Roku devices are very much a known quantity at this point, and the new Ultra doesn’t make any big alterations. It does, however, add some overdue format support, including Dolby Vision HDR, Dolby Atmos decode, and Bluetooth for playing music from your phone. It also brings some modest speed and Wi-Fi performance gains along with more internal storage for apps.

It all works well enough, but I keep hoping Roku will do more help users make sense of their streaming options instead of just presenting them with a huge grid of apps. Devices like the new Chromecast and the TiVo Stream 4K are built around the idea of funneling content from multiple apps into a single menu, and while they’re not perfect, they’re also more fun to use. Roku’s straightforward approach has its merits, but it also feels kind of joyless. You can read the full review right here.

(While you’re at it, check out TechHive editor Michael Brown’s review of the Roku Streambar, a $130 soundbar that doubles as a Roku streaming player. Mike’s a proper audiophile, and did a better job evaluating that side of the Streambar than I ever could.)

But how does it compare to other streaming devices, like the Apple TV 4K, Fire TV Cube, and Chromecast with Google TV? For this week’s TechHive column, I decided to dig a little deeper, running an array of speed tests on different devices around the house to see how their connections held up.

The findings were surprising. It turns out that streaming boxes almost always perform better than smaller streaming sticks, and the Apple TV 4K in particular performed the best. For more details, read the full column on TechHive.

No more Netflix trials: If you haven’t signed up for a free trial to Netflix over the last decade or so, you’ve now missed your chance. The service has stopped offering 30-day trials in the United States, with a spokesperson telling Variety that it’s “looking at different marketing promotions” to lure in new subscribers. Presumably this represents the other shoe dropping after Netflix started giving away some free movies and shows in August. Disney+ also stopped offering free trials back in June.

You’d think that with more competition, these companies would want to create more incentives to sign up. But then again, dropping these services before the end of the trial is so easy that there’s little to stop folks from binging valuable content before they have to pay, especially if they have multiple email addresses and credit cards to go through. So it goes.

Apple TV on Sony TVs: Apple has made good on plans to bring its Apple TV app (and its Apple TV+ streaming service) to Sony smart TVs. The app has started to roll out on some recent televisions, and will head to most 2019 and 2020 TVs along with some 2018 TVs later this year.

Meanwhile, Apple continues to not make its app available more broadly on Android TV devices, which means you can’t get it on the Nvidia Shield or the new Chromecast with Google TV. (I looked into sideloading the new Sony version onto these devices, but was unsuccessful.) Apple doesn’t offer a native Android mobile app either, even though it does offer a mobile version on Amazon’s Android-based Fire tablets and Fire TV streaming players. In other words, Apple and Google have business reasons for not working together, and customers are caught in the middle.

HDHomeRun’s 4K tuner: SiliconDust has started taking pre-orders on the ATSC 3.0-compatible version of its HDHomeRun over-the-air tuner. The price is $200, which is same as during its earlier Kickstarter campaign and $50 more than HDHomeRun’s comparable ATSC 1.0 tuner.

At this point, buying an ATSC 3.0 tuner is largely about future-proofing. While the standard theoretically allows for new features like 4K HDR video and on-demand programming, the vast majority of TV stations in the United States are still broadcasting in ATSC 1.0, and those that are dabbling in ATSC 3.0 for the most part haven’t turned on any new features yet.

There’s no urgent need to replace what you already have, especially because stations will be supporting ATSC 3.0 for years to come, but if you’re already in the market for an HDHomeRun tuner (which enables some power user-friendly DVR solutions such as Plex and Channels), the extra $50 might be a decent investment.

If you prefer Roku’s app-centric approach, it’s not too late to snag the Roku Streaming Stick+ for $37, which is $13 off the regular price. Do yourself a favor and skip the cheaper Roku Premiere and Roku Express streamers—also still on sale this week—because their remotes are much worse, with no volume, power, or voice controls.