Roku Pro Series (2025) TV Review: Great Usability, Improved Contrast

8.0/ 10
SCORE

Roku Pro (2025)

Pros

• Easy to use
• Solid contrast
• One of the best streaming suites available

Cons

• Pricier than rivals
• HDR colors are inaccurate

Roku has sold its own Roku-branded TVs for many years, most of which are manufactured by third parties and are quite inexpensive. However, the Roku Pro is the closest the company has come to a high-end model. Picture quality, especially with standard dynamic range shows and movies, is a notable improvement over previous models, featuring a natural-looking image and decent contrast levels. Yet, as with the company’s other models, it’s the TV’s user-focused features that stand out.

I really enjoyed testing the Roku. It’s got a cozy interface and friendly remote — and performance is the best of any Roku-branded TV yet. If it sounds like I’m preparing for a “but,” then I am. The TV’s color in HDR was somewhat inaccurate, and this is something you will likely notice in regular program material. It wasn’t unpleasant, just hyperreal. Like watching everything in Vivid mode, even when the TV is set to Movie. If you want realistic color, this isn’t the best choice.

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Like any TV during the holidays, the price on the Roku Pro is volatile, and it’s currently at its lowest price. If it returns to its full retail price ($1,195 for the 65-inch model), there are several excellent TVs available for just a bit more, including the Samsung S90F OLED and the ultra-bright Hisense U8QG. If your budget is around $800, and you’re looking for a user-friendly TV with a decent picture, then the Roku Pro TV is worth considering.

Whoa, that’s heavy 

The Roku’s design is relatively conservative, in a boxy kind of way, with a gun-metal gray bezel and a pair of tool-less feet at either end. The TV conceals all of its cool features behind the TV, including a Velcro strap to secure cables and the woofers of the company’s Soundstage Audio. 

At 62 pounds for the 65-inch, though, this is one of the heaviest TVs I’ve toted around. It really does need two people to set it up. I also found the screen to be more delicate than most — and this was an issue I had with the previous model as well. For instance, I packed up this Roku Pro to ship to another location, and the LCD’s edges had pressure damage from the box. I also managed to break the similarly designed 2024 Roku Pro by lifting it onto a table. While the TV is protected by overengineered packaging, avoid touching the screen at all when setting it up… and pack it very carefully.

I do appreciate the Roku’s little user-friendly embellishments. For instance, I’m always losing the remote control and love the remote finder button right on the side of the TV. It’s conveniently located next to the power button, which is also easy to find. One of my own pet peeves is not being able to turn a TV off without a remote (because I lost it).

The TV comes with a version of the excellent Roku Voice Remote Pro. The remote is rechargeable and has a hands-free microphone, which can also help you find it when it’s gone missing. The remote is backlit and comes with a single programmable button.

Would you like smarts with that TV?

If you’re buying a Roku TV, it’s likely that specs are not the most important items on your checklist. You won’t find any “percent of DCI color space” or “X number of nits” in any of the Pro’s marketing or support material. It’s a Roku, and for fans, that’s often enough. (I did manage to find this stuff, but it wasn’t obvious.)

Roku’s interface has had some upgrades over the years, but the OS still offers an apps-first experience — or “channels” in Roku speak. There are hundreds of them to choose from, including all the biggies, like Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV Plus, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Disney. If a service has an app, it’s very likely here.

In recent years, along with the increase in free content, especially the Roku Channel, there has been an influx of ads on the main page. Here at CNET, we’ve dinged Roku’s competitors for similar ad-heavy layouts, and so we need to call this out here as well. For instance, if you flick over to the Apps view from Home, then an ad takes up a third of the screen. It will also play if you accidentally (or intentionally, I suppose) click on it.

Yet, the main advantage of buying a Roku TV versus a separate set-top like the Roku Ultra, is that the functionality is more tightly woven into the television. You don’t need to juggle remotes to change picture settings and then search for a TV show, for example.

Watch this: These 4 TVs Have the Best Picture Quality in 2025

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Gaming features galore

The Roku Pro Series is a mini-LED TV that features full-array local dimming, though Roku isn’t forward about how many zones that equals. Even so, I did manage to confirm that the 65-inch has 720 zones as well as an “active matrix architecture that has faster zone transitions and better black levels.” Meanwhile, the Hisense U8Q has up to 5,000 zones (depending on the size), but it’s also more expensive. Generally, the more dimming zones a TV has, the better it’ll be at extracting detail from low-light scenes.

The television has 4K resolution and HDR compatibility with all the usual standard features, including Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10 Plus and HLG. In addition, the TV uses Quantum Dots in its backlight, designed to help the TV achieve better color than a “normal” LCD TV.

Other features include:

• Four HDMI inputs (one with eARC)
• 1 x USB 2.0 port, 1 x USB-C 3.0
• Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet
• Optical digital audio output
• RF (antenna) input

For gamers, the TV has several options designed to accommodate gaming consoles. This includes an automatic game mode, compatibility with FreeSync Premium Pro, ALLM, and VRR, as well as 4K/120Hz support on two of the HDMI inputs.

Roku Pro vs. Roku Plus vs. TCL QM6K vs. TCL QM7K: Picture quality compared

TV and movies

While I was impressed enough on first blush to include the Roku Pro as part of my best picture quality of 2025 video, it was only on further testing that I found the cracks in its armor.

I compared four TVs for this review — Roku Pro, Roku Plus and TCL QM6 and QM7 — and watched the 2017 remake of the movie It. Pausing on a high-contrast image of Georgie’s face, I saw the QM7 illuminate his features well with good detail, but it also made him look unnatural, almost supernatural. The Pro left a little more in shadow. The QM6 and Plus had the lowest contrast, which made this image less impactful, though the colors were more natural-looking.

All four of the assembled TVs had similar levels of shadow detail in the corresponding image at the top of the stairs, but the Plus was the one that washed out the wall detail. Meanwhile, it was again the Pro and the QM7 that accented the character’s face. The Pro’s image looked a little more natural, and the QM7 was the most green in a goopy, “aliens from Area 51” way. The QM7 performed better in the lighter parts of the picture in a mixed scene, with higher levels of brightness, while the Roku Pro performed better in the shadowy parts. 

After watching several movies, I found that I preferred the Pro over the QM7 as it was more subtle in terms of color. For instance, the burning city scene from 1917 begins in shadow on the stairs (and the Pro was better here), and then when the camera moves to the flare-lit city, the QM7 is brighter and has more “pop.” However, I found that the QM6 was better than both, as it had the most naturalistic colors while also being better in dark gray areas, which could sometimes turn up blue on the Roku. The downside was that it was much dimmer than the others.

When using the Spears & Munsil HDR benchmark 4K Blu-ray to test the TVs, I found the Roku had the most saturated shots of hot springs, and the skies popped. There is a barely noticeable amount of blooming on light objects against black backgrounds compared to the TCL QM6 and QM7.

Switching to some standard-definition material, the Firefly episode “Out of Gas,” my eyes were drawn to the star field that opens the episode. The Roku Pro had the highest brightness and managed to illuminate the most stars. The local dimming of the QM6 and QM7 rendered them darker overall, hiding some of the stars, although they didn’t exhibit the slight bloom around the Serenity that the Roku did.

Gaming

I spent some time gaming on the four assembled TVs and found the Roku to be responsive and decently bright with Xbox games. Compared against the QM7, it had a very good lag score in both 4K and 1080p — both resolutions of the Roku scored under 10ms, which is undetectable when playing. Meanwhile, the TCL was a little slower at 13ms, though still undetectable. 

Bright lighting and off-axis

When I had the four TVs assembled in front of me, I found that all of the TVs were similarly reflective in a bright room. It was only when I used a direct light source — my cellphone’s flash — that I saw that the coatings were different, even from within one manufacturer. For instance, the TCL QM6 reduces direct light to a halo while the QM7 shrinks this further it to a brighter pinpoint of light. The two Rokus had similar “streetlight in a fog” looks.

When viewed off-axis, I saw a definite color shift in both the QM6 and Roku Plus, but the colors stayed fairly true with the Roku. Got a living room full of people? The Roku Pro is a decent option for folks seated far to either side if you can’t afford the step up to OLED.

Sound quality

I wrote extensively about the sound quality of the Roku Pro Series. It has some of the best audio this side of a soundbar. The secret lies in the slit-loaded audio system, which helps provide true stereo and improve intelligibility. That the system has any amount of bass is perhaps the most surprising thing to me. While I’d love to be able to add a subwoofer to this TV — who knows, it may happen — at the moment, your best option for improving sound, as always, is to add a dedicated home theater system.

Notes on settings and picture mode

Like a lot of TVs, the Roku has an ambient light sensor onboard. I initially thought that the sensor was causing the inaccurate color readings that I saw. Roku says that when the TV brightness is set to “Auto,” the TV will use the light sensor. However, I double-checked my results with the company and even measured a second model, but the results were the same. It’s worth mentioning that I also saw these inaccuracies occur with the TCL QM7 TV. Most TVs should score 5 or less on the Delta Error scale, but both of these TVs scored around 20, which is 15 points above a “Poor” rating on our scale.

If you’re trying to set the color manually, the lack of a Filmmaker mode makes it a little trickier, especially with a confusing choice of “Dark Darker Normal Bright and Brighter.” HDR Dark and then Brighter are the recommended settings for HDR, according to Roku.