Freesat 4K TV Box (Non Recordable)

Easy to set up happy with it

Our old Humax Freesat box was failing, so we researched new ones. Out of all of them, including refurbished versions of our old box, this looked best.It had really good reviews and was not too expensive. So I ordered it.Once set up (really very simple) the picture quality on freesat broadcast tv was noticeably better than before.But surprisingly the picture quality on YouTube, ITVX and Netflix is definitely better than on our Amazon FireStick (which I will be selling on ebay later this week as a result). A really impressive piece of kit.

I bought this as I have no TV Ariel, but have a satellite dish, so I could have tv in my office. It is quiet, simple to set up. The remote is very directional, and I said in the headline, start up from sleep is very slow, as if the system is doing a total reboot. Not as many channels you can get free on a reconditioned sky box, and rather pricy for a not having a built in flash drive for recordings.

Easy set up and brilliant picture through the sky dish

This was a replacement for my old Humax Freesat box because the battery drawer in the remote control wouldnot stay closed. So I thought it was a good time to update to a later model (Humax have been taken over by Freeview's own brand).Firstly there was no installation manual and Freeview wanted me to download and print 40 or so pages, It took most of two days to install and, when it was all working, I found it required many more steps to achieve the same thing as my old one had done. Some buttons were redundant such as the coloured row at the top. In fairness, they may have been replaced by other buttons. In fact it seemed like a workaround to achieve compatibility with older models or variations on current models. In any event it was laborious to navigate around the channels, so I have gone back to my old one and fixed the batteries with sellotape.

Had to replace the old one (had done 8 years, so not displeased with that): like the extra features. Love the extra channels you get with Freesat

My husband and I have had a Humax HDR-1100S recording box for few years now. We just moved house and as there’s a satellite feed in the bedroom but no aerial, we decided to get this thinking it would do everything our Humax does minus the recordings. In short, it doesn’t! It’s extremely limited and disappointing and on no planet is it worth £124.99.The box is a nice, compact size. The remote looks good and sits in the hand well but has tiny buttons that are far too close together, even for a small woman like me. We plugged it in easily enough but unfortunately the wifi just wouldn’t connect and kept failing. Eventually we gave up and connected using a long cable instead, deciding to try and sort out the wifi later. The rest of the install went fine and we were soon up and running.The first thing I tried was pressing Home and was surprised to find a very basic menu with only 2 real options: TV Guide and On Demand.The TV Guide is a re-coloured version of the one from the Humax – brighter and blue. The colours are more pleasing on the eye but other than that they haven’t tried to improve the Guide at all - the size of the information text at the top is still tiny and the times above the table (“Now”, “Next”, “1100”, etc) are huge. It’s a little faster to get around the Guide than on the Humax but you still have to wait for it to fill in as you move around. And when you want to watch a programme that’s on, there’s a mind-bogglingly stupid menu with a single option in it to “Watch Live”. What else would I be trying to do? Why not just watch it?If you come across a programme that you want to watch that’s on later, there’s no option for adding a reminder. And very disappointingly, the TV Guide does not go back in time any more. So no reminders going forward, and no catch up going back. I also expected that I could connect a USB stick or hard drive and do some recording, but that’s not possible either, even though it is with its Humax predecessor.I figured perhaps Freesat put all their energy into the internet features so hit the “On Demand” button on the remote and got an incredibly basic screen with an ok selection of apps. As on the Humax box, there’s Netflix, but no All 4. I guess I should have expected that, but surely Freesat must realise that as a British TV box All 4 is more important than Netflix?Netflix refused to open so we disconnected and reconnected the box. After that it opened and seemed to work ok, but video playback was jerky. Not buffering - the 4K picture quality was good, but there was a noticeable jerkyness to any camera movements. Not sure what’s going on there but most YouTube videos were the same. And speaking of 4K, other than in Netflix and some videos in YouTube there’s nada.Our Humax box has a menu called “Showcase” where you can find recommended programmes to watch in the various apps or that are coming up over the next week. On this new Freesat box it’s nowhere to he found. Why have Freesat removed it? We often used it to find something to watch, particularly movies, and it’s just gone. It makes no sense.Even more bizarre is that there is no search facility at all. There’s a search button on the remote but it does nothing and there’s no menu option to search either. Again, this is something that we use regularly on the Humax.Overall there’s just no way I can recommend this box for £124.99. It’s a basic TV box with a few apps and that is it. For that money you can buy a basic satellite box AND a streaming stick with loads of spare change left over. I cannot fathom how Freesat decided to make a box that is much more limited than the Humax box it’s replacing and charge nearly 50% more for it. It’s like they thought that sticking “4K” on it was all they needed to do. We’re returning this box to Amazon and buying the Humax HB-1100s box on eBay for £79 where thankfully it’s still available from plenty of sellers.

We've just cancelled our Sky Q package and as our Ariel is poor I thought to try this Freesat and glad we did. It hooked straight up to the existing Sky dish that had Sky Q. Easy to set up, scan channels etc. Great picture. We do not currently have a 4k TV so I cannot comment on the 4k side of things. I like the on demand interface and the dedicated netflix button. I'd love to see an Amazon prime button as well.This box does not pause rewind live TV but when choosing a channel it often asks if I want to watch live or from the start.I would like my favourite channels to come up straight away when I press TV guide instead of then choosing favourite channels etc only there's so many of the same thing as in normal channel, HD channel, channel +1, channel +1 HD that the list is big when flicking through.Initially we had a few issues of the box freezing when using on demand. Had to turn it off and on again, happened a few times in as many days but this could be down to having a new broadband supplier as well.Over all pleased we got it. Saves lots of money a month. The Children haven't moaned about the loss of some channels so that's a relief in itself. As someone who watches the main 5 channels it's all good for me. My partner likes the sky channels so I got him a Now TV months pass which was free...but seeming as he moaned a bit initially he hasn't used the now TV box.Some people (my partner) didn't like the remote, saying it was cheap. I don't care. It does the job. The buttons are easy to see and easy to feel. The power is top centre on its own and TV guide is an easy button to find so my children can use it easily and I'm sure anyone with vision issues would find this remote easy to use also.I shall be looking out for the Freesat box that records when it comes out. Depending on the Price though.