14 DAY TRIAL // Roku made a good showing with its Streaming Stick, but Netgear may give it trouble even though it doesn't have something of similar size and convenience. Such is the situation when things matter more to customers.
The three products that Netgear has released are called NeoTV, NeoTV Pro and NeoTV Max, each more sophisticated and, by extension, more expensive than the last.
As we said, none of them has the small frame of an USB stick (or an HDMI stick in this case). On the flip side, they do have YouTube (Roku lacks it, in absence of user shenanigans) and other assets, like a remote with shortcut buttons for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Cinema Now, VUDU, Pandora and YouTube on the remote control.
The user interface has also been redesigned compared to previous Netgear products. Based on HTML5, the new UI should have an easy time of integrating new functionality in the future.
And now we may as well speak of each device in particular, starting with the “regular” NeoTV. Priced at $49.99 / 49.99 Euro, it has Full HD 1080p video and 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus surround sound.
NeoTV Pro costs $10 / 10 Euro more, but has WiDi (Intel Wireless Display).
Third and last, the NeoTV Max integrates an USB port and a microSD memory card slot on top of what the other two possess. Its price is of $69.99 / 69.99 Euro.
All three NeoTV set-top boxes will begin shipping this month in the United States and in November in Canada (2012). The UK, Europe, and Australia should get their shipments in November as well, or December if things go particularly slowly. We don't know about the rest of the world though.
We do know that there is a high chance for other set-top boxes to be released in the meantime, so Netgear may want to watch out.