Fire TV with ROXi Review

Reviewed by Dee Ryz

Whether your wrapping gifts, listening to the Christmas bangers, or popping on the party tunes as you get ready, at this time of year, music is a magical must-have. Sometimes, you don’t just want to hear it though, you want to watch music videos, which unless you have access to dedicated music channels can be a bit of a nightmare. Enter ROXi.
ROXi is an interactive music streaming service, developed in the UK and is backed by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. The standard ROXi app is free-to-use with unlimited music videos, an Essential Karaoke catalogue, Essential Music Channels, Worldwide Radio and Essential Music Games, albeit with ads (definitely not the end of the world, I can assure you!). ROXi is available to use on Fire TV, Sky Q, Android TV and Google TV, and it’s also available as a separate console which can be used with any TV. For the purposes of this review, I was gifted Fire TV. The set up was super easy too. It was as simple as plugging the Fire TV to the power, and the other end into an HDMI port on my TV, navigating to the source input and connecting to my wifi. Once connected, I could easily search and download the app – for your tech-savvy teenager, this would be an incredibly easy set up.

To get a feel for the app, I kicked things off by having a look through the music videos. Wow! There are so many – apparently there’s 70 million releases available! I thought one of the best features was the pre-selected channels, which were really fun and varied. You aren’t limited to the pre-prescribed playlists though – you can create your very (quick and easy) own too. The sound and video quality were also top-notch. I have to admit, the best thing about this is that unlike your other music video services, the only videos available are the original, bonified music videos – no more confusing your favourite song/video with someone’s home-made slideshow, brilliant! As there are so many videos available, if you’re a bit nervous about explicit lyrics for the tweens, you can even set up parental controls in a couple of quick clicks.

As I mentioned before, the service isn’t limited to music videos, it also allows you to try out your vocal cords in the karaoke catalogue. To help you out, ROXi also have a fun microphone (RRP £29.99), with built in amplifier that you can use to belt out all your favourites – from divas delights to playful pop anthems. With buttons to manage the echo and volume levels, you’re in control and can edit to your taste too. The microphone is also super easy to charge using a micro-USB cable. While singing is NOT one of my strong points, I had fun trying my best to hit the high notes in ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue. Absolutely hilarious!

There are also interactive music games. The ‘Name the Song’ game came recommended, so I just had to test it out. I have to say, it wasn’t my finest hour (my music knowledge was somewhat lacking!), however I’m really looking forward to trying it out with the extended family on Christmas Day, but I might need to do some studying before then to ensure I can compete with the young ‘uns!

With so many advantages, the only downside I found was that searching using the Firestick remote can be a little hard going (so many clicks!), so after a quick search, I was pleasantly surprised to find that you can actually download an accompanying app on iOS or Android, allowing you to use your phone to search the ROXi app – so much easier.
In terms of pricing, the basic service is free to use. However, you can opt to up your subscription to ROXi Premium for £6.99 per month (which has a free 30 day trial too) which gives you access to the full ROXi experience, completely ad-free. I think this is highly competitive, especially compared to the likes of YouTube and Vevo, and for a limited time, you can even claim your very own free microphone when you opt in for a 30-day trial of ROXi Premium, a superb deal!
If you’re struggling to think of something to buy that rock-loving nephew or your angsty teenage daughter this could be top of Santa’s list. It’s not limited to the young adults though, oh no – don’t discount this for the karaoke king or queen in your life, your little one who fancies herself as the next Elsa from Frozen or even your gangster Granny who’s up on her hiphop knowledge, ROXi is easy to use, fun for all ages, and would make an ideal gift this Christmas for any and everyone.

Rating: 5/5

Price: a subscription to ROXi premium costs £6.99 per month

For more information please visit the RoXi website here.