BT Mini YouView Box review – free with TV Starter

BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX OTHER PLAYERS

One of the aims of YouView was to provide a platform that could be extended, adding new players and services. Since launch, we’ve had the addition of the excellent pay-as-you-go Sky Now TV service, which can get you cheap access to the broadcaster’s top channels, including Sky Atlantic for Game of Thrones, Sky Sports and Sky Movies.

Netflix is a more recent addition to the platform, giving you access to thousands of TV shows and movies for £6.99 a month in HD. With a little bit of tweaking, you can even get the box to access US Netflix in the UK, giving you an even wider range of titles to choose from. There’s no Amazon Prime Instant Video support, but this service is generally not very well supported: you can get it on Apple TV by using AirPlay from your phone or tablet, but not on Chromecast.

Impressively, all of the players are integrated into YouView’s search, so you can find on-demand and live content all through the same interface. YouView also has channels for content, such as films, children’s programmes and music, letting you discover top picks, no matter which service they’re on. Our one minor complaint is that you’ll get shown content for services that you don’t pay for and haven’t subscribed to.

BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX MEDIA STREAMING

The one area where the Mini YouView Box really differs from its main competition is that there’s no way to beam other content to it. For example, you can stream videos, music and photos using Plex to Apple TV and Chromecast, but there’s no way of doing something similar with YouView.

Given the AirPlay and Cast technology in Apple TV and Chromecast respectively, it means that both of these products are technically easier to add services to; a company just needs to add support from its mobile app so that you can beam the content to your TV. That’s it in practice, but support for Apple TV and Chromecast isn’t as wide as we’d hope and YouView firmly beats both for service support via its built-in support.

BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX BT PLAYER AND EXTRA CHANNELS

If you hook the YouView box up to a BT Broadband connection and you’ve got a TV package with the company, you also get the BT Player. This is accessible through the YouView menu or by hitting the big BT Player button on the remote control. Through this app, you get access to a range of on-demand programming, including TV box-sets and movies for free. On top of that you can rent or buy movies in SD or HD, streaming them directly over your internet connection.

With the base level package you get BT Sport for free, which is streamed over the internet to your YouView box. However, upgrade to the TV Entertainment package (currently £5 a month for six months, rising to £7.45 plus £35 activation fee) and you get additional streamed TV channels, which appear in your box’s EPG. These include History, Animal Planet, Discovery and SyFy. On top of that you can add more internet channels, including Sky Sports 1 and 2. At this point, though, you can get the BT YouView+ box, which has two tuners and can record shows as well, for free.

BT MINI YOUVIEW BOX CONCLUSION

Untangling whether or not the BT Mini YouView Box is worth buying or not really depends on what you want and if you have BT broadband or not. If you don’t have it, then £100 nets you a decent smart TV upgrade for an older TV, which also gives you all of the big on-demand services, plus Now TV and Netflix. With the ability to pause live TV, it’s a great upgrade for anyone that doesn’t need to record TV. Not being able to stream to it is a little disappointing for some, and means that the Apple TV or Chromecast would still be needed for local media.

If you’ve got BT Broadband, the choice suddenly becomes a lot easier. Existing customers can get the TV Starter package for free, including this box for nothing, with a one-off activation fee of £35 – that’s incredible value. If you’ve already got a BT TV subscription and YouView+ box, then you can pay an extra £5 a month to get this box for a second room, plus TV Anywhere streaming for your tablet or smartphone. Again, it’s great value if you want to upgrade a second TV somewhere else in your house.

Overall, as good as this box is, it’s still not a single do-everything box for all types of media and the lack of Wi-Fi, particularly if you pay full-price for it, is a little disappointing. See all of the best BT TV package deals deals on uSwitch