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Roku vs Fire TV differences

TheKrell

A mighty and noble race originating on Altair IV.
Original poster
Pub Member / Supporter
Jan 4, 2007
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46,288
Fairfax, VA
I have a Roku SE and a Fire TV Stick with some annoying differences. IMHO the Roku has a much better interface, but it is slow. The Fire TV Stick is zippy, but the interface is inferior and the remote has few buttons. On the PBS app, just this afternoon I was trying to watch the last NOVA 2 hr episode, and the darn thing won't let me fast forward! I went to the Roku and it fast forwards just fine. Also, on the NBC News app, the Fire TV Stick shows me a commercial between every news segment. This never happens on my Roku which will show me several segments before injecting another ad.

Am I doing something wrong? Is that just the way it is with these devices?
 
I love the fire TV for what it can do, and prefer the interface.

However I have migrated to rokus for YouTube tv.

The newer rokus are vastly faster than what you have.

The se is many generations behind. Perhaps by the new roku stick if that's what you prefer. It will be much zipper.
 
Reactions: comfortably_numb, TheKrell, norman881 and 1 other person
msmith198025 said:
I love the fire TV for what it can do, and prefer the interface.
Click to expand...

I bought it because (1) it was $25 and (2) it could handle the Dish Anywhere app. The latter didn't work at all when I first bought it. Now it works (hurray!) but trick play does not. I hit pause exactly once and lost control of the app and my receiver completely. I had to exit Dish Anywhere and start it up again. The Roku SE is way too feeble minded to do Dish Anywhere at all, so there's that.

Do you have any insight into why the ff button on my Fire TV Stick doesn't work on the PBS app? Does your Fire TV FF button work? Even a "resume" would help on these 2 hr programs...
 

I have a first-generation Fire TV stick and I've never had a problem with the PBS app. I just tested it with an episode of Nova and I was able to fast forward by holding down the » button on the Fire TV remote. Are you registered with your local PBS affiliate? Maybe that unlocks features that aren't available when you use the PBS app without being logged in. Being logged in would probably also solve issues resuming your programs.

With that said my Roku Premiere+ is much better in every respect. Even better: there's little chance Roku will drop such a basic app as YouTube over a pissing contest between two major corporations.
 
Reactions: TheKrell
I prefer Roku over Fire TV except Roku has no custom network settings capabilities for DNS and no VPN. FireTV can do both.
 
Reactions: TheKrell
Zookster said:
Are you registered with your local PBS affiliate?
Click to expand...

I am.
Zookster said:
I just tested it with an episode of Nova and I was able to fast forward by holding down the » button on the Fire TV remote.
Click to expand...

Ahem. I feel like such an idiot. I definitely tried holding down the FF button. But I failed to notice the almost razor thin progress bar until I tried it again just now. On Roku the progress bar is obvious. On the Fire TV Stick, it's inexplicably thin.

Thanks for setting me straight. Pilot error on that one.
 
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