Home > Consumer Reviews > THOMSON 160GB TOP UP TV DIGITAL RECORDER HDD DTR BOX

I was slightly wary of buying this after i had read the hundreds of poor reviews of the Thompson top up tv box. However, i thought I would take the risk as the price was so low.

I only use the freeview + EPG as I have no interest in top up tv services and have had absolutely no problems witht he box since I have had it (about 3 weeks). It seems as if all of the over the air updates have sorted out reliability issues ("touch wood") and as i have deactivated top up TV i have no problems with this either. It is probably a little bit noisy for use in a bedroom but as mine is in the front room this gives me no problems and you hardly notice it even witht he TV off.

For the price it is a great little freeview + box and does everything I want it to whilst i wait to get sky installed in my flat.

I have only given it 4 starts as i feel it is not quite as good as a sky+ box as the EPG is a little crammed onto the screen and the picture qulaity is not as good as the freeview direct through my LCD TV but this could be down to the scart lead.

All in all, this product does exactly what i want it to do so far and alows me to record all of my favourite programs so i would recommend it highly.

I bought this product (not from Amazon) at the start of the year. It was unable to find any channels despite the fact my non recordable Freeview box doesn't have any problems at all. Took it back to the shop and they gave me another one. Same problem. Lent it to a friend to try (in case I was setting it up wrong). Same problem. Phoned Thompson. They said it was down to the ariel and I needed a new one and because of this they wouldn't take it back. Have moved twice since then. It didn't work at all in my last property. In my current property it worked perfectly.......... for about 2 days. Then it went onto standby and I haven't been able to get it out of standby since(nor has Thompson).

In fact it was so bad I am wary about paying a decent price for another one and currently have no kind of recording device at all.

Bit annoyed this review made me give it at least one star as by choice I wouldn't have given it anything.

Please do not buy this product. It will break down on you, probably a software fault, and you will find that no-one is interested in fixing the problem because there is no fix. It is better to do without a recorder than to have this one.