Roku (affiliate link) has always been a great choice for a streaming box (check out my beginners guide to streaming boxes here)  and they’ve recently partnered with Google to add yet another reason to have one under your TV. Roku announced the Google Play channel for Roku via their blog on Halloween. The new Google Play channel gives Roku users access to the entire Google Play movies & TV ecosystem. If you’ve bought video content from the Google Play store on an android devices you’ll now have access to it on the Roku. Naturally you can also rent or purchase new content directly from the new Roku channel and you’ll also be able to watch on your other Google Play connected devices. This addition makes the Roku the de-facto standard streaming box for Android users.

After some hands on time with the new channel I can say it’s as easy and beautiful as one would hope. It’s a must add for Roku users. I spent about a year with an Android phone before switching back to the iPhone and was surprised by the amount of content I’d already purchased that was waiting for me in the new channel. Google tends to give away a lot more free content than Apple. In fact, when I added the channel to my Roku they gave me the original X-Men (2000) movie for free.