Best Streaming Device UK 2026: Roku, Firestick, Google TV

Streaming TV isn’t the future anymore – it’s the present. From Netflix and HBO Max to BBC iPlayer and Channel 4, almost everything worth watching is now available over the internet. The question isn’t whether to stream – it’s how.

Smart TVs have come a long way, but a dedicated streaming device is still often the smarter choice. They’re faster, easier to use, better supported, and – as you’re about to see – they don’t have to cost a lot.

This year’s roundup comes with a plot twist or two. Roku is back at the top, thanks to a new lineup of streaming sticks that are as affordable as they are impressive.

Amazon’s Fire TV is as powerful as ever – but faces some big questions about its future direction (yes, we’re going to talk about Vega OS). And the broader world of streaming devices is changing fast, with sideloading crackdowns, new AI assistants, and a whole new category of Freely boxes that deliver live UK TV without an aerial.

In this guide, I’ll compare the three best streaming devices in the UK right now – the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, and the Google TV Streamer – across everything that matters: picture quality, performance, interface, apps, voice control, and more. I’ll also cover some honourable mentions, including the growing Freely box ecosystem, for those with specific needs.

Our overall winner for 2026? The Roku Streaming Stick Plus – a brilliantly simple, fast streaming stick at just £39.99. But read on for the full picture – because the right device for you depends on more than just who’s top of the list.

Best Streaming Devices UK 2026

Do I Need A Streaming Device?

A dedicated streaming device has a lot of advantages – but if you already have some sort of streaming solution at home, do you really need another one?

If you bought a new TV in recent years, chances are it’s a “Smart” TV, with streaming apps already baked in.

Even so, it’s often still a good idea to buy a dedicated streaming device. Most TV manufacturers have their own Smart interface – but those are frequently slow, unintuitive, and quick to get abandoned.

When a TV company (or the streaming company) decides to stop supporting old sets – you can find yourself without ITVX, with BBC iPlayer, or without Netflix on that device.

We saw a clear example of this a few years ago, when a number of older Smart TVs – including models from major manufacturers like Samsung – stopped supporting ITV Hub (and later, its replacement ITVX). Customers who relied on those built-in apps were simply left without access.

A dedicated streaming device is a very different story. Roku, Fire TV and Google TV have been around for years and have large, active user bases – which means streaming services have every incentive to keep supporting them, and keep their apps updated.

There’s also the speed factor. Anyone who’s tried to navigate a cheap Smart TV’s interface knows how slow and painful it can be. A good streaming stick loads apps in seconds and feels genuinely snappy to use – much more like a smartphone than a clunky TV menu.

You might also already have a Freeview Play box at home. These do include some UK streaming apps – BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and a handful of others – but they’re no match for a full streaming device that supports hundreds of apps and services. Older Freeview boxes also missed out on ITVX when it launched, for the same reasons older Smart TVs did (things are a bit different with some of the newer Freely boxes – more on that below).

Another option worth knowing about are Smart TVs that come with Roku or Amazon’s Fire TV built directly into the television itself – so you get the familiar, well-maintained interface without needing an extra device. The trade-off is that many of these are mid-range TVs, where the hardware can still feel a bit sluggish compared to a dedicated stick.

The bottom line: if you’re serious about streaming, a standalone streaming device is still well worth having – and, as you’ll see below, they don’t have to cost much.

The Three Best Streaming Devices In The UK

There are plenty of streaming devices out there – but for this roundup, I’ve narrowed the list down to three that represent the best combination of performance, ease of use, and value for money.

Those three are the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Gen), and the Google TV Streamer.

The big change this year is the Roku. After a frustrating few years of Roku neglecting its UK streaming stick lineup, the company finally refreshed things late last year with two brand new sticks – the entry-level Streaming Stick (HD) and the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, a compact 4K streamer that sits at just £39.99. It’s the Plus that earns Roku’s place at the top of this list in 2026.

It’s worth noting that Roku also still sells the Streaming Stick 4K – its older premium stick, now at £49.99. It’s a perfectly good device, and adds Dolby Vision support over the Plus – but at £10 more for hardware that hasn’t been updated since 2021, it’s a harder sell.

For most people, the Plus is the smarter buy, and it’s the one we’re focusing on here. You can read more in our full Roku sticks comparison.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Gen) holds on to second place – it remains an excellent device, and everything that pushed it to the top spot last year is still true. It’s just that the Roku Streaming Stick Plus has come along and made the value argument very difficult to ignore.

The Google TV Streamer, meanwhile, holds third place – still a capable device with an interesting interface, but still too expensive for what it offers, at £99.

Among those three, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is our overall winner for 2026 – and if you just want a fast, affordable, no-nonsense streaming stick, you can stop reading here and go buy one. But if you want to understand why, read on.

Sideloading, Vega OS, And The Future Of Fire TV

If you’ve been following streaming device news lately, you’ve probably seen a lot of headlines about Fire TV, sideloading, and something called Vega OS. It’s the elephant in the room when talking about Fire TV sticks – and also one that’s generated a lot of confusion. So let’s clear it up.

Sideloading simply means installing apps from outside a device’s official app store. On Android-based Fire TV sticks, this has always been relatively straightforward – enable a setting, download an app from a third-party source, and install it.

Many people used this for perfectly legitimate purposes. But it also became the engine behind the “dodgy Firestick” phenomenon – modified sticks loaded with illegal IPTV apps giving access to Premier League football and premium content without paying for them.

After years of pressure from broadcasters – Sky in particular – Amazon has responded on two fronts.

First, it has been actively blocking known illegal IPTV apps on existing Android-based Fire TV devices worldwide, including in the UK. If you have one of those apps installed, you’ll see a message telling you it’s been disabled. This affects every existing Android Fire TV stick – including the Fire TV 4K Max.

Second – and more significantly for the long term – Amazon has confirmed that all future Fire TV sticks will run Vega OS, its new in-house operating system built directly on Linux rather than Android.

The new Fire TV Stick HD and the Fire TV Stick 4K Select already run Vega. And unlike Android-based sticks, Vega devices don’t support sideloading at all – not because specific apps are being blocked, but because the platform simply doesn’t support it at a technical level.

So what does this mean for the Fire TV Stick 4K Max – our second-place pick? For now, nothing has fundamentally changed. The 4K Max still runs Android-based Fire OS, sideloading still works (beyond the blocked IPTV apps), and its vast app library remains intact. If you buy one today, you’re getting the same excellent device it’s always been.

But are we recommending the new Vega-based sticks? Not yet – and the main reason isn’t even the sideloading question. It’s the app library. Vega currently supports around 3,000 apps, compared to over 40,000 on Android-based Fire TV devices.

All the big names are there – Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, NOW – but plenty of smaller and niche services aren’t. That will improve over time as Vega’s user base grows, but right now it’s a meaningful limitation.

It’s also worth putting this in context. Roku quietly closed its own sideloading door years ago, and it barely made the news. Roku’s app library is comprehensive, its platform is closed, and nobody much minds. The same may well be true of Vega in a few years’ time. In fact, there may come a point where new apps launch on Vega first, leaving the older Android-based sticks behind – but that’s likely still years away.

Google, meanwhile, is heading in a similar direction – making sideloading on Android TV progressively harder, though for now the Google TV Streamer remains more open than Vega devices.

The short version: if you’re buying a Fire TV stick today, the 4K Max is still the one to get. The Vega transition is real and worth knowing about – but it doesn’t change our recommendation for 2026.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus, Fire TV 4K Max And Google TV Streamer – What They Have In Common

Before diving into how the three devices differ, let’s quickly go over what they share.

All three are HDMI-based streaming devices – so if you have an older TV with only a SCART connection, you’ll need to look elsewhere. If you’re running low on HDMI ports, an HDMI switcher can help, and if you want to use one streamer across two TVs, an HDMI splitter is the answer.

All three connect to the internet via WiFi – though there are differences in the standard each supports (more on that in the Performance section). The Google TV Streamer has the edge here, as its box-shaped form factor includes a built-in Ethernet port for those who prefer a wired connection.

As for power, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus and the new Fire TV Stick HD can both be powered directly from your TV’s USB port – handy for keeping things tidy behind the telly. The Fire TV 4K Max, however, draws more power than most TV USB ports can provide, so you’ll need to plug it into a wall socket. The Google TV Streamer uses a USB-C connection and also requires a wall socket.

All three devices support 4K and HDR – though there are some differences in exactly which HDR formats each one supports, which we’ll cover in the Picture Quality section.

And all three come with a voice remote as standard, letting you search for content and issue basic commands without having to type anything.

Form Factor

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus and the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max are both, as the name suggests, sticks – they plug directly into your TV’s HDMI port.

The Roku is the more compact of the two, at 3.7 x 0.80 x 0.45 inches, and is noticeably smaller than the Fire TV Max, which has gotten rather chunky over the years at 108 x 30 x 14mm.

Because of its size, some people find the Fire TV Max a tight fit behind the TV – which is why Amazon includes an HDMI extender cable in the box. Roku doesn’t include one in the box.

One practical advantage the Roku Streaming Stick Plus has over the Fire TV Max is power. The Plus is efficient enough to run directly off your TV’s USB port, with no separate power adapter needed – which makes for a much tidier setup.

The trade-off is that when your TV turns off, the Roku loses power too, and takes around 10-15 seconds to boot back up when you switch on again. If that sounds annoying, you can always use a wall socket instead.

The Google TV Streamer is a different proposition entirely. Google ditched the disc/stick form factor with this model and opted for a small rounded set-top box, connected via an HDMI cable.

It’s a cleaner look on the shelf, and the box shape allowed Google to include a built-in Ethernet port – but it does mean another box to find a home for, and Google didn’t even include an HDMI cable in the box.

Form Factor Winners: Roku Streaming Stick Plus & Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Selection Of UK Streaming Apps

A streaming device is only as good as the streaming you can actually do on it – and for UK users in particular, that means you need more than just Netflix and Disney+. You need BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, 5, NOW, and the rest.

The good news is that all three devices cover the essentials well. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, 5, NOW, YouTube – they’re all present on the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, the Fire TV 4K Max, and the Google TV Streamer.

That said, there are some differences worth knowing about.

The Google TV Streamer has had a rocky history with UK app support. When it launched, it was missing Channel 4, and BBC iPlayer took six months to arrive.

Things have improved since then, but it still occasionally lags behind the other two when it comes to getting new apps and updates.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus has a comprehensive selection of UK streaming apps, though it can sometimes be a little slower than the Fire TV to pick up newer or more niche services.

DAZN, for example, arrived on Roku later than the Fire TV in the UK. Roku also doesn’t support VPN apps or web browsers – so if either of those matter to you, that’s worth knowing upfront.

The Fire TV 4K Max still has the broadest app library of the three, with VPN support and even a web browser (Amazon’s own Silk browser) thrown in.

It also still supports sideloading – installing apps from outside the official store – which gives it extra flexibility for those who want it.

As discussed in the Vega section, this is something that will change with future Fire TV sticks, but the 4K Max retains it for now.

One unique Roku perk is The Roku Channel – a free, ad-supported streaming service exclusive to Roku devices, with films, TV shows and some Roku Originals. The content library in the UK is fairly limited, but it’s a free bonus that the others don’t offer. The Fire TV Stick is getting its own list of free ad-supported channels this year.

Selection Of UK Apps Winner: Amazon Fire TV 4K Max

Interface / Ease Of Use

One of the main reasons people buy a dedicated streaming device is to escape the slow, confusing interfaces on most Smart TVs. And all three devices here are definitely a step up from most of what you’ll find baked into a television (unless it’s a Roku or Fire TV television).

But they take very different approaches – and which one suits you best really comes down to what you want from your streaming device.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus has the simplest interface of the three – and that’s meant as a compliment. Your apps sit right there on the home screen as a clean grid of tiles, exactly where you’d expect them.

No algorithm pushing content in your face, no banner ads for things you don’t want, no Prime Video promotions taking up half the screen. Just your apps, ready to go.

Roku has added a “What To Watch” section in recent years, which offers personalised recommendations and a cross-service watchlist – and while it’s a welcome addition, it still feels a bit hit and miss in practice.

But crucially, it doesn’t get in the way. If you want it, it’s there. If you don’t, you can ignore it.

This simplicity is Roku’s greatest strength – and for some, its greatest weakness. If you just want to get to Netflix or BBC iPlayer as quickly as possible, Roku is hard to beat. It passes what I call the Grandparents Test with flying colours.

The Fire TV 4K Max interface is a more complicated story. It’s powerful and feature-rich, with cross-service recommendations, a “Continue Watching” row, user profiles, and a Live TV tab that aggregates live content from supported UK apps.

And a significant new interface redesign is currently rolling out to UK devices – the biggest overhaul since 2020 – with a cleaner layout, the navigation menu moving back to the top of the screen, content organised by type (movies, TV shows, sports, live) across all your subscribed services, and the ability to pin up to 20 apps on your home screen.

It looks promising, and it should make things a bit less cluttered.

That said, even with the redesign, the Fire TV interface has always had a tendency to feel busy – with Amazon’s own Prime Video content taking centre stage, banner ads scattered throughout, and sponsored content woven into the mix.

The new interface is a step in the right direction, but it’s not a fundamental rethink. I’m yet to see it on my own Fire TV devices, so the full verdict will have to wait.

The Google TV Streamer sits somewhere in between – it tries to bring together content from multiple streaming services into a unified recommendations feed, which is a useful idea if you subscribe to several different services and tend to forget where you were watching something.

In practice though, it still feels a bit rough around the edges, and the interface lacks the customisation options you get on the Fire TV.

Picking a winner here depends on your priorities. For sheer simplicity and ease of use, Roku wins. For power users who want more features and don’t mind a busier screen, the Fire TV pulls ahead.

Interface Winner: Roku Streaming Stick Plus (for most people)

Picture Quality

Although picture quality depends first and foremost on your TV – and on the streaming service you’re using – the streaming device plays a part too.

All three devices support Ultra HD (4K) and HDR. HDR – High Dynamic Range – improves contrast, delivers a wider colour palette, and can make a real difference to how your content looks, provided your TV supports it and the streaming service offers it.

There are several competing HDR formats – HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision – and this is where the three devices start to differ slightly.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus supports HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG – which covers the vast majority of HDR content out there, including the BBC’s 4K HDR streams, which use the HLG format.

The one omission is Dolby Vision, which is supported by the pricier Roku Streaming Stick 4K. For most people, this won’t make a meaningful difference day to day – but if Dolby Vision is important to you, it’s worth knowing.

The Fire TV 4K Max supports all four formats, including Dolby Vision, as well as Dolby Atmos for audio. It also supports AV1, the codec used by YouTube for its highest-quality streams.

The Google TV Streamer also supports all major HDR formats including Dolby Vision, and Dolby Atmos for audio.

In practice, picture quality across all three devices is excellent – the differences are minor enough that most viewers will never notice them. The Roku Streaming Stick Plus’s lack of Dolby Vision is the only caveat worth flagging, and only then if your TV supports it and you watch a lot of Dolby Vision content.

Picture Quality Winner: Fire TV 4K Max & Google TV Streamer (with the Roku Streaming Stick Plus close behind)

Performance

Performance covers everything from how quickly the interface responds to button presses, to how fast apps load, to the stability of the WiFi connection.

The good news is that all three devices feel noticeably snappier than most Smart TV interfaces. If you’re coming from a built-in TV interface – especially on an older or budget set – you’ll notice the difference immediately.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus is a genuine step up from the older Roku Express models it replaces. Apps load quickly, menus scroll smoothly, and in day-to-day use it feels consistently responsive.

It’s the least powerful device on this list on paper – but Roku’s lightweight, well-optimised OS punches above its weight, and you’d rarely feel short-changed in everyday use.

The Google TV Streamer has the most impressive specs on paper – 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a built-in Ethernet port thanks to its box form factor. But in practice, it can feel a touch laggy at times, likely due to the overhead of Google’s software. It’s not slow by any means – but it doesn’t always feel as snappy as those specs might suggest – especially at its inflated price point.

The Fire TV 4K Max hits the sweet spot. With a quad-core 2GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, it’s fast, fluid, and consistent in everyday use – and Amazon’s Fire OS keeps things feeling tight and responsive without the sluggishness that occasionally creeps into the Google TV Streamer.

It also supports WiFi 6E, though you’ll only benefit from that if your router supports it, which many UK ISPs’ routers currently don’t.

Performance Winner: Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Remote Controls

All three devices come with a voice remote as standard – which wasn’t always the case. Roku only recently started bundling its voice remote with the Streaming Stick Plus, having previously reserved it for the pricier Streaming Stick 4K.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus remote is compact and straightforward. It has the usual navigation pad, playback buttons, and volume controls – with the volume and mute buttons sitting on the side of the remote, which sounds like a small detail but is genuinely useful when you’re fumbling around in the dark.

It also has four shortcut buttons for popular streaming services, which you can’t reassign – so they’re only useful if you happen to subscribe to those specific services.

The Fire TV 4K Max comes with Amazon’s Alexa Voice Remote Enhanced – a slightly more button-heavy remote that adds a dedicated Channels Up/Down button for live TV, a Recent button for jumping back to your last app, and a Settings shortcut.

It’s a capable remote, though the extra buttons can make it feel a little busy. Amazon also sells a Pro version of the remote separately, with backlighting and a Find My Remote function – useful, but it costs extra and doesn’t come bundled with any device.

The Google TV Streamer remote is notably smaller than the other two – and notably missing dedicated Play/Pause buttons, relying instead on the central selection button for those functions.

It does have the fewest shortcut buttons of the three (just YouTube and Netflix), which is actually a plus if you find those buttons more annoying than useful.

All three remotes work via Bluetooth, so you don’t need a line of sight to the device – handy when the stick is tucked away behind your TV.

Choosing between the three is largely a matter of taste – but the Roku’s side-mounted volume buttons give it a slight edge for everyday comfort.

Remote Controls Winner: Roku Streaming Stick Plus

Voice Control and AI

All three devices have voice control built into their remotes – press a button, speak, and the device responds. But the experience varies quite a bit between them.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus has a voice button on its remote, and it works well for the basics – searching for a film or actor, launching an app, issuing playback commands.

What it doesn’t have is a full voice assistant behind it. So while you can say “Play Succession on NOW” and get a useful result, you can’t ask it the weather or set a reminder. It’s voice search rather than voice assistant – but for most people, that’s all they actually need.

The Fire TV 4K Max has Alexa built in, which is a meaningful step up. Beyond the usual content search and playback commands, you can ask questions, check the weather, control smart home devices, and – if you have an Echo device – pair it with your Firestick so you don’t even need the remote. It’s still the most capable voice assistant of the three for everyday use.

Amazon is also rolling out Alexa+ – a more conversational, AI-powered version of Alexa – to Fire TV devices, starting with the newest hardware before expanding to older devices. It’s early days, and we haven’t had a chance to properly test it on the 4K Max yet, so the full verdict will have to wait.

The Google TV Streamer has Google Assistant built in, which is a strong alternative to Alexa – capable of answering questions, controlling smart home devices, and searching for content across services.

Google has also started rolling out Gemini for TV – its more advanced AI assistant – but currently only in the US and Canada. There’s no word yet on a UK release date. For now, UK users get Google Assistant, same as before.

Choosing between Alexa and Google Assistant often comes down to which ecosystem you already live in. Both are useful (up to a point) – but Alexa’s deeper integration with the Fire TV interface, and its broader smart home support, gives it a slight edge here.

Voice Control Winner: Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max

Smartphone App

All three devices have companion smartphone apps – and this is one area where the gap between them has narrowed considerably over the past year.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus app remains the strongest of the three. It works as a remote control, lets you browse and search for content, manage your watchlist, and cast to your TV from your phone.

But the standout feature is Private Listening – connect headphones to your phone, tap the button in the app, and the audio from whatever you’re watching on TV plays through your headphones instead of the TV’s speakers. It’s brilliant for late-night viewing, and something the other two don’t match.

The Fire TV app has had a significant upgrade in early 2026, finally catching up with Roku in some areas. It now lets you browse content, manage your watchlist, and fire something up on your TV directly from your phone – so if you spot a recommendation while you’re out, you can add it to your list and it’ll be waiting when you get home.

Remote control functionality is still there too. It’s taken Amazon a while to get here, but it’s a welcome improvement.

The Google TV Streamer, oddly for a company whose entire ecosystem revolves around phones, doesn’t have a dedicated app.

Instead, you manage it through the terrible Google Home app – which handles setup and basic controls, but is notoriously clunky and unreliable. It gets the job done if everything goes smoothly, but if anything goes wrong, the Google Home app is not the companion you want to be troubleshooting with.

Smartphone App Winner: Roku Streaming Stick Plus (with the Fire TV now close behind)

Streaming Devices – Honourable Mentions

Amazon Fire TV Cube

Amazon’s top-of-the-line streaming device combines a Fire TV streamer with a built-in Echo/Alexa speaker and microphones – so you can control everything with your voice without even touching the remote.

It’s more powerful than the 4K Max, with an octa-core processor, but it has two problems: the price is significantly higher than the 4K Max stick at £139.99, and – its last version was released way back in 2022 (see my review).

So, unless you’re also in the market for a small Echo device, it’s hard to justify the premium. If you are though – it’s an excellent combination.

It’s also worth noting that the Fire TV Cube still runs Android-based Fire OS – so everything we said about the 4K Max regarding sideloading and app availability applies here too.

Apple TV

Yes, plenty of people swear by it – and I hear from them in the comments every year. Apple TV is an excellent streaming device, with a fast, polished interface, great picture quality, and tight integration with the Apple ecosystem.

But… the current Apple TV 4K was released in 2022. It’s now 2026, and it still costs around £140. There are constant rumours about a new model on the way, and at this point, those rumours have been circulating long enough that waiting seems like the sensible call.

If and when a new Apple TV arrives, we’ll take a look. For now, at that price, for that age of hardware, it’s very hard to recommend over our three main picks.

Sky Stream / Virgin Media Stream

Both Sky and Virgin Media offer their own standalone streaming boxes – no satellite dish required. They’ve grown up considerably since launch, with friendly interfaces, solid content curation, and a wide selection of third-party apps alongside their own services.

Sky Stream has the edge over Virgin Media’s equivalent, mainly because it works with any broadband provider – whereas Virgin Media Stream only works if you’re a Virgin Media broadband customer.

That said, neither is a fully open streaming device. Both only support apps that their respective providers approve, and both require an ongoing subscription.

But if you’re already considering a Sky or Virgin Media subscription, these are worth a serious look – particularly Sky Stream, which has become a genuinely polished product.

Freely Boxes – For Those Who Still Want Live TV

If live UK broadcast TV is a big part of your viewing, there’s a newer category of device worth knowing about – standalone Freely boxes.

Freely is Everyone TV’s streaming platform (the organisation behind Freeview and Freesat) that delivers live broadcast TV over your broadband connection rather than an aerial or satellite dish.

You get BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5, and 60+ other channels in a unified programme guide, with seven days of catch-up built in – no aerial required.

Until recently, Freely was only available on brand new smart TVs. But there are now three standalone Freely boxes that bring it to any TV with an HDMI port:

The Manhattan Aero (£89.99) is the most affordable option and the simplest to use, running TiVo OS. It has a clean interface and an Ethernet port, and its core functionality requires no ongoing subscription.

The app selection is limited – though you can access some additional services via Amazon’s Prime Video Channels. It’s a good choice if you primarily want Freely and a straightforward experience.

The Netgem Pleio (£99) is a more fully-featured proposition. It runs Android TV 14 with full Google Play Store access – so alongside Freely, you get Netflix, Disney+, NOW, HBO Max, and pretty much every streaming service you’d want.

It also comes with a wireless gamepad and access to 300+ cloud games via a Pleio Extra subscription (free for 12 months, £9.99/month after that). At just £9 more than the Aero, it’s genuinely competitive – and for anyone who wants Freely AND a full streaming device in one box, the Pleio is the one to consider.

The Humax Aura EZ (£249) is a different beast entirely – it’s primarily a Freeview recorder, letting you pause, rewind and record live TV – alongside a Freely player. If recording is important to you, it’s the only Freely box that combines the two. But at that price, and with some technical issues still to be ironed out, it’s a more cautious recommendation for now – and it has no apps whatsoever, other than the basic broadcaster apps.

One important caveat with all three: the Freely side and the streaming side of these devices don’t fully integrate with each other yet. They’re essentially two separate systems living in the same box, with their own search and navigation. It works – but it’s not as seamless as you might hope.

Best Overall Streaming Device 2026: The Roku Streaming Stick Plus

After a year at the top, the Fire TV 4K Max hands the crown back to Roku – not because anything has gone wrong with it, but because the Roku Streaming Stick Plus at £39.99 is simply too good to ignore.

And that price is really the whole story. At £39.99 – almost half the cost of the Fire TV 4K Max at £69.99 – the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is fast, simple, supports every streaming service you’re likely to need, and doesn’t try to sell you things while you’re using it.

For most people, that’s all a streaming device needs to do. The fact that it does it at that price makes it one of the easiest recommendations we’ve made in years.

The Fire TV 4K Max remains an excellent device – and it’s still the one to get if you’re a power user, heavily invested in the Amazon ecosystem, or want the flexibility of sideloading. Just be aware that Amazon’s direction of travel with Vega OS means the Fire TV you buy today may look quite different from the Fire TV of a few years from now.

The Google TV Streamer holds third place – capable, and with an interesting approach to content discovery, but at £99 it’s the most expensive of the three, and it’s hard to square that price tag with what you actually get.

It’s faster on paper than the Fire TV Max, yet feels slower in use, and still carries the scars of Google’s patchy UK app support history. A device that costs two and a half times more than our winner needs to be significantly better – and it isn’t.

The Roku Streaming Stick Plus wins. £39.99, and it does everything you need. Job done.