Being such popular products, both the Roku and the Fire Stick are sold in all sorts of stores and go on sale very often. Before you buy whichever you decide on, it’s well worth searching the web to see if anyone is doing a deal right now. This includes checking Roku and Amazon directly because they also put up plenty of sales, and often at the same time since one tends to react to the other to stay in the competition.
The 4K Roku Streaming Stick and the 4K Amazon Fire Stick both cost $49.99 at full price, which, again, is no coincidence. Because they’re direct competitors, neither wants their core product to be more expensive than the other. Both also offer a range of different versions of the product at different price points. There’s the Roku Express and Fire TV Stick Lite, both selling for $29.99 and the Roku’s Streambar retailing at $129.99 against the Fire TV Cube for $139.99.
If you are looking to get the best cheap stick, there are a few ways that the Roku Express and Fire TV Stick Lite differ. Firstly, the Amazon remote doesn’t include power and volume controls for your TV, so you’ll have to keep the original remote nearby. The Roku Express does have these buttons but doesn’t have voice control like the Amazon. There is a Roku app you can use for voice controls instead, though.