Now released Roku 3 $99.99 + FS

Buy a Lenovo keypad remote and you can cut your hdmi cable really small. Plus lenovo remote is great for making presentations.

Yes. via the Plex app.

Roku jumped the shark way before that when the youtube channel was removed because it didn't show ads. Roku was an innovative product but now it's just an STB for cable/iptv/etc providers. Even android ARM pc sticks are folding under pressure and restricting content based on platform (hulu).

HDMI out with an x86 PC is still a better solution.

Who wants to deal with Windows and using a mouse in their living room?? Roku gives you DVD player simplicity, a real remote, a easy way to watch aggregated content from various websites without having to type in the URLs. The YouTube issue has been beaten to death. There is VideoBuzz which gives you exactly the same thing. Roku is plug-and-play vs. Windows plug-and-pray.

You've never heard of xbmc? Except for netflix, everything is easy to navigate to. No URL to type in, just navigate with a remote.

You've never seen wireless remotes/mice/keyboards/etc? Those all work with xbmc.

You cannot tell me that XBMC gives you all the channels that Roku does. I am running XBMC, as well as Plex.

will it stream over a local network? And will it play mkv files??

Like I said in another post, Panasonic BDT110 plays mkv files via a usb.

Time Warner Cable released their app for the Roku yesterday and it works great! It installed on mine in like 20 seconds. I already have a cable tuner and media extenders but if I didn't it would work great as a replacement for a cable box to save you extra money.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3319...-hands-on/

For netflix watching you can't beat a good blu ray player. My sony trumps my old roku in almost every way.

Poor Roku, fighting for relevance.

If you want Youtube on your Roku then install PLEX and install the Youtube channel on your PLEX server. It works great and a big added bonus there are hundreds of extra channels in PLEX that are not offered in your stock Roku channel store. I have just about every network TV channels app in PLEX and am able to stream just about any show that is currently airing on it. Also the new Time Warner Cable App has about 10+ channels on it that I do not pay for and do not get on my regular cable service but I do get them for free with the TWC app for some reason.

Time Warner Cable released their app for the Roku yesterday and it works great! It installed on mine in like 20 seconds. I already have a cable tuner and media extenders but if I didn't it would work great as a replacement for a cable box to save you extra money.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3319...-hands-on/

Come on Amazon! Hoping for one by the weekend.

http://www.amazon.com/Roku-4200R-...B00BGGDVOO
Not sure if anyone else linked to it yet though.

I'm still confused about the usefulness of the Roku vs. my PS3 and cable box. Anyone help me out on that?

Added bonus is that it will take you about 15 seconds to teach your wife to use, compared to the Android stick which she'll be frustrated with daily.