Manhattan T2-R 500 GB Freeview HD Recorder - Black

My Freesat box gave up the ghost recently and I'd never really used Freeview so i thought i'd give this one a go as it was reasonably priced and had all the features I needed.What annoyed me with freesat was they lost the C4 HD channel, which is a bit rubbish when all the other main stream channels were available in HD (there was a work around for this, but it wasn't the best and you couldn't record it).This freeview option from Manhatten was very tempting because it was a lot cheaper than some of the freesat options out there. This is probably because there's no wifi or smart TV options with it, it just allows you to record tv programmes and pause them. Which is fine by me as my TV already has all the Smart TV apps etc, so i just needed this option so i wasn't needlessly duplicating things.Set up was a doddle and took a few minutes,Picture quality is excellent, as is the Programme Guide interface, it's really neat, responsive and does the job really well. You can easily set your favourite channels instead of scrolling through loads of channles you never watch.The remote is very neat as well and very easy to get used to and use, and you can program it with your TV remote which is a good feature.All in all, i'm really impressed with this little freeview recorder, comes with a 2 year warranty as well if you register (which was very easy to do by the way), glad i bought it.

Bought as a refurb from "amazon warehouse", but everything was present and correct, including HDMI cable. I set it up with an ethernet connection at first, and it immediately requested a firmware update, which proceeded automatically and smoothly. After that there is no need for routine network connection, as this box does not support streaming players like Netflix. Might connect a cable occasionally to check for updates.The user interface is clear and attractive, offering many channels, and recording is easy, with an option to record a whole series. You can choose favourite channels and use the yellow button to just see your favourites listed, which saves paging through channels of no interest. A parental control PIN can be set to limit the available channels.You can rewind live telly. I appreciate the use of the left and right buttons to skip a set number of seconds (configurable) while playing a recording. It was not immediately obvious that deleting a recording must be done via "Recording options", but it's easy enough when you know. If your planned recording clashes with others you've scheduled, the box helpfully offers options to resolve it where it can, such as recording something when it is rebroadcast in a different time-slot.We got this as a second box, having already filled our BT YouVision box with recordings. That box has Netflix, iPlayer, Prime, 4OD, etc, so we just wanted more recording space. This was a great value solution for us, but if you need the streaming players look elsewhere.

The Manhattan T2-R was very easy to set up and the remote was easy to program to carry out basic operations on the TV. This product is new so it remains to be seen how robust it will be over time. I would have rated it as a 5 star but the 'Favourites' cannot be put in a more logical and easier to access order. With the Humax, you could create multiple 'Favourite Lists', name them, and sort the order of the channels within the lists. This was purchased because it is compact and has a good overall reputation. It has proved a doddle to set up and program with a nicely designed remote. It's a pity about the lack of functionality in setting 'Favourites' lists.

To be honest I'm confused with some of the bad reviews on here. I have a Smart TV which is connected to the internet and through this I can get on demand tv, netflix, prime and a host of other apps, so I chose the T2 because I didn't need it to be connected to the internet. Although I can if I use an ethernet cable. If you need a box that connects to the internet (Wi-Fi) then you'll need to pay a bit more and get the T3.We had Sky, and have had it for 20+ years. Unfortunately we very rarely watched any of the sky channels and realised we were just paying for the pause, rewind, record and series link abilities.I was a bit wary about getting rid of the sky box and buying a freeview box, mainly because of the bad reviews. Anyway, I took the plunge, cancelled Sky (that constantly goes up in price) and bought this T2 box and a new aeriel cable. Simple to connect. Works a treat.Took a couple of days to get used to the remote, but now we have it's very easy to use.Like the sky box it records, series links, pauses live tv and has access to 15 HD channels and loads of other channels. As I said before, it doesn't have on demand, but that was my choice. I've seen a review on the T3 and the reviewer has the same opinion that I do. There is nothing wrong with this box. It will do everything you need it to do.The HD channels are clear and crisp and the audio seems to be 100%.So far it's recorded everything I want, and the recording process is extremely simple and all done on one button, record, delete, save, series link.If it was crap, I would say, but at this time I have absolutely no complaints.