Roku's new $ 40 premiere is the cheapest 4K streaming player you can buy

Roku announces today the launch of Premiere and Premiere +, two new devices offering 4K HDR video streaming at prices starting at $ 39.99. The latter will be sold exclusively at Walmart and will include a remote control with voice search features more convenient than the IR remote control built into the regular premiere. But other than that (and a higher price of $ 49.99), Premiere and Premiere + are identical. Both support Wi-Fi 802.11n and incorporate a quad-core processor for responsive performance. Regarding HDR, you get HDR10, but not Dolby Vision.

At $ 40 for the first standard, Roku becomes extremely aggressive on the price. Amazon's Fire 4K TV costs around $ 70, as does Google's Chromecast Ultra. And even at $ 40, you still get an HDMI cable in the box. The Premiere has a low profile that is not enough as thin as a streaming stick, but not far. It looks a lot like the previous Express device.

Premiere and Premiere + are going pre-order today and will be available from early October. Separately, Roku also "upgrades" his high level Roku Ultra by adding JBL headphones to the box; The material is otherwise identical and will sell at the same price of $ 99.99. It's also next month.

Remember that Roku's CEO, Anthony Wood, made it clear that he did not consider Roku to be in the hardware business. It's an advertising company. Roku's streaming players are just one way to gather active user accounts and generate more advertising revenue. In addition to listening to the Vergecast related episode above, I also highly recommend Wood's recent interview about Peter Kafka Recode a media if you want more details on the ins and outs of how the business earns money. But Roku is definitely lot of material. Here is the current range:

Roku

For many applications on its platform, Roku receives a monthly installment of each subscription from a Roku device. The company has also focused on The Roku Channel, an advertising-sponsored internal application that offers a mix of catalog-based TV shows, movies, and live news that can be viewed for free. And Roku has recently put more emphasis on free content funded by the advertising of its streaming partners with a "featured" section of the home screen that brings together shows and movies that do not require a connection or subscription to the broadcast.

Shortcut buttons on Roku remote controls? Paid Placement And now, the company is adding even branded sounds to its "Lost Remote Investigator" function. (There is a button on the Roku Ultra that you can press for the remote to emit a sound.) Starting in November, you can replace the default sound with ESPN's. Sports Center his alert or the The iron Throne theme song. An advertising company, indeed.

But 40 bucks are a cheap gateway to an unlimited number of streaming and 4K apps.