Roku Streambar vs Sony HT-G700

The Roku Streambar makes for an outstanding Soundbar at $129. The Sony HT-G700, however, while overall a good product for its asking price, doesn't quite manage to stand out from its competition - there are better Soundbars that can be found for around $450 available here.

The Roku Streambar has done great in a couple of roundups conducted by highly trusted sources that perform objective in-depth testing, like CNET, Rtings, and Tom's Guide - it earned the "Top Pick" title from CNET, "Best Budget Small Soundbar" from Rtings, and "The best Roku device that's also a speaker" from Tom's Guide. Any product that's held in high regard by such reliable sources should be considered by anyone that's looking for a Soundbar at this price point.

As for the Sony HT-G700 - it was really well-received by reviewers at Rtings, a great source that's known for conducting high-quality in-depth testing. It performed great in its "The 5 Best Sony Soundbars of 2023" roundup and was named its "Best Lower Mid-Range Sony Soundbar", which, on its own, makes it a product that warrants a closer look.

To get a better idea of how they fare when compared directly to each other, we analyzed review scores of sources that tested both. AVForums and CNET, for example, preferred the Roku Streambar, while TrustedReviews, Techradar, T3, and What Hi-Fi? rated both of them the same.

We also took a look at which sources had the best things to say about them. We learned that the Roku Streambar got reviewed the highest by Expert Reviews - it gave it a rating of 10, while the Sony HT-G700 most impressed reviewers at AVForums, which gave it a score of 8.

Lastly, we averaged out all of the reviews scores that we could find on these two products and compared them to other Soundbars on the market. We learned that both of them performed far better than most of their competitors - the overall review average earned by Soundbars being 7.6 out of 10, whereas the Roku Streambar and Sony HT-G700 managed averages of 8.5 and 8.0 points, respectively.

Due to the difference in their prices, however, it's important to keep in mind that a direct Roku Streambar vs. Sony HT-G700 comparison might not be entirely fair - some sources don't take value for money into account when assigning their scores and therefore have a tendency to rate more premium products better.