The Youview Review #Spon

Morning all. 

Over the last few weeks I've been playing with a new gadget. None other than the YouView+, the new freeview and smart TV On Demand viewer backed by BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva. I'll tell you now it's a fantastic bit of kit, but we'll go through the reasons why I love it during the review! 

What is it? 

Youview is an internet connected set top box with the all the Free to Air channels and Radio stations from the freeview network you could want. On top of that the set top box has a 500Gb hard disk drive for up to 300 hours of recording. Additionally this set top box is one of the most compatible on the market for televisions of all ages due to it's HDMI, Scart and RCA outputs meaning it'll run with a vast array of Televisions of all ages and types. 

To set YouView up is a Painless process. You simply connect the box to your TV, connect the Ethernet cable to your broadband router and the box's rear connection, Turn it on and within no times you'll be greeted with a very simple setup, It's designed for anyone to be able to set it up with minimal fuss. Once tuned and updated you're good to go.

Here's a video of the UI and general feel of the Youview service.



The User Interface (UI) of the YouView box is very advanced, in fact I think it trumps the competitors UI. Once setup the Backwards EPG is blissful to use. It offers you 14 days of options, 7 days in the future so you can add reminders for your favourite shows and the 7 days previous programming with the option to view on demand content direct from the guide itself regardless of the provider. As most* YouView boxes have a hard drive inside you can also record series at the same time as watching another channel thanks to it's dual tuners.  Very useful if you want to watch both Almost Naked Animals and Andy's Wild Dinosaur Adventures and they're on at the same time.
The genius part of YouView Boxes is the built in online connectivity to give you a vast array of free and paid for on demand services. Free services are BBC Iplayer, ITVPlayer, 4On Demand, S4c, 5 On Demand, Milkshake. Whereas Sky's Now TV and Sky Store are subscription based services. Sadly Netflix or LoveFilm are not avaliable at present, if this changes I'll let you know by re-updating the post. If you get a YouView box from BT or TalkTalk it may come with TalkTalk's or BT's Television service options, including the BT Sport service. (Plusnet are actively trialling YouView services at the moment - More on that in a separate post if PN get back to me.)

Parent's rejoice. The YouView box has parental controls. While I've yet to experiment with them I've been told they work fantastically from other users.

Since installing the Box both the kids and I have argued over who watches what! so the dual tuners comes into it's own here as I usually lose and end up recording my thing to watch when they go to bed. The kids have gotten used to the controls and understood how to work all the options faster than me. I kid you not they found the MyView page of recordings before I did. If used to another providers box you may need a day or two to get used to it but it's not a hard box and UI to learn. The only snags I've noticed are Milkshake On Demand. It seems to glitch every now and again and the box gets toasty in enclosed spaces

The mobile app is pretty good. I've only used it a few times I can record or set reminders while I'm out and about. I've tried it so far on 3g, the local bus company bus wifi and at home and it works pretty well. With adding a device being an absolute doddle even the kids can do it.

The Box itself is a very good looking device with a brushed steel effect on the front of the box with capacitive touch sensitive power button and menu key, Hidden under a flap on the right hand side is a USB port. I feel they missed a trick here as I think they should have included a smartcard slot for Internet providers to use to add their own TV Services, but not a major disaster nonetheless. On the rear of the Device we have the full array of ports as shown on the image below. These ports include RF in/out, USB, Scart, HDMI, SPDIF, RCA AV OUT, power and Ethernet.

I now I've mentioned this before but with such an array of ports compatible with the vast majority of older and more modern Televisions it's a very wise choice for those not with an older CRT or early LCD TV knowing the TV they have is 90% sure to work without hassle. Also if they choose to upgrade to a newer television it'll still work fantastically.

In conclusion the Youview+ boxes are a fantastic bit of kit. With a plethora of channels and entertainment for all the family it's a perfect choice for those who want a quality experience without the monthly subscriptions. Additonally the mobile app for IOS and Android works seamlessly to make the whole experience a breeze.I will probably buy another one for the bedroom in the future. 

If you have any questions please drop them below and I'll respond asap. 

Paul

This is a Netmum's sponsored review.To find out more click the button:

*A model with a single tuner and no hard disk drive has been released recently by Huawei and seems to be exclusively available to TalkTalk essential customers at the moment.

Now if you want your own YouView or YouView+ Box I can help you out. 

If you're looking at changing broadband providers then you can get a free YouView box as part of a broadband subscription from BT or TalkTalk (activation / installation fees may apply)

You can also buy Youview+  boxes from all major retailers and many independent electrical stores including John Lewis, Currys, Argos, Amazon, Richer Sounds and Euronics. with the RRP being around £229

You'll need to make sure with your internet service provider that you are on an unlimited package to ensure you don't incur added costs for more bandwidth. Also make sure your provider can give you download speeds of 3mb as a minimum. Otherwise it may not work too well. 

Hey! Tesco Mobile repair center!

Backstory:

He showed it to me with a similar mark on the screen a few weeks back. I told him to be careful with it while i call Vodafone/Huawei for advice on the matter. as while the bubble was there it was pushing down on the phone causing damage to the display.

On phoning Vodafone they advised me it's a common issue and would be repaired under a standard warranty. Woohoo!  As we'd bought it from a Tesco store I knew It was them who would have the last say but wanted Vodafone's thoughts on it. To Tesco we will go the following day!

Overnight it vanished. That day the screen broke, with lines down one side of the screen. There was no cracking or damage to the gorilla glass I assume this bubble increased in size causing a chip on film for the LCD to fail. 

Tesco's phone shop Dunstable have been fantastic throughout they could see the problem and the people we spoke to on the phone in the mini store were also fab. If only they could have booked the phone in for repair and sent it from story It would save the Royal mail cock up.

Royal mail lost the phone, or the phone was lost in a backlog. 

Found last week, so I guess it was backlogs. It was fixed and sent back. in a flimsy jiffybag. I kid you not a standard thin jiffy bag, compared to me posting it in wrapped in three jiffy bags for protection that's a fail! 

It came back to us Thursday and by Friday morning the air bubble had come back!  So it was off to Tesco again. The phone was obviously not repaired properly. On talking to a lovely lady It was suggested i "post it in sooner next time" When i explained it went missing in the post or was stuck in tesco's backlog she apologized, re-booked it in and promised me all will be sorted properly this time! 

I genuinely hope so as I've had to buy my son a £15 vdafone alcatel budget phone (he's in love with it mind you) to keep him connected to his friends. So I'm out of pocket for this. But spare phones are useful the way things are going!

However the bubble vanished again this morning. So I've informed tesco of this. I just hope they repair the issue properly. it looks like the bond between the gorilla glass, digitisr and LCD is too weak, the phone makes noise in your hand too. A sign of poor build quality. Which is a shame as the phone is awesome bar the screen issue. Made more annoying as we've already upgraded his line to a decent sim only deal, we could have got a new phone for him if we knew this would happen! 

I've read about it on Vodafone's Eform, Modaco forums, private blogs, the lady i spoke to at tesco's today, and many other online pages. some suggest pushing the back some say get it swapped. 

But PLEASE Tesco. Fix it properly this time! For the sake of a 13 year old who needs his phone to keep him going (trust me on this please)

Pauil 

Sad to be leaving you Nokia

It's time to move on. 

I'm sorry, Nokia. I truly am saddened by this decision.

I've sold my E6 and C3-01 and purchased a Huawei Ascend P1s( the s does not stand for 'Sorry. Not 4g')

Why have I done this you may ask, what's made a Nokia purist (as called by some) move to android. An OS which i hated in the LG optimus1?

Here's the situation. I've owned Nokia phones since the emergence of GSM devices in the UK and loved and hated them in some cases. But since the move to Windows phone with Elop. They've made (in my eyes) a humongous mess of things.

I wanted the pureview. however Nokia sold the WP7 platform to the networks over the 41megapixel-oversampling megaphone with Symbian which people wanted. leaving many lost for words.
Then decided to ditch this technology and make a different tech for lumia handsets with the same name.

Then the marketing. The pureview 808 was used for allsorts of photographic goodness, sadly most of this was highlighted by sites like Symbian tweet, all about Symbian and others.
When the lumia was marketed they were using films shot on the N8 to advertise the lumia 800. (every day on* channel five for a few weeks) many thought the lumia made these films/productions when the aging N8 was the star.
Whereas now they hide behind a professional film crew and photoshop to demonstrate the lumia 920's power without using the lumia's sensor. That sucks balls.

The final nail in the coffin was the face current lumia owners could not update to Windows phone 8, but are still "supported with windows phone7.7" or something silly. Also apple style marketing BS on why the lumia 920 does not have SD functionality sounds pathetic unless your an apple fanboi.

At this same time unlocked/vanilla Symbian belle devices are stuck waiting for updates to fix bugs that previous updates caused. and telling us the same BS, then claiming the device is network branded (i won it in a compo, it's vanilla according to your repair team)


Sadly Nokia. I see why Ricky Cadden and Dr Rita El Khoury Both got fed up with Nokia, causing them to close the site they both ran together (with a lot of awesome writers), Symbian-guru.com  With quotes like these From Ricky "I can’t continue to support a manufacturer who puts out such craptastic ‘flagships’ as the N97, and who expects me to use services that even most of Nokia’s own employees don’t use"
and from Rita, "I swear I could get a VISA, buy an airplane ticket, travel to Texas and talk to Ricky in person before Nokia Messaging for IM loads and opens a conversation with him on my N97 Mini." In their Final blogpost on Symbian guru (archived) I really suggest you read it, as it's a scary insight into the woes of the average symbian user. This should have been the wake up call to Nokia. But it seems this was not. Especially looking back at the mess they made of the belle updates, (E6 users have been forgot about once. Then it happened again this month)
 (Note: this part of the post has been edited)


Well for the next 2 year i'm staying on Android. (currently Ice cream Sandwich) and while I am. Please nokia listen to the fat git who Loves Symbian and Nokia. Being on android makes me feel like i'm cheating on you. but I have no choice. I only have my E71 left here as the floozy phone for blog events i attend.

you have two years to turn it around. make Nokia amazeballs again please. Right now it looks impressive, but still looks uncertain for many people.

I still love you nokia. that will never end. but for now it's time for us to take some time apart.

Paul

Thanks to Ricky Cadden and Dr Rita El Khoury for allowing me to quote them over on the archive at  Symbian-guru

Drop them a visit at MobileRNR, Rickycadden.com Or Phonearena