Having moved from Virgin Media nearly 18 months ago now, I have had a fair amount of time to make my decision about Sky's brand new TV service - Sky Q. I must admit, our 18 months with the service has not been without fault, but overall I do believe that the money we have spent with Sky has been better spent than with Virgin Media's TiVo service.
Why did I move provider in the first place?
We were with Virgin Media before moving across to Sky Q, and we were beginning to get very unhappy with the service, the TiVo box was sluggishly slow, the internet not much better. We were left dumped with the first superhub and the first version of the TiVo box. Having had these for a few years they were slow and needed replacing, and we had asked Virgin to replace these many times but they were refusing - claiming that it still worked and therefore why should they send us out the newer services. They eventually agreed that we were in fact eligible to have the newer boxes; but at our expense. Yes, our already 80-90 pound contract was to be sent flying into the low hundreds. We ended up walking to our local Sky store and asked them what the best deal they could do was - they halved our contact price for 18 months. We later returned to the Virgin Media shop and they were not bothered in the slightest, even claiming that we would later return anyway.
In short, we left because of the slow service and the extremely poor customer service that they were giving us as customers.
Why did you choose Sky Q?
Well, there are only a few options in the television world (in particular), basically the options being Sky, Virgin and Freeview (maybe freesat). In my opinion, and even after our 18 month Sky contract is nearly up, I believe that Sky Q is still the best on the market. By quite a fair margin. Virgin TV have recently brought out their updated TiVO box, the V6, but it is still hugely sluggish and I cannot get on with the clunky interface and UI. We purchased Sky from one of the stands in our local shopping area, the person who sold us it was kind and helpful and even managed to get the price too nearly half what Virgin TV were offering at the time - and I believe are still offering now! He even suggested to us that we return at the end of our 18 month contract and we could negotiate a better deal as an existing customer, something that Virgin were purely not interested in.
What has the experience been like? - TV
So firstly I have decided too talk about my experience with Sky Q TV, what I believe to be the main selling point of Sky currently. We currently have three 'products' overall, the Sky Q Hub, one mini box and a 1TB box - which we look to replace soon with a 2TB box too use with out 4K television.
The interface is probably what you need too see the most, and therefore is really important that this is correct, which they have nailed. 'My Q' is an amazing feature of the box, it allows the box too pick out programmes that it thinks that you think that you might be interested in, and also shows that you are partially through watching which makes it very simple too 'pick up where you left off'.
Obviously when Sky Q was initially unveiled its most raved about feature was the ability too start watching a show in one room and continue it in another room. This is a feature which I haven't used a whole lot, but when I have used it it has worked flawlessly and without issue. One thing that I must point out is that we currently probably use our mini box more than our main box, this is because in our living room we asked not too have the cable routing all the way round the room. The sky engineer was fine with this and suggested that we have the mini box in that room and the main 1TB box in the other room, which would in tern produce less mess and a better satellite signal.
As far as I have been able too tell, there are no significant draw backs with the Sky Q TV experience, it works well and never seems too drop out - even with lots of devices connecting to the network wirelessly. Sky get a massive thumbs up for this revolutionary TV service, it has truly changed the way that my family can watch television and I respect that.
I have also done a full video of this on YouTube - of which you can see here:
What has the experience been like? - Internet
I must admit I was rather spectacle when joining Sky, coming from Virgin, because they use the phone line for the internet, not fibre to the house. HOWEVER, wow was I proved wrong. The internet has been miles more reliable than the Virgin equivalent. We are on the 40mbps down package (so not even the top one) and it is at most points faster than Virgin Media, because of the way that they used too throttle you at what they called 'peak' times (basically whenever they felt like it). When downloading something on Steam, for example, you can see that the download speed stays constant and doesn't continuously fluctuate up and down like VM used too do.
As with everything, however, there are a few flaws in the system. The coverage of the WiFi doesn't quite reach right across our building (3 bedroom house). I must admit this is only in the far corners of the house but is annoying nonetheless. I believe that this can be fixed with a booster but I have heard that I need to pay for it, which isn't good Sky.
Below you can see my first thoughts of the Sky Q wifi router, before it got installed:
Why did you choose Sky Q?
Well, there are only a few options in the television world (in particular), basically the options being Sky, Virgin and Freeview (maybe freesat). In my opinion, and even after our 18 month Sky contract is nearly up, I believe that Sky Q is still the best on the market. By quite a fair margin. Virgin TV have recently brought out their updated TiVO box, the V6, but it is still hugely sluggish and I cannot get on with the clunky interface and UI. We purchased Sky from one of the stands in our local shopping area, the person who sold us it was kind and helpful and even managed to get the price too nearly half what Virgin TV were offering at the time - and I believe are still offering now! He even suggested to us that we return at the end of our 18 month contract and we could negotiate a better deal as an existing customer, something that Virgin were purely not interested in.
What has the experience been like? - TV
So firstly I have decided too talk about my experience with Sky Q TV, what I believe to be the main selling point of Sky currently. We currently have three 'products' overall, the Sky Q Hub, one mini box and a 1TB box - which we look to replace soon with a 2TB box too use with out 4K television.
The interface is probably what you need too see the most, and therefore is really important that this is correct, which they have nailed. 'My Q' is an amazing feature of the box, it allows the box too pick out programmes that it thinks that you think that you might be interested in, and also shows that you are partially through watching which makes it very simple too 'pick up where you left off'.
Obviously when Sky Q was initially unveiled its most raved about feature was the ability too start watching a show in one room and continue it in another room. This is a feature which I haven't used a whole lot, but when I have used it it has worked flawlessly and without issue. One thing that I must point out is that we currently probably use our mini box more than our main box, this is because in our living room we asked not too have the cable routing all the way round the room. The sky engineer was fine with this and suggested that we have the mini box in that room and the main 1TB box in the other room, which would in tern produce less mess and a better satellite signal.
As far as I have been able too tell, there are no significant draw backs with the Sky Q TV experience, it works well and never seems too drop out - even with lots of devices connecting to the network wirelessly. Sky get a massive thumbs up for this revolutionary TV service, it has truly changed the way that my family can watch television and I respect that.
I have also done a full video of this on YouTube - of which you can see here:
What has the experience been like? - Internet
I must admit I was rather spectacle when joining Sky, coming from Virgin, because they use the phone line for the internet, not fibre to the house. HOWEVER, wow was I proved wrong. The internet has been miles more reliable than the Virgin equivalent. We are on the 40mbps down package (so not even the top one) and it is at most points faster than Virgin Media, because of the way that they used too throttle you at what they called 'peak' times (basically whenever they felt like it). When downloading something on Steam, for example, you can see that the download speed stays constant and doesn't continuously fluctuate up and down like VM used too do.
As with everything, however, there are a few flaws in the system. The coverage of the WiFi doesn't quite reach right across our building (3 bedroom house). I must admit this is only in the far corners of the house but is annoying nonetheless. I believe that this can be fixed with a booster but I have heard that I need to pay for it, which isn't good Sky.
Below you can see my first thoughts of the Sky Q wifi router, before it got installed:
If you would like too see anything else regarding the Sky Q equipment please let me know as I would love to help out with any queries that you have about it. One thing that I would love to do is review the 2TB box and possibly even the booster too see if it helps my wifi issues.
Please don't forget too check back every so often too see what we are up too!
Why not set us as one of your bookmarks so that you remember to return?
Thanks for reading my review of the Sky Q equipment and service, in my opinion the best on the market and highly recommended.
Jack
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