One of the new additions here is the ability to play games. You install Angry Birds as a channel that downloads the software, which the Roku stores in its 256MB of internal memory; in case you eventually exhaust the internal storage, all three Roku units have a microSD card slot for expansion.

The new remote works somewhat similarly to a Nintendo Wii nunchuk controller: You gesture at the screen to move the cursor, and to play Angry Birds you wave the remote to position the slingshot that shoots the birds. The remote also has A and B buttons, presumably for games that Roku will offer going forward. By the holiday season, Roku expects to offer two to three dozen more games that take advantage of the enhanced remote's motion-sensing features.

I'm not convinced that gaming support adds a lot to the Roku. Most folks who care about this sort of thing probably already own a Wii (which also offers Netflix on demand) or other wireless-enabled game console. That said, I did enjoy the few minutes I spent fiddling with Angry Birds, though I felt a bit constrained by the restricted range of motion: I could get the slingshot to move only so far no matter how much I waved the Roku remote.

Gaming aside, the enhanced remote's use of Bluetooth instead of infrared is a notable improvement. With Bluetooth, you don't need to worry about maintaining line of sight between the remote and the Roku, which can be problematic owing to the complexities of many living-room setups and to the diminishing size of the Roku itself. But on the off chance that you don't care about line-of-sight issues and want to control the Roku with a universal remote, all Roku 2 models support both Bluetooth and IR control.

The Roku2 XS has a USB port so you can play DRM-free content of your own that's stored on a flash memory drive, though this functionality won't be enabled until Roku releases a firmware upgrade due in September. (The HD and XD models don't have a USB port at all.) File format support will be basic: MP4 video, AAC or MP3 audio, and JPG or PNG still images.