GTrusted
If you are in a dorm room or in tight quarters at the workplace or home office, you probably don't have room for a large 4K TV. There is enough space for a 4K PC monitor like the LG 27 inch Class Ultra HD IPS 4K 27UD88-W Monitor but that's about it. If you have some downtime and want to catch up on your favorite shows, the Roku Ultra is ideal for such situations given its compact size and ability to stream 4K content from anywhere as long as you have WI-FI or Ethernet connectivity to the Internet.
Most PC monitors don't have audio outputs which makes them cheaper and ideally suited for work environments compared to TV's. However, the Roku Ultra has a smart way to get around this by streaming audio to the remote control. All you need to do is connect headphones like the Beats Solo3 Wireless to the Roku Ultra remote using the 3.5mm audio hack on the remote. Although the Solo3 Wireless is more known for Bluetooth audio, it also has a 3.5mm audio jack which you can connect a 3.5mm audio cable to.
Other streaming devices like the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote supports wireless Bluetooth instead of wired audio. However, one benefit of using wired headphones is there is less potential Bluetooth interference especially if you are using a 2.4Ghz WI-FI network, which is the same frequency band used by Bluetooth.
Note the Roku Ultra remote will still use its own microphone rater than the Solo3 Wireless's microphone. Compared to the Amazon Alexa which can check things like the weather, the Nuance powered Roku voice recognition is specifically tailored to find content. For example, asking to the Roku Ultra remote "What is the weather today" will give you all the related shows that match that title.
Also note that the LG 27 inch Class Ultra HD IPS 4K 27UD88-W Monitor does not support HDR so make sure the settings on the Roku Ultra are for 4K UHD TV and not 4K HDR TV HDR.
The compact size of the Roku Ultra and Solo3 Wireless is also useful when you are on the road and want to keep up with your shows.
To see what 4K content could be viewed on the Roku Ultra while traveling in Japan, it was interesting to see that Netflix was only showing HD versions of their shows which were available in 4K back in the US.
However, on YouTube we could find 4K content to play in Japan through the Roku Ultra.
Amazon is also available on the Roku Ultra in Japan and even showed which content supported 4K HDR10 or 4K Dolby Vision.
Unfortunately, most of the shows were blocked from being watched in Japan.
Out of the shows we searched for, only the Grand Tour could be viewed in Japan in 4K.
The Roku Ultra and Solo3 Wireless is a nice portable 4K solution that can work on any 4K display that you have access to whether at home or on the road. Note that a lot of steaming 4K content that is available US may not be accessible overseas.
