What's not to love about the new and improved Roku Streaming Stick? The company dropped the MHL requirement and cut the price in half. Sweet.

If you have been toying with the idea of giving (or receiving) the HDMI streaming stick this holiday season, you're in for good news. CNET and PC magazine both gave the Roku Streaming Stick at least 4 stars with consumers rating it even higher on big box store sites like Best Buy.

In the U.S., the Roku Streaming Stick offers 1,800+ channels. Some channels, like PBS, Vevo, Crackle and the Smithsonian Channel, are free. You'll need a cable subscription to enjoy channels like HBO Go, Watch ESPN, Showtime Anytime, History and FOX Now. Channels like Netflix require a monthly subscription.

If you are a sports fanatic, you'll enjoy that Roku offers over 67 channels -- more than any other streaming player.

The device is simple to use. You insert the Roku Streaming Stick into your television and start streaming the entertainment. The content is endless with thousands of TV episodes, news, music, sports, kids' shows, over 200,000 movies and free programming-all in up to 1080p.

Best of all, you can control your entertainment from your smartphone using the free Roku app, or use the included remote. You can even cast videos from mobile apps, such as YouTube, from your cell phone directly to your TV.

The streaming stick has features like channel shortcut buttons, one-stop search and extended-range wireless.

Take your entertainment on-the-go by packing the Roku stick when you travel. It will easily plug into any TV with HDMI.

The best holiday shopping deal we could find for the Roku Stick was at Wal-Mart where you can buy it for $49.00 and get 60 days of free Rdio Unlimited and 3 months of free Hulu Plus (Regular price: $49.99).

Roku shipped its first streaming player in 2008.