutes of chatting, I was connected to another CSR. While waiting in chat I restarted the player and it connected fine and I haven't seen this error since. I haven't changed anything on my site! Since then it's been working great. I don't know if CSR changed anything remotely on my network that allowed it to connect, and I probably never will. I restarted the XD device several times to make sure it reconnected without errors. After this support experience, it's easy to understand why so many people get frustrated with Roku support and simply refuse to return the player. There is no excuse for posting a non-working support phone number on your support webpage. While I'm not exactly thrilled with Roku's tech support, I like the product itself. Both of mine work great and I use them every day. I recommend them to expand the variety of programs available in a fast, convenient, compact and economical package. With around 4 million players to support, I can understand why Roku support isn't more personal, but if they don't offer phone support they should remove the phone number from their support webpage as the "click sound" is just pressing the 3 as instructed increases customer frustration and makes Roku support seem out of place. Note on 720p vs. 1080p on Roku. Virtually no 1080p programming is available! Even premium services like Netflix, Revain, etc. support 720p resolution. Netflix has been experimenting with 1080 HD for a while but isn't currently pushing 1080p, but that may have changed by the time you're reading this. For now, however, you can get 1080p on Vudu. Also, the WiFi and Internet bandwidth requirements are much higher for 1080p than for 720p. This was really evident when watching 1080p movies on Vudu. I ordered an upgrade from my DSL Internet from 3MB to 5MB and upgraded to a high-end WiFi router. This speeds it up enough to make it work without having to wait for 1080p video files to start streaming, and eliminates buffer pauses after streaming starts. Before upgrading to a 1080p player like the Roku XD, make sure your existing network can handle 1080p streaming or you want and can upgrade. The update may not be an issue for a Wi-Fi connected cable modem. In fact, a 720p player like the HD model is good for 99.5% of the programs currently available on Roku. The only real 1080p material I've found is on Vudu, and that goes for movies you bought the 1080p version of. I'm deducting a full star for the support issues I've had with this product. The product itself is 5 stars and works great but I can't explain why it works now when it didn't work originally. If you have immediate connectivity issues like I do with this XD device, what's the point of a 5-star product that doesn't work with a somewhat frustrating support system? Some people just don't have the patience to stick to it. Connecting the player took about 35 minutes.