ElectronicFerret:

I picked up one of these yesterday for testing (I own a small rural ISP) and I have to say I am not impressed..

• Runs really hot


• WiFi range is limited and depending on your physical setup, mounting it on the back of your TV will reduce the range/signal even more.


• Requires you to have a google account to get the latest firmware


• Bluetooth remote has limited range when the unit is mounted to the back of your TV


• Out of the box, the freeview button did not start the freeview app (Required 1.2GB of firmware and app upgrades)


• Firmware upgrade reset everything (WiFi password, google account, etc)


• Freeview app asks me to re-enter password every time I start it


• No EPG, always comes up EPG data is updating

And the biggie for me - no freeview on demand, I have absolutely no idea how to access this feature.  I'm guessing it's via the inaccessible EPG.

Hopefully they sort this out as we were planning on recommending these to our less tech savvy customers as a way to access the upcoming Spark Sport service.

On top of this, when you set up a freeview on demand account, take note of the characters available on the onscreen keyboard.  You set up your password on a different device by clicking on a link in an email, but then need to type that password into the SmartVU - I set up a password with an underscore and question mark in it, and then had no way to enter it on the SmartVU...and no way to reset it from the website.  I had to click the forgot password link on the SmartVU, wait for the email and reset my password to one with more generic characters in it. It's a shame, they had the forethought to add a ".com" and a ".co.nz" button to the keyboard, but not even the standard character set found on a normal keyboard.