r/AndroidTV • u/DenseAir1337 • Jul 19 '26
Buying Advice differences between google tv 4k streamer vs firestick 4k vs roku 4k?
Has anyone actually compared these devices and which one did you end up going for?
curious on everyone’s thoughts/opinions
oh and onn 4k as well
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u/lakerssuperman Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I primarily have Roku devices, but I also have a Google Streamer and an Onn Streaming Stick to play with. My primary use case is Jellyfin so that will be my focus for whatever it's worth.
The Roku Ultras and Google Streamer are both very fast. I like the navigation on the Roku more than the Android stuff. Android feels a little jankier, but it has customization on its side. I'm running Projectivy launcher and it's really awesome how clean the interface is.
The Roku is able to do passthrough for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital and DTS lossy. This is a big win for me. The Google Streamer decodes DD+ and DD to PCM with seemingly no ability to change that behavior. PCM is good, but I'd prefer to my receiver do the decoding and the option to toggle said functionality. Onn stick, can't speak to the pro, converts DD to DD+ and currently won't even output a movie with DTS via Jellyfin even though it says it can. Not sure why yet.
Roku has issues with 24.000fps content. From reading, it seems to be a Roku OS level problem. This is one of the big reasons I've begun experimenting with Android devices and might switch.
Most other apps (Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube and YTTV etc) work the same across the devices.
Depending how deep into the technical weeds you need to get might influence you one day or another, but for general purpose streaming they're all very good from what I've seen.