Humax HDR-FOX T2 review

"expensive digital aerial"

ROTFL. There is no such thing as a "digital aerial".

How can you trust the rest of the review with such a piece of obvious crap in it?

By Briantist on 22 Feb 2011

get with it guys

"This makes the HDR-FOX T2 the first Freeview HD recorder we’ve seen with access to iPlayer." - seriously? I've been using iPlayer on my Smartbox 8320HD for 6 months now. Its £100 cheaper too.

By profet on 25 Feb 2011

YouView

Just to clarify, this is the first Freeview HD PVR we have reviewed. We didn't meant to imply it was the first of its kind. As the review says, we held off reviewing it (and every other Freeview HD PVR) for the last six months because YouView was due to launch around now. The only verdict we could have given was to wait for YouView since there was hardly any HD content being broadcast on Freeview HD.

By jim_martin on 25 Feb 2011

"expensive digital aerial"

FOOL! - read the review. It says "expensive aerial" No mention of digital aerials. Still ROTFLing?

By AndyS on 28 Feb 2011

Virtually flawless - blows Sky+ HD out of the water

As a long term Sky+ HD customer who was forced to cancel my subscription after moving (unresolvable issues with the communal satellite system at new address), I thought it may be useful to write a review in case anyone else is considering switching, whether the move is forced or voluntary.

I approached the purchase of this Humax PVR with a fair amount of skepticism after having used standard Freeview boxes and experienced alternative PVR services such as Virgin. As a result, I didn't hold up much hope for the EPG, ease of use and general performance. In my opinion, Sky's software is the most superior available and despite the odd grievance it was pretty much perfect... or so I thought.

I can't overstate how pleasantly surprised I was by this product. Firstly, the design, look and speed of the EPG software is just as good as Sky and overall I would say it is in fact faster and more polished. Virtually every button function from Sky+ is retained (occasionally and necessarily renamed e.g. the 'planner' is split between 'media' (things already recorded) and 'schedule' (things to be recorded)) with additions complementing the experience - a prompt that appears when selecting a recording in SD if an HD version exists, the ability to create a customised channel list and do away with Freeview's woeful channel grouping/ordering, the ability to add peripheral storage media via the USB port (and general 'openness' compared to Sky's somewhat 'closed' system) and access via the internet to iPlayer, web services such as YouTube and Wikipedia, and even Sky Player (!)

The box itself was 100% plug and play, very simple to setup and intuitive to use. The recording and live pause/rewind features are quick and responsive, and the 500GB storage is more than enough especially as it is not hampered by Sky's disappointing storage-hogging Anytime on demand service.

For me, even as a former Sky customer, I ironically tended to watch and record the vast majority of my TV viewing from channels available on Freeview, and the Humax does everything I had with Sky but better, and with no subscription fee (ok, a much higher initial cost) There are a number of affordable movie options cropping up so Sky Movies are not missed, the only thing that is lacking are Sports.

To summarise, I couldn't recommend this Humax PVR more highly. To anyone considering switching from Sky+HD or with viewing habits similar to mine, you will not be disappointed.

But before you’re will buy this Humax PVR, I suggest you have to compare prices before you decide at: Prices-comparison.info/HDRFOX-T2

Thank for reading.

By WarrenD on 4 Mar 2012