The full comparison chart
Ten devices, every cell read from the published listing rather than typed from memory. Select a device name to jump to the full write-up and its live price.
Specifications as published on each listing, read on October 13, 2026. “Not published” means the maker does not state it — we do not fill those in.| Device | Max resolution | Connection | Platform fee | Setup |
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| Roku Streaming Stick 4K | 4K | Long-range dual-band Wi-Fi, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max | 4K | Wi-Fi 6E, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Google TV Streamer 4K | 4K | Wi-Fi, Ethernet port, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Apple TV 4K (3rd generation, 128GB Wi-Fi + Ethernet) | 4K | Wi-Fi, Ethernet, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Roku Ultra | Not published | Wi-Fi plus wired Ethernet, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Amazon Fire TV Cube | 4K | Wi-Fi 6E plus wired Ethernet, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Roku Streaming Stick Plus | 4K | Dual-band Wi-Fi, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus | 4K | Wi-Fi 6, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select | 4K | Wi-Fi, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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| Amazon Fire TV Stick HD | 1080p (HD) | Wi-Fi, HDMI output | Not required | Plug-in |
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How to read the chart in thirty seconds
Resolution is a tie, so ignore it
Nine of the ten rows say 4K. The only one that does not is the Fire TV Stick HD, which is 1080p and priced accordingly — a perfectly sensible buy for a bedroom television that is also 1080p. If both of those are true for you, the cheapest row on the chart is the correct row, and you can stop here.
The radio is the row that decides whether you are happy
This is the most under-appreciated spec in the whole category. A streaming stick is a small Wi-Fi client stuck behind a television, often at the far end of the house from the router, and a weak radio there produces exactly the symptom people blame on the streaming service: the spinning circle at 8pm. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max carries a Wi-Fi 6E radio, which can use the 6GHz band almost nothing else in your house is on yet. The Streaming Stick 4K answers the same problem differently, with a long-range receiver.
If the television is in the same room as the router, this row does not matter. If it is two floors away, it matters more than everything else on the chart put together — and the real fix may not be a streamer at all. Our Wi-Fi extender roundup and mesh systems cover the alternative, which is fixing the network instead of buying a better client.
An Ethernet port is worth more than any specification above it
Four rows have one: the Google TV Streamer, the Apple TV 4K, the Roku Ultra and the Fire TV Cube. A wired streamer does not share airtime, does not renegotiate with the router every evening, and does not care how many phones are in the house. If your television sits near a network outlet — or near coax you can convert with a MoCA adapter— buying a box with a port is the single most reliable upgrade on this page.
“Platform fee” is a column of noes, and that is the point
Every row says the same thing: no subscription is required to use the hardware. The devices do not bill you. What bills you is the services you add afterward, and that is a separate decision from this chart — we work through it on is Roku free and is a Fire TV Stick free.
Streaming devices ranked, by the household rather than the spec sheet
A ranking is only useful if it says who it is ranking for. Ours, in order:
- Most cord-cutters: Roku Streaming Stick 4K. Neutral interface, Dolby Vision, cheap enough to buy several.
- A TV far from the router:Fire TV Stick 4K Max, for the 6E radio — as long as you can live with Amazon’s storefront-style home screen.
- A main TV next to a network port:Roku Ultra if you want Roku’s interface wired, the Google TV Streamer if you would rather browse than search, the Apple TV 4K if the household runs on iPhones.
- Extra and guest televisions: Fire TV Stick 4K Select, or the HD model on a 1080p set.
If you want those arguments at length rather than in a list, the head-to-heads do the work: Roku vs Fire Stick, Roku vs Apple TV and Roku vs Google TV. The full ranking with the reasoning lives on best streaming device.
What a chart like this cannot tell you
Two things, and both matter more than any column above. The first is the remote: whether the buttons are where your hand expects them, whether it is backlit, whether the household can use it without being taught. That is not a specification, and it is the thing people complain about a year later — which is why a better remote is sometimes the cheapest upgrade available to a streamer you already own.
The second is the interface, which is a matter of what the company selling it wants from you. Roku and Apple show you a grid of apps. Fire TV leads with Amazon’s video catalog. Google TV leads with a content feed across every service. Those are not bugs, they are business models, and no chart cell captures how much a particular one will annoy you every evening for the next four years.
Reading this chart as a buyer
Two columns here decide most purchases. If a device publishes an Ethernet port, it can be taken off Wi-Fi entirely, which is the single biggest quality improvement available on a main television — the most powerful streaming devices ranks the top tier on exactly that basis. And if the storage figure is what you are scanning for, you are probably planning to install applications from outside the store, which only two of these platforms allow: best for sideloading has that list.
Two columns matter in narrower cases. The Wi-Fi row is the one to read if the device is going somewhere awkward — a projector ends up further from the router than anything else in the house, and a travel setup has a different problem again, covered in best streaming stick for travel. And the platform-fee column is worth a second look if free content is the point rather than an afterthought: best for free TV ranks these on how much free viewing each home screen actually puts within reach.
