Roku 3 Streaming Media Player

I felt the need to right a review because the Roku 3 is such an awesome device, not perfect, but still awesome. I think it is the best overall streaming box out there at the moment. I chose the Roku over the competition because there were a few deal makers for me with the Roku that gave it a much better appeal for someone like me looking for something to make me not miss cable tv. And on that point it definitely delivers. First, it has the HBO app besides all the other major apps like netflix, hulu, and amazon; and a whole host of other apps that will really cater to even the pickiest of tastes. So having HBO was important to me, it might not be for you, but it was for me. Anyway, the second major selling point was the very useful headphone jack in the remote. That was really the biggest thing for me because I like watching late at night, but at the same time I don't want to disturb others while doing so. Before the Roku I had to have this convoluted setup where I made it possible to hook up my headphones to my PS3 (I don't have an a/v receiver and my tv doesn't have an audio jack, so yeah). The only downside to having the headphone jack in the remote is the fact that it drains the hell out of the batteries. Granted, I almost exclusively watch everything with headphones, but it still seems way too short of a battery life; about a week or two with fresh batteries. Although this is an issue for me, I didn't feel it was fair to knock off a star for it because like I said, I rely on the feature quite heavily. I think it would be awesome if Roku provided a way to use the Roku mobile app to listen to the audio through your mobile phone, in that way you don't have to worry about the battery draining because you can always recharge your phone. Or another solution would be to provide a rechargeable Roku remote that can recharge through the USB port. I don't know how prevalent of an issue this is with other Roku owners, but I imagine I'm not alone even with my heavy use. Now on to some of the other things I like about the Roku, but might not necessarily be exclusive to it. First is the universal search feature, this is really useful when you want to search the most popular streaming apps, I think the only apps it searches through are; netflix, hulu, amazon, vudu, and mgo. I can't tell you how many hours I wasted going back and forth between tabs on my computer searching for movies or shows from all the streaming options. But even those select apps it searches from is good enough for me. Though that might not be all the apps, but those are the ones I almost always saw when searching for something. I would of liked the search feature more if it also searched hbo and showtime, as those are apps I also use a lot, but I understand why they were left out. What's also neat about this feature is that it is available on the mobile app as well, which makes it so much easier to search for things. Speaking of the app, it also lets you use your phone as a remote and a keyboard for the Roku, so you don't have to waste all your time typing with the Roku remote, although that is somewhat mitigated by the fact that they also give you search suggestions while you're typing, which makes it at least tolerable to type with the remote. On another note, the Roku interface and search is fast and I never feel like it lags, and the apps work and load just as fast. I never felt inpatient at all while using it. Which is kind of surprising considering that the Roku 3 came out a few years ago. I'm not sure how much I like the fact that the Roku is always on and you can't turn it off. It will go into a screensaver mode, but I guess I'm just use to being able to turn off devices, I really don't have a legitimate gripe with it, I just thought I'd mention it for those of whom it might be of a concern. Now with all that being said, if you're just looking for a device that can stream from the major apps out there, and do so efficiently and beautifully, then the Roku is hands-down the best there is; if on the other hand you want to do all that and use it as a personal media streaming box, well then you might run into a few problems. Not to say that the Roku has bugs it needs to fix, but you might run into some compatibility issues. This goes for the Roku media player app as well as the plex app. This might not be a problem everyone will run into, it might just be limited to when using the headphone jack for audio. It turns out that Roku only natively supports AAC audio decryption, as far as I can tell; if you try and play a file with any other type of audio, it will not play directly through the headphone jack; you will either have to have a receiver or tv that can do the decryption, or you can have plex transcode the audio for you. Which I'm fine with, the only problem with transcoding is that it uses your computers proccessing power to do the transcoding, which really puts your cpu through a wringer. My computer is fairly fast and has no problem with transcoding, the only issue is that it turns my computer into a freaking hotplate. Which I wouldn't mind so much if I could practically use it as one. So, it can get to over a 100 degrees C. I think the max for my cpu is 105. And mind you, this is only when transcoding audio, forget about video. So I try and avoid the transcoding option if I can. Roku recently incorporated a chromecast-like beta feature where you can cast anything from your computer or phone using the firefox browser, which is really cool, but it seems to be relegated to only work on android phones and windows 8.1 computers. I know it's not Roku's fault that this can't be used with an iPhone or Mac, I'm fairly certain apple takes issue with the feature because it mirrors their airplay feature they have with the apple tv, and so they want you to buy their stuff instead, so I don't fault Roku, but if they could at least make it available for Mac computers using firefox I'd be okay with that at least. Anyways, I am very happy with my Roku, I really don't miss cable, I certainly don't miss the bill, so if you're looking for something to really give you a reason never to pay for cable again, at least in its current form, this is it. Just keep in mind that HBO recently announced that they are going to provide a separated subscription service for those that don't have or want cable, and just know that more channels will likely follow suit. All the more reason to get a Roku.