- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 24 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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7 out of 7 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Great product for the money!"
Pros: OTA HD dvr capability (up to 1080i)
Hard drive can unofficially be upgraded to 500gb
Dual tuners
No subscription needed
Enables trickplays such as pausing and rewinding live TV
Great program guideCons: No name-based recording/ "season passes"
Summary: This is an excellent buy for the $$$ and is currently the only model of its kind (offering dual tuner OTA HD dvr capability without a subscription). I have been very pleased with its performance thus far. The tuners are great - they are better than the one that came in my TV and my reception is significantly better. I am not a big TV watcher, so it is nice to be able to watch something that I actually enjoy in the few times a week I have a chance to sit down. Also nice to keep some programs for the kids. The "pause" is a good feature if you have kids, so that when you need to go upstairs for the 10th glass of water, you will not miss the last 5 minutes of your show. Sure, there are a few bugs that will hopefully be worked out with additional software upgrades (the unit can be upgraded via an ethernet connection), but the functionality is acceptable, especially considering the price. I have not swapped out my hardrive at this time, but I understand that it is possible -- it requires opening up the box (so do at your own risk!). I should note that I live in a digital TVGOS service area - the guide feature is probably not as great for those that do not. Are there features that a $700 box has that this does not? Of course. But it is a great piece of equipment for the money.
Software is a bit buggy - crashes occasionally, but nothing I cannot live with
Dish customer service
No removable storage
(I do need to agree with another poster that Dish customer service is pretty atrocious - they really need to at least implement some sort of an order tracking system and get some customer service reps who even know what the product is. Thankfully, I have not had to deal with tech support, so I cannot speak for whether they are more helpful.)
