Freeview boxes from £23.99 - Can you beat it?

MSE_Martin

What's it all about?

With analogue television scheduled to be switched off within the next few years, it's time to consider your digital options. While belt and braces digital TV packages can have their prices hammered down using my Digital TV Cost Cutting technique, monthly subscriptions do mount up, especially if you only watch a fraction of the hundreds of channels.

Freeview

Yet there's an easy and cheap solution; Freeview. For a one off purchase of a set-top box, you'll permanently get 30 TV channels, and 20 radio stations. All you need to know is whether you can receive the signal in your area; the official way to check and for all the details, see the official site: Freeview.

However in truth the very best way is to ask near neighbours what they're signals like.

Freeview costs are plummeting

And, great news! The cost of Freeview boxes has been falling over the last year and are now dirt cheap. The following are the cheapest on the market.

• £23.99 Aldi -instore. Tevion freeview box
• £23.99 Argos Digi Home Interactive Set Top Box It can be reserved online for store pick up or delivery is an extra £4.95
• £24.97 Tesco Online. The Digilogic Freeview Receiver* is £24.97, however if you get it delivered you will pay £4.85. You should be able to order it online and then get it sent to a store paying no delivery but this option isn't up and running yet. Some stores may have the stock but it's worth giving them a ring before making the journey.
• £24.99 Amazon. Get the Digihome Freeview Digital Receiver* for £24.99, and as that's over Amazon's £15 threshold, the delivery will be free.
• £29.99 Bush set-top box. I'm never the biggest advocate of paying more for branded goods, but I know some prefer it, Argos currently has the Bush set-top box* at £29.99

Can you find Freeview cheaper?

If you've spotted a cheaper box anywhere - please click reply and post it below.

Martin

* Using these links helps the site stay ad-free and free to use, as they’re ‘affiliated links’ which invisibly take you via commercial price comparison services like Moneysupermarket or Find, which then pay this site per click. You shouldn’t notice any difference, the links don’t impact the product at all and the editorial line (the things I write) is NEVER impacted by the revenue. If it isn’t possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it is still recommended and still included. For the sake of transparency go to direct.tesco.com, or amazon.co.uk for an unaffiliated link. Click on the following link for more details on how this site’s financed.

saintscouple

This Sagem set-top box seems good value at only £19.99, http://www.shop.bt.com/invt/ccf120 but then they insist on £5.99 for delivery!

Twopints

I have just tried to order a Freeview box from Tesco using the link above but when you get though to the delivery options, it has the option for "Free delivery to store", I clicked it, then got a message saying:

"It is not currently possible to collect your items from store, however this service will be available very soon."

So I'll try somewhere else.

MinkyMeg

Twopints wrote:

I have just tried to order a Freeview box from Tesco using the link above but when you get though to the delivery options, it has the option for "Free delivery to store", I clicked it, then got a message saying:

"It is not currently possible to collect your items from store, however this service will be available very soon."

So I'll try somewhere else.

OR....you could just pay 2 pence more and have Amazon delivery it to your door?! surely thats even cheaper than the price of the petrol to drive to Tesco and collect it?!!

alwatts

Argos have a DigiHome box for £23.99.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5320754.htm

Mercenary

Argos have a Wharfedale one http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5320503/Trail/C%24cip%3D42492.Sound%2Band%2Bvision%3EC%24cip%3D42559.Digital%2BTV%2Band%2Bfreeview.htm that gets good reviews here: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/terrestrial/reviews/.

I bought one and used some Nectar card points to bring it down to £25 .

dc

A lot of ON-Digital or ITV Digital boxes can be picked up on secondhand markets for £10 or less.
Car boots are slightly more dodgy sources.

These boxes ( Nokkia, Pace Thomson, Pioneer etc) will pick up the Freeview services and some have slots for TUTV adapters. The ON-Digital card is not required. Channel layout may be different but ok for the experimenters, make sure there is a remote supplied.

When analogue TV closes down there is the possibility for hundereds of channels matching SKY if HM GOV doesnt sell off all the frequencies for non TV use. Remember Freeview is a quick fix using small gaps between the current analogue channels and transmitting on much lower powers than them (Analogue ones)

HTHs dc

Twopints

MinkyMeg wrote:

OR....you could just pay 2 pence more and have Amazon delivery it to your door?! surely thats even cheaper than the price of the petrol to drive to Tesco and collect it?!!

Yup, that's where i'll be going. But I have to wait till I get some Amazon vouchers that I'm due (Lightspeed, Rpoints :rolleyes: ).

Tesco just seemed the easy option as (i) I don't have the Amazon vouchers yet, (ii) we go every week and (iii) using the Tesco Clubcard Plus, we would get 48 points = £1.96 in Clubcard deals.

Lisa_H

I was told it's worth paying a bit more for your box as you get what you pay for but obviously I'm sceptical, can anyone confirm this this? Also, I've checked the Freeview website and it states I cant get Freeview but all my neighbours can so the site cant always be 100% accurate!!!

firespire

Lisa_H wrote:

I was told it's worth paying a bit more for your box as you get what you pay for but obviously I'm sceptical, can anyone confirm this this?

There can be expensive ones with buggy software. It is best to search for reviews/peoples discussions & problems on the internet on the one you are thinking of buying so you know it is a good buy or a pile of junk.

Stuartli

One of the best Freeview set top boxes you can buy is the Humax F2 Fox-T - a bit more expensive than some of the cheapos mentioned above but very highly regarded both in the trade and by owners.

I'm still using my Pioneer DTR2100 set top box originally sold for ITVDigital use, a very classy piece of equipment styled on hi-fi separates lines.

Picks up all the 89 TV, radio and text channels available from Winter Hill.

However, the menu layout is the original ONDigital style, which is different to the current Freeview version, although it serves the purpose well enough.

One tip. Make sure that any Freeview box you buy has two Scart sockets...:-)