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Roku has announced a pair of brand-new Smart TVs with a serious step-up in picture quality. The latest collaboration with manufacturer Sharp, Roku will release a Mini-LED television in either 50- or 55-inch screen sizes.
For those who don't know, Mini-LED promises more vivid colours, cavernous shades of black, and brighter whites for a more vibrant picture than standard LED TVs. Support for picture standards like Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG ensures true-to-life colour and more precise lighting across a wide range of content.
Mini-LED is an improvement on your typical LCD screen. It leverages thousands of minuscule LEDs to provide the backlight for the pixels. Since these LEDs are much smaller than those used in traditional LED-backlit displays, they can be controlled with more precision, keeping the bright areas well-lit while keeping shadows nice and gloomy.
It sits between standard LCD and OLED technology, where each pixel provides its own light — offering another step-up in the amount of control, cutting light bleed and boosting colours.
Dubbed Sharp Roku TV Mini-LED, the new lineup builds on the success of the QLED range launched by Roku and Sharp. Both new models feature a frameless design with a sleek central stand for a minimal look that should ensure this television fits naturally into most modern interiors.
And it's not just the display that promises to improve your next movie night. These Sharp-built Mini-LED TVs ship with so-called "Roku Audio", which the brand says adds audio post-processing for clearer, fuller sound out of the box.
These all-new Mini-LED Smart TVs from Sharp and Roku will be exclusive to Argos at launch.
Both models arrive with the latest iteration of the Roku TV operating system, which bundles access to thousands of free and paid streaming channels, personalised recommendations, popular apps and games, and automatic software updates.
The customisable home screen, which recently underwent a controversial top-to-bottom redesign, offers universal search — so you can trawl across all catalogues from the various streaming services you've installed on your flatscreen to find the exact film, documentary, sports fixture, or boxset included at no extra cost.
You can also search for a specific actor, director, or ask for recommendations based on your viewing history across all of the streamers you watch via Roku. The brand also owns and operates The Roku Channel, which offers free movies and television shows supported by ad breaks, and Howdy, a low-cost competitor to streaming services like Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.
Roku is the number one TV platform in the United States, Canada, and Mexico by hours streamed. Although it hasn't quite grasped the top spot in Blighty, it remains hugely popular, thanks to its affordable Roku Streaming Sticks, which compete head-to-head with Amazon's Fire TV Sticks, and its Smart TVs powered by the Roku operating system.
Discussing the new arrivals, Rob Woollard, who serves as Director of Retail Partnerships at Roku UK, said: "This launch builds on the strong momentum we've seen across the Sharp Roku TV line-up.
"Bringing Mini-LED picture quality into the range shows exactly what this long-standing partnership is about: pairing great hardware with an easy, award-winning streaming experience. It reflects our ongoing ambition to keep raising the bar on picture quality with Sharp."
