Roku has unveiled a smaller, thinner and more powerful Streaming Stick. The new dongle only costs $50 and sports a quad-core processor, which the company promises will provide much smoother performance compared to the current generation of streaming sticks.

Along with the new Streaming Stick, Roku also announced the official release of Roku OS version 7.1. The new operating system features an overhauled Feed feature that will show what specific TV program or movies are trending on a given day across several streaming applications.

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The updated mobile app also allow users to listen to audio tracks from the new streaming stick directly to their smartphone.  Roku claims that wireless headphones are also supported.

The Roku smartphone app is available on both the Android and iOS mobile operating systems.

Roku claims that the new quad-core processor of the new Streaming Stick is eight times more powerful than the current models. With the quad-core processor, Roku claims that it has the fastest streaming stick in the market, toppling competiting devices from Google and Amazon.

But the $50 price tag of with the new streaming stick means it is still a bit expensive compared to the Google Chromecast and the Amazon Fire TV Stick. Roku said that the small size of the new streaming stick as well as its upgraded processing power should be enticing enough to convince customers to pick it compared over its closest rivals.

In an interview with Decider, Roku product director Llyod Klarke said that the upgraded processor will not affect content buffering as it relies mostly on users' Internet speed or Wi-Fi connection.

"The software on our product does a lot to help with buffering. The device will lower the screen resolution for a few seconds and then goes back to full resolution when you have a better connection, but there are a lot of links in that chain that we can't control," Klarke added.

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