The Best Media Streaming Devices (2024)

I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering TVs and other AV equipment. In addition to this guide, I oversee Wirecutter’s guides to LCD/LED TVs, OLED TVs, Blu-ray players, and several others. I have reviewed AV equipment since 2012, and I have ISF Level III training and calibration certification.

For the latest version of this guide:

• I tested and compared the latest media streaming devices from Amazon, Apple, Google, Roku, Nvidia, and Onn against alternative options like built-in smart TV platforms, video game consoles, and Blu-ray players.
• I conducted interviews with category experts—including Shalini Govil-Pai, head of Google TV, and Kasper Anderson at Roku—to better understand the intentions and aims behind various streaming devices’ hardware attributes.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

If you already have access to the streaming apps you use regularly—Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, and so on—and you’re happy with the experience, you probably don’t need a dedicated media streaming device.

But a standalone media streamer might prove to be the superior option in a lot of situations:

• The TV you own (or want to buy) doesn’t have your preferred smart-TV platform built in.
• Your current streamer doesn’t support some of the apps that you want to use.
• Your streamer doesn’t search for content across all available apps.
• You can’t customize your streamer to remove apps you don’t use from the home page or add apps you use often.
• Your streamer doesn’t allow you to access content on your home media server.
• Your streamer is sluggish or glitchy, or hasn’t been updated in a long time.
• Your streamer can’t play in 4K resolution or high dynamic range, but you have a 4K HDR TV.
• Your streamer can’t play in multichannel or spatial audio formats, but your soundbar or sound system can.
• You don’t have a streaming device yet and would rather spend less than $100 for a dedicated box than hundreds for a disc player or game console.

Simply put, media streamers are the best choice for streaming because it’s what they’re designed to do from the ground up—the same can’t be said for most smart TVs, disc players, or game consoles. Typically, dedicated streaming media devices include more apps, a more responsive user interface, and better search and organization features than game consoles or Blu-ray players offer. Additionally, app updates often come to dedicated media streamers before coming to smart TVs and other source devices.

If you travel often or even just sometimes, it’s convenient to have a small box or dongle that you can bring with you and plug right into a TV’s HDMI input to access your desired content.

While this guide focuses on standalone streaming boxes and dongles, we also see it as a guide to the software built into smart TVs. The information and critiques here concerning Google TV, Roku, and Fire TV boxes apply to their smart-TV counterparts, too.

In this guide, streaming devices must satisfy a range of specific criteria to make it to the top:

• The streamer must support all the major streaming services. It sounds simple, but a streaming box with a wide selection of content sources is better than one with a limited selection. These days most of the major services are available on every device, but some popular and niche services may be missing on certain devices.
• The streamer must support a 4K resolution and the latest video and audio formats. The more HDR formats a streaming device supports (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG), the more compatible and future-proof it is with newer HDR TVs. We also prefer media streamers that can output Dolby Atmos audio to your Atmos-capable AV receiver or soundbar.
• Content integration is a top priority. If you subscribe to a variety of streaming services, it’s much better to have all of that content displayed on the device’s home screen so that you can see a list of everything you’ve recently watched—rather than having to open each app individually to search for content.
• A good search function is a key ingredient. Some companies’ media streamers prioritize their own proprietary content, even if that isn’t your preferred service; for example, Amazon’s Fire TV prioritizes Prime Video results, and Apple TV prioritizes Apple’s VOD and streaming options. We prefer devices that search across all services and provide free and pay options to help you find content at its lowest price.
• The device should allow some degree of layout customization. An arrangement that places your favorite services or shows up front lets you more easily get to what you want to watch. An ideal streaming device is ecosystem-agnostic and allows you—rather than the device manufacturer—to make decisions.

We test every media streamer in a basic system with only a 4K HDR TV, as well as in a more complex home theater system. We test all of them over Wi-Fi, though some support Ethernet as well. We sometimes use multiple TVs to compare the app-launch speed of devices side by side.

During testing, we access a wide variety of content from services including Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu Plus, Movies Anywhere, Netflix, Prime Video, Vudu, and YouTube. We also compare the devices’ search, organization, and customization features.

The Google TV Streamer (4K) takes everything we loved about the now-discontinued Chromecast with Google TV (our former top pick) and repackages it into a fetching tabletop box. This 4K HDR-capable streamer is faster and more powerful than any of Google’s previous media streaming devices while still offering the intuitive interface and organizational advantages that make Google TV our favorite streaming interface.

Google TV provides a more inclusive approach to content. Many media streaming devices have a content agenda. Amazon’s Fire TV devices give you access to all the apps, but they’d prefer if you were a Prime subscriber watching Prime Video exclusives. Likewise, the Apple TV 4K gives you access to all the apps but is still tailored first and foremost for iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple TV+ content.

Google and, to some extent, Roku buck this trend simply because they aren’t major content producers, so they’re a bit more agnostic in their search results and recommendations. When you search for a TV show or movie, Google TV tends to do a better job showing all of the places it’s available to rent or buy—yes, including the Google Play Store—without pushing a proprietary storefront.

It puts the content you’ve been watching right on the home screen for faster access. Open up a Roku interface, and you’ll see apps for Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, or Prime Video, but nothing about what you were watching in them.

Google TV’s home page, on the other hand, will show you a half-finished YouTube video, the next episode of what you were watching on Netflix, and a movie you forgot you started on Max. It’s extremely convenient compared with almost everything else out there. Even though you should maybe know that Stranger Things is on Netflix and Severance is on Apple TV+, it’s great not to have to worry about remembering what you’ve been watching or where you’ve been watching it.

Naturally this functionality will be much more appealing to users who pay for multiple subscriptions across a variety of streaming apps. If you only use a couple of apps, you probably don’t need a $100 media streaming device.

It is blissfully fast most of the time. I use a lot of media streaming devices in my work and personal life, but for the past year I’ve been using my living-room TV’s built-in smart platform to watch content. If you asked me a month ago how it was, I would’ve said, “Just fine.”

After using the TV Streamer (4K), my answer would be, “A bit like molasses.” Compared with even a premium, pricey smart TV—and many similarly priced media streaming devices—the TV Streamer (4K) is bottled lightning. Apps boot instantly, with many running simultaneously in the background, allowing you to seamlessly jump from one thing to another.

I tested the 2024 version of the Roku Ultra right after using the Google TV Streamer (4K) for a few weeks. Both are $100, but the Roku felt so sluggish by comparison I wondered if something was wrong with it at first. While I doubt the TV Streamer (4K) will be this fast when it isn’t brand new, it has enough runway to not become annoyingly bogged down for at least several years, thanks to its 32 gigabytes of storage (compared with the Chromecast’s 4 GB).

The streamer’s processing power is complemented handily by the included voice remote, which doesn’t deviate much in design from the remote included with the previous Chromecast 4K dongle. Unlike the sometimes finicky remote included with the latest Apple TV 4K device, I find the Google remote’s navigation pad to be delightfully fast and accurate. Other than a couple minor snafus, this streamer almost instantaneously identified the content I searched for via the voice remote and loaded it on the screen.

You’ll be happy to see it on your tabletop. Google took a big step away from the dongle/stick design of the Chromecast in designing the TV Streamer (4K), taking pages from the books of the Apple TV 4K and Roku Ultra. The end result is, in my opinion, the best-looking media streaming device you can buy right now.

Available in white or hazel, the box’s smooth, angled design tapers back from a flatter front to a taller back end to make room for a USB-C input (for power or a potential docking station), a gigabit-capable ethernet port, and an HDMI output. Unfortunately, your $100 doesn’t get you an HDMI cable in the box.

You’ll also find a small button that works as a remote finder. As long as the TV Streamer (4K) and its remote are already paired, pressing this button will cause the remote to emit a noise to help you locate it. You can also use the Google Home app to find the remote if need be.

This box is also a smart home gateway, if you need it. Most people probably aren’t buying media streaming devices to use as smart home hubs. But if you fancy that, you’ll be happy to know that the Google TV Streamer (4K) is not only a fully functional Google Home hub, it also supports the Matter and Matter-over-Thread protocols.

I will be the first to admit: I don’t have many smart devices, and I didn’t exhaustively test this functionality. The Google Home interface can theoretically allow you to see your camera feeds on screen or get smart-device notifications while you’re watching things, but we can’t give a full run-down of this functionality until our smart-home team has had more time with the device.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It’s expensive—but it also isn’t. The TV Streamer (4K) is twice the price of the previous Chromecast dongle, and at first blush it might seem overpriced, given that its core functionality is not that different from Google’s older device or our budget pick.

However, in my testing I found that I preferred this $100 streamer over the comparable $100 Roku Ultra—it’s both faster and easier to jump back into what I’m watching. I also preferred it over the Apple TV 4K and Nvidia Shield TV, which are some of the only other streamers to feature a gigabit-capable ethernet port—and they’re both $50 more expensive.

By those comparisons, the TV Streamer (4K) doesn’t feel overpriced at all—it’s just competing in a different class of products than the original Chromecast was. But if you’d rather get the Google TV experience without paying extra for fancy design, a faster hardline connection, or smart home hub capabilities, check out our budget pick.

You’re only getting the Wi-Fi 5 protocol. Routers equipped with Wi-Fi 6 are faster, deal with congestion better, and handle routing data to multiple devices more efficiently, so it would be great if the TV Streamer (4K) could utilize that protocol, especially when you’re streaming high-bandwidth content.

That said, I actually had an easier time streaming 4K content in dynamic HDR through the Google TV Streamer than through my high-end, Wi-Fi 6–equipped Samsung TV.

You can’t use it hands-free. Some folks swear by devices like the Amazon Fire TV Cube that allow for full hands-free use. But here, your only voice-command option is to press the microphone button on the remote, as there are no microphones on the body of the device.

Oddly enough, our budget pick—a Google TV device that’s half the price of this one—does allow hands-free use.

It’s Android-centric. There’s no support for Amazon Alexa, Siri, or AirPlay 2 to be found here. It’s “Hey Google,” Chromecast, and Bluetooth.

The Onn Google TV 4K Pro fills the vacancy left by the discontinued Chromecast with Google TV—it’s a reliable and affordable way to get the Google TV experience on any TV. It’s not quite as polished or powerful as our top pick, but it meets our core requirements.

This Google TV box has good speed and power. When I first unboxed this Onn device, my (admittedly snobby) reaction was, “Oh, this feels a bit cheap.” The plasticky box with its mesh covering, the remote control emblazoned with a giant “Free TV” button, and the AC power cable all felt decidedly less premium than the Google TV Streamer (4K) or Apple TV 4K.

But once I actually started using it, I forgot all about that stuff. Everything we love about Google TV is on display here, and this thing is surprisingly zippy for a $50 streamer—more responsive than a lot of media streaming devices we’ve tried, even the 2024 Roku Ultra.

That said, the Onn device has 1 GB less RAM and a less powerful processor than our top pick, meaning it can be a bit slower during search and won’t run as many apps in the background. Once you open one or two apps, others that were running will close and have to reboot.

You can control it hands-free. While the remote supports voice search via a microphone button, there are also microphones on the box itself. Just say “Hey Google,” and you’re off to the races: “Show me movies with Jeff Goldblum,” or whatever. Just be careful about syntax: Saying “Show me Jeff Goldblum” will get you some pretty weird YouTube videos.

Thankfully, if you’d rather not have this device potentially listening in when you aren’t using it, you can flip a switch on the box itself and turn off the far-field microphones. You can still use the remote’s microphone even with the box microphones turned off.

You get a lot of features. Like our top pick, the Onn box has a remote finder button and an ethernet port (though it isn’t gigabit-capable). It adds a USB-A 3.0 port (for additional storage or loading apps—it doesn’t work for powering the device), it supports the Wi-Fi 6 protocol, and there’s an HDMI cable in the box.

The included remote is decidedly less elegant compared to the one included with our top pick (as is the box itself), but Google TV itself is fast and responsive enough that the actual navigation experience still feels premium.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

You can only buy it from Walmart. We generally prefer to recommend devices that are available through multiple retailers so you have more buying options.

It’s not as physically robust as we’d like. Anyone with children knows how easily a barrel-shaped AC power cable can be bent or how easily a mesh-covered device can be permanently stained. The Onn Google TV 4K Pro is also quite light in weight and feels like it wouldn’t survive more than a few knocks off your TV stand.

There’s no support for the hybrid-log gamma (HLG) HDR format. This device’s lack of support for the HLG format—which is an HDR format used for TV broadcasts—is worth noting solely for due diligence reasons. The format is not widely used here in the US. This is more of a concern in places like England and Japan, where the BBC and NHK are implementing the HLG format more strenuously.

If you prefer a more app-centric interface, the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is a great alternative that presents a wide selection of streaming services in a simple, uncluttered way. This HDMI stick plugs directly into an HDMI input and can draw power from a compatible USB port, so you can easily add it to a variety of TVs and other home-entertainment systems.

Like our top pick, this Roku stick supports 4K HDR video in the HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG formats. It can’t decode Dolby Atmos audio, but it can pass that audio through to a soundbar or AV receiver from services (like Netflix and Disney+) that support Dolby Atmos.

Roku’s home screen is clean and easy to customize. The home screen consists of a grid of individual streaming apps. You can customize the menu to add and remove apps, as well as place your most-used apps at the top. It’s a simple, clean layout that’s easy to understand and navigate.

But Roku’s interface is not as helpful at finding and organizing content as Google TV’s interface is, and it feels more compartmentalized. You can’t easily see all your recently watched movies and shows across platforms, so you have to launch individual apps to find them. Menus for “Live TV” and “What to Watch” highlight specific programming, but the selections there are more curated and less influenced by your own app usage and viewing preferences.

Likewise, the search function on Roku does a good job of finding shows across different services and apps, but it lacks the rich context and related-content information that Google TV offers.

The remote control is good; the mobile app is better. The included Roku Voice Remote uses RF technology to communicate with the player, so it works through walls and furniture. It also supports IR output to control the power and volume on your TV or projector, and it has a mute button—something that many competing remotes lack. However, the use of RF technology to control the player means you can’t easily substitute an affordable universal remote.

You can also control the player via Roku’s mobile app for iOS and Android, and the app adds some features that the player itself is lacking. While the Roku Streaming Stick 4K doesn’t support Bluetooth output directly, the app’s private-listening function allows you to stream audio from the player to your mobile device; then you can listen through wired or wireless headphones. (The first-edition Roku Voice Remote Pro adds a headphone jack for private listening, but it’s almost as expensive as the player itself.)

We also found the mobile app’s interface to be snappier and more intuitive to navigate than the Roku stick’s on-screen interface. The design is more modern and content-centered, albeit not as personalized as Google TV.

It plays nicely with Apple devices. The inclusion of AirPlay 2 support and the Apple TV and Apple Music apps gives the Roku Streaming Stick 4K a lot of the perks of the Apple TV 4K streamer at a much lower price.

If a certain channel that’s important to you is missing from the Roku platform, you can stream it from the app on your macOS or iOS device to the Streaming Stick 4K. However, this arrangement requires you to keep your Mac or iOS device streaming the whole time and can sometimes be a heavy drain on its battery.

The Roku stick uses 802.11ac Wi-Fi; it lacks the option for a hardline connection over ethernet, in contrast to our other picks.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

This HDMI stick is slower than larger streamers with beefier processors. If you mostly jump into apps like Netflix or YouTube and if you aren’t coming from a pricier/more powerful device, you’ll probably be perfectly pleased with the speed of this Roku stick. But compared with our other picks, it’s much slower to load apps, navigate tiles, and respond to voice queries, especially after you’ve used it long enough for the internal storage to fill up.

The stick design also means you don’t get USB storage or an ethernet port.

If you want a less expensive Google-branded streamer: Our previous top pick, the Google Chromecast with Google TV, has been discontinued to make way for the new Google TV Streamer (4K). But for the time being you can still find it at various retailers, and it’s still a great Google TV device, especially if you’d prefer the simpler dongle design compared with the boxy form factors of our top pick and budget pick.

Just be aware that, as stock decreases, the price may increase, especially at Amazon where sales are sometimes handled by third-party vendors. We don’t recommend you pay more than $50.

Roku

The 2024 Roku Ultra offers minor improvements over the previous iterations. It adds Wi-Fi 6 support and a slightly upgraded processor. While it’s a bit smoother to use than the Roku Streaming Stick 4K, I found it to be substantially more sluggish than our top pick and even our budget pick, which was disappointing. The Ultra does come bundled with the 2nd-edition Roku Voice Remote Pro, but from a software perspective it doesn’t meaningfully improve upon the experience you have using the Streaming Stick 4K, and for $100 is outpaced by the Google TV Streamer (4K).

Apple TV

Apple’s third-generation Apple TV 4K box comes in two versions: a $130 Wi-Fi–only version with 64 GB storage and a $150 version with 128 GB storage and an Ethernet (LAN) port. Both boxes support 4K resolution, can handle Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos content, and come with the newer Siri-based remote control with a standard directional keypad. And both run on the same A15 bionic chip found in some of Apple’s phones and earbuds.

The Apple TV 4K impressed us with its zippy processing and intuitive user interface, but it still puts Apple’s ecosystem of content at the forefront—which is a boon for hardcore Apple fans but less desirable for folks who don’t subscribe to services like Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Music.

Even the more affordable, $130 version is more expensive than our top pick, and despite the slick appeal of the Apple TV interface and its interrelated services, the box is not abundantly more powerful (where streaming is concerned) than the Google TV Streamer (4K).

Amazon Fire TV

In 2023, Amazon released new versions of its Fire TV stick: the Fire TV Stick 4K ($50) and the Fire TV Stick 4K Max ($60). Their main advantage over Amazon’s previous Fire Stick models is their inclusion of generative AI, which allows for a smoother voice-search experience across apps and services.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max boasts impressive specs—an upgraded processor, Wi-Fi 6E compatibility, and support for major HDR formats and Dolby Atmos—but our testing revealed that even with its improved search, it’s still too Prime Video–centric in comparison with our picks. The home screen has an annoying amount of ads, too. The addition of the Fire TV Ambient Experience would be of more interest if many smart TVs didn’t already support similar functionality.

At $50, the Fire TV Stick 4K, a downgraded version of the 4K Max, doesn’t compare favorably with our budget pick—especially with regards to organizing content intuitively on the home screen.

Amazon’s hands-free Fire TV Cube continues to occupy an odd spot among the panoply of media streaming devices. The Cube is a bit more complex than the average streaming stick, and the third-generation model stretched that idea even further, adding HDMI pass-through (to allow Alexa integration with a separate source device) and Wi-Fi 6E compatibility to its already touted hands-free operation.

Though its ability to integrate set-top-box functions into the realm of voice control may appeal to Alexa die-hards, many modern cable and satellite remotes already include voice-search functionality. And much like Amazon’s other media devices, the new Cube still puts Prime Video content at the forefront. We ultimately found it to be a bit too specialized in comparison with the meat-and-potatoes value that our picks offer.

Gaming systems and built-in TV apps

A gaming console, Blu-ray player, or smart TV that you already own probably streams Netflix and other major services, but such devices often lack the extensive selection of content that dedicated streaming boxes provide, and they usually omit cross-app searching. They’re fine, but a dedicated streaming device offers a more cohesive, unified experience.

Android TV

The Nvidia Shield TV has always been one of our favorite Android TV devices, thanks to its powerful hardware. But it’s getting a bit long in the tooth: The last hardware refresh was back in 2019.

The Shield TV supports Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos and has upscaling technology that makes non-4K content look much better on 4K TVs. It has been a good choice for people who like to use the GeForce Now platform for gaming or for people who want the Pro model for use with a Plex server or emulator. But it doesn’t have the updated Google TV interface, so it doesn’t integrate services as well as our top pick, and its search feature isn’t as powerful.

The TiVo Stream 4K is an Android TV–based HDMI dongle that incorporates software from TiVo, making it easier to find content from the services you subscribe to, but this function supports only certain services. As a result, if you’re looking for content that TiVo’s app supports, you can stay inside its app, but you need to go back to the standard Android TV interface for other apps.

Although the search feature shows the different services that a title is available on, it can’t show the prices, so you don’t know which option is best for you. When I found a title that I was interested in, instead of offering a page with information about that show, it would just launch Netflix to display that information. This limitation means a lot of jumping into and out of apps as you try to find something to watch, which is jarring.

Sling’s AirTV Mini is designed to integrate Sling TV with Android TV, as well as to integrate with a network TV tuner so that you get Sling TV channels and your local over-the-air channels in a unified TV guide. If you want this Sling TV integration, the AirTV might be a reasonable option, but if you’re looking for a general-purpose media streamer, you have cheaper, more full-featured options that don’t automatically boot into Sling TV every time you power them on.

This article was edited by Adrienne Maxwell and Grant Clauser.