EE TV review – The ultimate TV streaming box now with Recordings to Go

EE already provides mobile, broadband and landline services to consumers, so in hindsight a TV service was a logical step. To be honest we were still surprised by the announcement from the primarily-mobile company, but with the new box now available EE customers can use the company for all four of their key media services. That makes it only the second ‘Quad-play’ offering in the UK, alongside those from Virgin Media.

The set-top box is free to any EE customers who already subscribe to EE Home Broadband and use EE, Orange or T-Mobile as their mobile phone provider. A free EE TV box sounds a rather generous offer on the surface, especially considering EE values it at £300, although accepting it automatically opts you into a new 18 month contract for your broadband and home telephone.

Unlimited ADSL broadband from EE costs £10 a month (£16 for basic 38Mbit/s fibre) and you’ll also need to take out line rental, which costs £11 a month if you pay for a year in advance or £16 if you pay monthly. So keep in mind you’ll be paying at a minimum £21 a month for a combination of broadband, telephone and television services, excluding the expense of your mobile phone tariff. You can be a pay-as-you-go or contract EE customer, and if you’re a PAYG customer there’s no minimum top-up required.

This amounts to at least £377 over the course of an 18-month contract, or £252 a year ongoing. EE retains ownership of the EE TV box, so if you cancel you’ll need to give the box back. Still, it’s not a bad deal, EE’s broadband isn’t the cheapest but its low pay-up-front line rental helps balance that out. If you’re looking for a new PVR and don’t want to splash out the cash on a box then EE could be a good option

EE TV is basically a Freeview box with some clever media streaming extras. HDMI and S-video outputs connect to a display, a pair of phono connections and digital optical output for audio, and you get a remote control that includes the usual functions including media playback controls. We managed to find 146 free-to-air channels from our central London location including radio stations, and there’s also an aerial pass-through connection if you still also want to use your TV’s tuner.

You can use either the Gigabit Ethernet port or EE TV’s dual-band 802.11n dual-band Wi-Fi to get online during the setup process, and after a quick channel scan you’re up and running and greeted by the tile-based menus. These are all in EE’s trademark turquoise and yellow colour scheme, so you won’t quickly forget you’re using an EE-branded product.

Navigating between menus is simple enough, with separate screens dedicated to on-demand, live television and recordings. Live television dedicates a large section to a live view of the last channel you watched, making it easy to jump back into what you’re watching.  It also shows you what is being broadcast on the terrestrial channels.

Moving between menus felt swift and responsive but there’s a lot of horizontal panning between screens and menus. The interface looks and feels like a smartphone or tablet interface and that’s because it is one. Smartphones and tablets running iOS or Android can be used as a touch remote control for the EE TV using the companion app. There’s a unified interface between touch-based devices and the remote control, although using the latter occasionally feels cumbersome. You’re able to browse the television guide using a connected device without disturbing others watching TV, then swipe the content to the big screen, a feature that Virgin’s TiVo box also possesses.

That’s all great, but its main party trick is to stream TV over Wi-Fi to your smartphone or tablet. Amazingly it’s able to stream video content to up to four connected devices at once, although that number also includes the television it is connected to. It can stream four different live programmes simultaneously using its four separate tuners unless they’re being used for recording other channels, of course. Still, this will be a great feature for families who don’t all want to watch television together. The EE TV box can then act as a hub, serving either live TV or recorded shows to devices around the home.

Replay is EE TV’s other useful feature. You’re able to choose up to six favourite channels from a specific list of options. These include the terrestrial channels as well as the Freeview channels from the main providers, such as BBC Four. You can then set how long will be available in Replay mode up to a day. EE TV will then constantly record these channels for you to watch back at any time, presenting them all on a specific Replay screen. This lets you organise the recordings by channel or genre.

Turning on Replay mode does have a side effect, however. While the EE has four tuners, so is capable of recording four different channels simultaneously, this is reduced to just two if Replay is turned on. This seems a decent compromise for the ability to catch up on an entire day’s worth of television, especially as it’s not going to be that often you’ll want to record four different channels simultaneously. The 1TB internal hard disk stores all your recordings.

The Replay function also goes some way to make up for an area where the EE TV is distinctly lacking: on-demand apps. The EE TV launched with support for BBC iPlayer and Demand 5, but there’s no ITV Hub or All 4. Netflix and Amazon Instant Video are missing too, meaning your only option for renting or buying movies is Wuaki.tv. There is at least a YouTube app. Loading up apps was rather slow, taking around 20 seconds from the home screen to the app opening. It’s not a lot quicker on rival services admittedly, but there’s room for improvement here.

EE has just added support for BBC Connected Red Button, which lets you access BBC iPlayer and the Sport and News apps while watching BBC channels. This will be particularly useful during sporting events such as the BBC’s annual coverage of Wimbledon and F1 for extra content or watching alternative coverage when lots of events are happening simultaneously. Support for Dailymotion, Deezer, Hopster, Euronews and Cloudio TV were added following launch.

Since March 2015, Sky Now TV became available. With a suitable subscription you can watch live and on-demand content from Sky’s entertainment (Sky Atlantic, Sky 1, Sky Living), sport (all seven channels) and movie (all of the most recent content) channels. It expands what you can get via Freeview, adding premium content into the mix for not too much money. It also brings the EE TV box closer to what’s offered by YouView, such as on the BT YouView+ box. We’re now over a year since EE TV launched and it’s still a glaring omission that ITV Hub, All 4, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video are still missing, however, and it sounds like this isn’t likely to change for a while yet.

Recordings to Go

While new apps have been slow to arrive, one new feature is the Recordings to Go option, which allows you to record Freeview content and transfer it to a mobile device as soon as it airs. Content that can be transferred has no blocks on content type, so films and football highlights won’t pose a problem and content won’t expire after a set time period, either. It’s the first of its kind and will be particularly useful for people wanting to catch up on their television while on the move. Content is transferred from the EE TV box to your mobile device over Wi-Fi. The EE TV mobile app has also been updated and lets you manage your recordings remotely, so you can make sure the box is recording while you’re away. The EPG has also been redesigned to have a consistent design to the one found on your television. Once you update your EE TV’s software, you’ll find a new Recordings to Go hub where you can manage all of your recordings.

Conclusion

EE TV is a great set-top box if you’re looking for a subscription-free Freeview box. Its four tuners alone make it stand out, but the ability to stream to tablets around the home is simply brilliant. The smartphone and tablet interface works really well as a remote control and flicking content to the big screen is seamless. The current lack of Netflix, Demand 5 and 4OD is a pity, but most people will have other options for watching these if desired. The addition of Now TV is a real bonus so fingers crossed support for more services keep being added.

If you’re on EE and meet the requirements to get the box for free then you should certainly take it up. Those on other broadband packages, who don’t pay for additional channels, should also consider EE TV if the streaming technology is of interest. BT charges £5 a month for its equivalent YouView+ PVR, which can’t stream to mobile devices, but then you do get BT Sport with that.

Alternatively, if you’re happy to simply splash the cash then our favourite PVR is still the Youview-based Humax DTR-T1010 for around £200, this does now support Netflix and the full range of catchup services – but that’s £200 you could save yourself with the EE TV or BT’s equivalent service.