Chromecast vs. Roku Streaming Stick: A hands-on look

Chromecast vs. Roku Streaming Stick: A hands-on look

Google's Chromecast and Roku's Streaming Stick have both been around for a while now. When Roku was first released, more recently, it touted itself as having a huge number of channels, something Chromecast didn't. But gradually, Google has been catching up.

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I've used both the Chromecast and the Roku Streaming Stick for some time now. That I'm not a massive TV viewer undoubtedly makes that a sign of our increasingly fragmented over-the-top content market. Access to the handful of things I do like to watch has ended up being spread across a variety of different delivery channels and devices.

Nonetheless, I'm always intrigued to see what the each new device has to offer and, invariably, each has something – or a combination of things – that the others don't. Chromecast and Roku are two of the better known over-the-top devices available, and yet each goes about the business of delivering its content in a different way. So without further ado, let's see how they stack up against each other.

Of the two devices, Roku takes a more traditional approach to bringing content to your TV. Both it and the Chromecast are plugged into the appropriate input on the back of a TV (an HDMI port with a USB port used for power). As with cable or satellite boxes, games consoles or DVD players, though, a remote control is provided to navigate Roku's on-screen interface. The user selects the app or channel that they want to watch and the content is then streamed to the TV from the internet.

Chromecast, on the other hand, turns that approach on its head. The apps or channels are not selected on-screen, but rather Chromecast is built into the services themselves. So, whereas to watch a video on YouTube via Roku the user would select the YouTube app via Roku's on-screen menu and then find the video they want to watch, with Chromecast they would navigate to the video on YouTube via a desktop browser or a YouTube mobile app and click the Chromecast icon next to the video to stream it on the TV. Your laptop, smartphone or tablet is, essentially, your remote control and the Web is your menu.

That, I'm sure you'll agree, is pretty grandiose stuff; the idea that wherever you are on the Web and whatever service you're using, it may be "cast" to your telly. To some extent, Google has ensured that this is actually the case by adding an extra, ever-present Chromecast extension to its Chrome browser that will cast any web page to the TV, but it's a bit hacky and there are distinct performance issues, which we'll come to later.

The blue-sky at which Google is aiming, has every user with a smartphone in their hand and every app on that device being compatible with Chromecast. So long as they're connected to the same Wi-Fi network, users could then throw the content from any app onto their telly without leaving the app itself. Chromecast is, effectively, invisible.

There's not a great deal of difference between the two pieces of hardware. They are both small Wi-Fi-connected dongles that plug into an HDMI port on your TV. Both need to be powered and both can use a neighboring USB port to do so. The Roku device also comes with a mains adapter for power, should that be to the user's preference.