Dec 2025
Finally got rid of the abysmal Sky Q box and bought a Freesat 4K recordable 2TB box, did I jump out of the frying pan into the fire? I think not, its different but similar. The remote (control) is a strange shape with a pointy end and the buttons tend to stick so it repeats the action but after a few days we got use to this and found we had to press the (small) butons with our finger nails. The shape of the remote makes it easy to slip out of your hand but my wife and I are old and have arthritic fingers 🙁
I ran an Ethernet cable previously so I could connect to the router using a cable instead of using WiFi, thank you to our grandson who helped getting the cable under the floor into the adjoining room where the router is sited.
SETTING UP.
This was a breeze, just connect the 2 cables from the Satellite dish (Wide band), plug in the Ethernet cable (from the router) along with power cable and follow the promps.Initialy the UI was a litle “o dear” and was very sluggish. On checking the settings, I found that the software was about 2 years old so I did a reboot and this took quite a while but the software was updated to the latest version with a brand new UI, still a little sluggiish but much better. After a few days of getting to know the Freesat box we found it to be better than the Sky Q box for some things but not as good in other things. The Sky Q box is more responsive but overall the Freesat box is , IMO, better than the SKY Q box but lacks voice control. It seems that Sky have accepted that the Sky Q box is rubbish and no longer offer it to new customers but instead offer a streaming service which doesn’t allow recording.
USING.
After a few days of playing with the box it becomes easier to use but it isn’t as responsive as the Sky Q box. The UI isn’t always as intuitive as it could be.
Recording series links is quite easy but the “record” button is very small. Deleting programs / shows that you have watched is a bit of a faff and you can’t “undo” or “undelete”. There doesn’t seem to be a way of “batch deleting” where you see a list of what you have watched but if yo have a few shows recorded and watched, you could just use the delete when space is needed option or delete series which doesn’t seem to affect the “record series” option.
The EPG allows you to look back at stuff you may have missed and that is quite useful.
The “Apps” like iPlayer and Prime Video work very well but the UI didn’t seem to be getting the “full picture” with regards to the menu UI. Our 32″ LED Telly is 10 years old so we decided to buy new one (TCL 40″ Fire TV) and the UI is much better presented on the new telly.
I decided to use an “Optical (Toslink) cable” to connect the TV to my Roth Soundbar and this works very well. The sound is now even better.
OVERALL
There aren’t many choices available for recordable set top boxes and the Freesat options are pretty good. Its a little “lack lustre” and sluggish but it does the job. Supports the many Apps e.g iPlayer and Prime Video etc is good but ITV X is probably the worst Streaming App in the world, trying to watch a show is like playing the lottery most times you get a “Sorry something gone wrong at our end, please try again later”. The adverts always play without fault though. Occasionally you can get to watch the program / show that you want. ITV X does offer some good programs but it is a pain trying to watch them with all the adverts and “sorry something has gone wrong at our end”.
The Channel 5 app offers plenty of content but is very heavy on adverts. Normally you would get a 3 or 4 min advert maybe every 15 mins but with Channal 5 you get a “content” break of about 10 mins, if you’re lucky. If you want to watch adverts all day, you’ll be happy.
I think the decision to buy a Freesat recordable box was a good decision, we just need some decent telly programs to record 🙂
The UI leaves a lot to be desired and sluggishness can be a little irritating but it does the job.