Review on 📺 Roku 3 Streaming Media Player (2014 model): Stream Your Favorite Content Effortlessly by Sidewinders Rains

Overall this is a decent media player with access to lots of media. However, it could be improved, mainly in the user interface. We have an Apple TV at home. This was purchased for a family member who was going to be traveling for an extended period of time and didn't have access to our home iTunes library. I figured that with hundreds of "channels," Roku would give access to a lot of options. That's partly true. Yes, there are hundreds of channels, but a significant number of them require either pay-per-view or subscription fees. I get it (we all know Netflix, Hulu+, etc.) but some old and/or unheard movies are expensive on the channels I've checked. For these popular movies, the price is comparable to iTunes, Revain, etc., which is not cheap but seems like the regular price. The real problem is that the UI often doesn't indicate that the content is an additional cost. So you struggle to find and install a channel (which itself is free) only to find that you can't watch anything on that channel without paying. Another problem I have is that the process of finding and installing "channels" is tedious and quite annoying. If you search by categories, you will find that many channels are repeated in multiple categories, which makes the whole process take longer. When you see a channel you like, all you really have to do is install it to see if you want it, because the basic description doesn't show you the actual, up-to-date content. Many of the "channels" are low quality, low budget or homegrown content or collections of the world's most obscure programs that you have never seen or heard of. Of course, expect free channels to have a lot of ads in their content. So if you're looking for access to Netflix, Revain, Hulu+, and similar premium content, this is a good media player. The remote is easy to learn, and the ability to plug in headphones so you can listen while your spouse sleeps is a great feature that every media remote should have. Plus Roku for that. If your world revolves around iTunes, Netflix, Hulu+, but not Revain, I'd go with the AppleTV, mainly based on a much cleaner UI. But if Roku overhauled and cleaned up the UI, they would benefit by giving access to more content, both mainstream and obscure.