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.
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Product Description
Customer reviews
This 3rd gen freesat box is pretty smart with all the apps working and the picture look really good if you have a 4K HDR TV. Works a treat on my Sony XG95 would say the Netflix app is better than the one that came on my tv picture looks awesome.First set up was a little rocky with a few issues like the Netflix app not working and some issues with the tuners however after doing a factory reset and setting up again all is smooth and fast - the start up of this box is supper fasts as well as all the apps and catch up tv - the remote is laid out well which is much better than the 2nd gen remote.One thing I would like to see is the set a reminder for a program function which can’t be done a present but think this could come with an update on this box. my last freesat box I could set a reminder.Overall this is the best freesat box on the market did not need the recordable box as this has all the catch up tv I need .Update 25 FebruaryFreesat have now added reminders to there freesat box as well as rollback this box is outstanding with great support from freesat.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 March 2020
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2020
This 3rd gen freesat box is pretty smart with all the apps working and the picture look really good if you have a 4K HDR TV. Works a treat on my Sony XG95 would say the Netflix app is better than the one that came on my tv picture looks awesome.
First set up was a little rocky with a few issues like the Netflix app not working and some issues with the tuners however after doing a factory reset and setting up again all is smooth and fast - the start up of this box is supper fasts as well as all the apps and catch up tv - the remote is laid out well which is much better than the 2nd gen remote.
One thing I would like to see is the set a reminder for a program function which can’t be done a present but think this could come with an update on this box. my last freesat box I could set a reminder.
Overall this is the best freesat box on the market did not need the recordable box as this has all the catch up tv I need .
Update 25 February
Freesat have now added reminders to there freesat box as well as rollback this box is outstanding with great support from freesat.
First set up was a little rocky with a few issues like the Netflix app not working and some issues with the tuners however after doing a factory reset and setting up again all is smooth and fast - the start up of this box is supper fasts as well as all the apps and catch up tv - the remote is laid out well which is much better than the 2nd gen remote.
One thing I would like to see is the set a reminder for a program function which can’t be done a present but think this could come with an update on this box. my last freesat box I could set a reminder.
Overall this is the best freesat box on the market did not need the recordable box as this has all the catch up tv I need .
Update 25 February
Freesat have now added reminders to there freesat box as well as rollback this box is outstanding with great support from freesat.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 February 2020
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2020
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 March 2020
