Customer Reviews

Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100)

5 star:		(149)
4 star:		(71)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

first - AMAZON IS AMAZING. when slingmedia would not help me, amazon totally stepped up and took care of a problem for me that they did not need to. thanks amazon and i didn't know you could make me a bigger fan than i already was but you have.

second - i have had the same problem with slingbox solo that other one star reviewers have had. i too just had my unit for under a year and was still under warranty but like others, technical support gave me a total run around and would not give me an RMA and my options were to pay for a tech support consult or buy an extended warranty... but wtf, i was STILL UNDER WARRANTY - why would i want to purchase an EXTENDED WARRANTY when i'm still under warranty now when the unit has failed?!

these are bad, disingenuous and sneaky people who want to nickel and dime you for every little thing. they don't care about customer satisfaction or their own commitments and you will notice that their culture is one that is absolutely closed and stonewalled.

in every way that amazon shines for their dedication to their customers, slingbox radiates bad faith.

this technology is not worthy of these guys and it is my fondest wish that they fail so that someone bigger, better and more committed to their customers becomes the standard bearer.

i loved my slingbox and i loved the technology. they had a die hard fan in me. but with one phone call to a tech support person far more concerned with selling an extended warranty for a product that was already under warranty when it failed... man, they have earned my enmity.

as for a recommendation, it's a tough call - if it works and never fails, it's great. but if you need to have ANY kind of backup from slingmedia, you are completely out of luck.

UPDATE - for me, it WAS bad capacitors: [...]

One (hopefully last) review of this piece of junk. Indeed - I did open up the Sling SOLO and in the process voiding my "warranty" (if we can call it that with a straight face) and found that the capacitors had failed, as everyone else eventually discovers. Replacing them at my cost of about $12 and two hours worth of my time (and I am not an electronics geek by any means), solved the problem. Here are some image links of the SOLO:

picasaweb . google . com / cesinco / SlingBoxSux#5547257092994979890

picasaweb . google . com / cesinco / SlingBoxSux#5547257105670666994

picasaweb . google . com / cesinco / SlingBoxSux#5547257110680945410



I have come back to edit my original review of the SOLO. I cannot stress enough how poor the product and customer service is. You are better off to take your wife out to a nice dinner than to hand your money over to this bunch. If you do, you might as well have set fire to the money you paid for the SOLO. Anyway, back to the original review...

If you are thinking of buying this product, I highly recommend you first go to this discussion thread on Sling's site

answers . slingbox . com / message / 24401

to see what nearly 500 postings have to say about the SOLO and Sling's customer support in general. If you don't wish to go through all of that, here's the condensed version:

Many people have discovered that the capacitors installed on the SOLO bulge up about 1 year after purchase, rendering them and the SOLO useless. Many of those who have tried, said that replacing the capacitors with new ones corrected the problem. Sling refuses to acknowledge that this is a problem of their making (despite the numerous posts and the thread having started about 6 months ago). Apparently, they don't "wish to leap to conclusions" as to the source of the problem until it is properly diagnosed. In the meantime, until such time as it is "properly diagnosed", Sling charges customers who are out of warranty (that means practically everyone since the problem typically occurs AFTER the warranty expires) just to talk to you. As I understand from other contributors to the thread, if it can be determined that the problem is indeed with hardware, Sling will credit this $30 towards replacement hardware which will cost you $100. So you end up paying $70 if it's a hardware problem to get a working SOLO or paying $30 to remain stuck with a non-working SOLO. Wonderful choice.

Apparently, the customer service reps are rude too.

Anyway, this is not me saying this - it's the condensed version of what is on the discussion thread.

I leave it to you to make up your own mind on whether you want to deal with such a company. Myself, I will go the "replace my own capacitor" route as others have and if it fails, I will be no worse off (except for the cost of a few caps) than I am now. But I will not fall for their tricks agan.

The Good
---------------
The technology works! Using a Sprint Air card I was able to keep tuned into my TV while driving in the country. This is probably the worst case scenario for remote reception. I was only getting about 100K download speed with occasional dropouts. No other streamer that I have tested would work under these conditions.

I was running 320-240 res under these conditions. With faster more stable connection you can run higher.

At home on my home network I run 640x480 resolution with a maximum stream rate of 6000Kbps with Near CD quality Audio.

It works! It works! It Works!!


The Bad
---------
This box did not come with a software CD or SVid cable. So I had to dig one up. I had the player software from SlingBox AV that I had tested. In any case you will need to download the latest software from the SlingMedia website. I had to dig up an aditional Svid cable.


The Ugly
---------
Couple things that I realy hate about the SlingBox technology.

-Max Res 640x480 res

-Only one connection allowed at a time. If you try to connect and someone else is watching the slingbox you will get a Buisy indication. Thats why it is called a Personal TV Viewer.

-No Recording Option available. There are some third party venders offering this at a cost of $49.

-Mobile Player software is not free. You must pay $29 for wach mobile device you want to install the player software on.


Final Thoughts
------------------
All this said, I still love the SlingBox. I had originaly purchased the Slingbox AV but found its connection options limited with out a pass through connection. I now have two devices set up. Dish Sat box and Panasonic E55 DVD recorder/player. I can remotely change the channel and start my recorder from anywhere in the world that I have an internet connection.

BTW this box retails for $179 and I picked mine up for $159. Thats only $30 more than I paid for the AV.

I have heard the Slingbox advertised for several years and have often wondered what the appeal was--with other technologies like tv tuner cards and portable media players, I never saw the point. Recently, however, I purchased a 3.5G smartphone and found there was Slingbox client software available for it. The idea of watching television anywhere from my phone [with an unlimited data plan] intrigued me enough to make the relatively minor investment in a Slingbox.

After trying it, I can only say it is incredible. Having a device in my pocket that can receive television is amazing, and the fact that it is not some choppy over-the-air signal but a beautifully clear signal with access to an entire cable tv feed, on demand services, program guides, and recorded programs is mind-blowing. Even from a laptop or other client, having access to all the channels and features you normally have in your living room, no matter where you are, makes the Slingbox much more powerful than a simple tuner card. For those so motivated, it is also possible to spy on what your kids are watching when you're not home (or annoy them by changing the channel).

I purchased the Slingbox SOLO because of the built-in high-definition component input. Because I was eager to set-up the box, I initially connected it with a simple composite connection--later, I dug-out an RGB component cable and connected it that way instead, but found with the lower resolution and compression artifacts introduced by the Slingbox I didn't notice a significant difference and ended-up switching back just to eliminate some cables and to take advantage of the cable-box's ability to convert everything to the same aspect ratio to avoid having to switch the client. The video quality looks perfect on the cell phone [although I don't think anything less than 3.5G service would work well] but from a PC or laptop, the picture quality is similar to a high quality standard-definition tuner card, even when viewing a high-definition source.

Setting-up the Slingbox was absolutely simple and almost completely automatic; it does require a pc on the same network. The box was detected and video was working as soon as set-up started. A huge variety of equipment is supported, with pc client software displaying a remote that looks almost identical to the actual equipment remote. I did not have to make any adjustments to the box's IR signal timing to the cable box and it has worked flawlessly without ever missing a command.

I have spent the last couple hours playing with the new Slingbox Solo. In comparison to the Slingbox pro I like this new model better. It is about 1/2 the size and does not need an extra dongle for HD video.

The software to setup the device is very easy and very fast. Video quality on a home network is superb. Internet is not bad but depends on how much upstream bandwidth you have available.

The only gripe I have with it is the unit does not come with any component cables. This however is a small gripe.

Overall this device is well worth the money if you like watching TV.

Hopefully slingmedia will come out with an iPhone client soon.

My unit worked well for eighteen months. When I attempted to reinstall it in a different system the setup software required that I upgrade the firmware. The upgrade failed and the box has been useless ever since.

I am not the only person to have this problem. Slingbox charges $29.95 to talk to you after their warranty period. This will be refunded if they determine you have faulty hardware. Thus it will cost you $29.95 to find out if Slingbox will repair the hardware that their own software rendered useless.

In addition, while the Mac or PC players are free, the mobile players cost $29.95 for EACH type. Want to watch your Slingbox on an iPad? Then pay up even if you have already purchased a player for your iPhone.

These guys richly deserve to go out of business. I suggest you consider a Monsoon Vulkano. These units perform exactly the same function (and more) as a Slingbox, cost much less, and do not have a history of becoming unusable. Further the player software for any platform you desire is FREE and so is their customer service.

Given the problems with these units and the available alternatives there is simply no reason to purchase one.

This review is for the purpose of remote viewing only. I only use the HAVA and Sling Box on a completely separate internet connection from where they are stationed. Sometimes this is across town and sometimes it is on the other side of the world. These devices do allow you to stream locally, on your local network, but I do not do that often enough to comment on it.

I bought these devices so I could get all of my local cable channels when I was away from home, whether that is at the office, traveling for business, or on vacation. Many times I like to catch a local sports game, football, basketball, soccer, and no matter how hard you try you can't get it in other locations of the country. ABC, NBC, and CBS all have regions, and different games are broadcast for each region. So even though the game you want to see is on regular TV in your home town, it might not be on that same station on the other side of the country. I also use the On Demand portion of my cable box quite frequently. This is nice because I can remotely watch anything that is in the on demand section.

I have had the Sling Box Solo for about 2 months now. It has the 2.0 software with all the latest software and firmware updates. I have had the HAVA Titanium HD Wifi unit for about a week. I bought the HAVA because of the ability to plug a separate hard drive into the unit to record remotely for viewing at a later time. The HAVA also has the latest software, 1.8 latest firmware etc... On a side note, if you buy the HAVA, you must be hooked up by cat 5 or Ethernet to update the firmware. It will fail over wifi.

Comparison - Both of these units do what they are designed to do. One does it much better in my opinion than the other.

Streaming - I am talking about this first because this is the most important capacity of any of these type of units. If you can't stream properly, the unit is worthless, or at least very annoying to watch. The internet connection where the units are located is through COX, and I believe it is rated at 768K up and around 15mbps down. The only number you need to be concerned with is the UP speed of the location where the units are located. The Sling box blows the HAVA away in this area. If you were to watch these units for an hour each, this is what you would see. The HAVA unit will have about a 5 to 10 second delay from the live stream. While watching, the picture will cut in and out for about 10 seconds every 2 to 5 minutes. This might not sound like much, but it gets very annoying, especially if you watching a game and you miss a big play. Every time the picture cuts out, it comes back on at the lowest bitrate and works itself back up, so the picture quality is very poor for at least 10 seconds from the time it comes back on. The audio does cut out as well, but not as often. The Sling box is quite different. If you watch it for an hour, it might stutter once or twice for a second, but it has never cut out on me with a solid connection. Even with fairly slow internet connections in some hotels, once the Sling box has fully buffered it very rarely cuts out.

Picture - The picture clarity is very close on these two units. When I hook up my laptop to a Samsung A750 LCD 52" it appears as if the HAVA has a slight edge over the Sling box when the HAVA is not cutting out. Keep in mind this edge is so small that most people will not notice it. On a laptop you can't see any difference.

Sound - This is a huge area to myself. I generally buy the best or very close to the best audio equipment available, whether it is for my house, car, mp3 player, or headphones. If you are an audiophile in the slightest way, you will be severely disappointed with the HAVA unit. It sounds like an AM radio station on a 1970's car. The highs and lows are missing, and what you are left with is a very bland and dull sound. The Sling box again is the opposite. It is very clear, about 95% of the original broadcast sound, and has a full rich sound to it. If you would like to get a better idea of what I am talking about, go to you car and turn the radio on. Tune it to a strong FM channel and listen for a minute. Then switch it over to an AM channel. Hear the difference? That is at least the level of separation between these two units.

Software - The Sling box software is nice because it gives you an entire TV guide for your local cable provider. You can double click on what you want to watch and the Sling box changes channels. The HAVA does not have this guide. The Remote control interface is similar on both units. The only difference I have notice is that on the Sling box the A B and C buttons do not work correctly with my Motorola cable box. This doesn't come into play very often but it can be a pain to function in some screens.

Changing Channels - Again, the Sling box blows the HAVA away. The Sling box takes about 1 to 2 seconds to do what you tell it to. When I first started using the Sling box I thought this was slow until I received the HAVA. The HAVA takes anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds for the channel to change. A lot of this has to do with the longer delay in the stream on the HAVA, but either way, it is a long process. If you go to watch something On Demand, it my require ten or more button pushes of the remote to get to where you want. This can take upwards of 5 minutes on the HAVA. On the sling box, you could do the same thing in 30 seconds.

Recording - This is really the only area where the HAVA truly wins. The Sling box currently does not have the ability to record. It will give you a buffer, so you can rewind the show you were watching if you missed something, or pause it for a few minutes but that is all. The HAVA functions as a true DVR. You have to hook up a separate hard drive to the unit through a USB port, but once you have that it works great. This feature runs independently, so you don't have to have a computer on for it to record. The other thing you can do is record directly onto your laptop. So if you were watching something and wanted to record it to watch later you could. You can even view those recorded shows that are on your laptop when you don't have internet, like on a plane or in a car.

Mobile Phone - I have an HTC Touch Pro on Sprint. EVDO rev A, windows mobile 6.1 I have only tested the HAVA on my phone. It works ok. The phone must be in portrait mode, not widescreen, and you get about 2 frames per second. The audio comes through uninterrupted for the most part but the video continuously cuts out. I have not used the Sling box software on this phone but I have seen it run on a HTC Mogul, and it ran great, much better than the HAVA.

Overall, I believe the Sling Box wins hands down. If you are really into recording then maybe the HAVA is for you, but with its stream and sound issues, the recordings are not very fun to watch. I find the Sling box pleasurable to watch. The HAVA I find to be annoying and irritating which is not good considering I am watching it to try and relax. My HAVA will be getting sent back for a refund.

The reason I am giving the Slingbox 4 stars instead of 5 is for the lack of recording ability, and that you have to pay $30 additional for the mobile software.

Mine lasted a few weeks short of one year. I have a problem where only the power light comes on, the network light is out and I can't connect to it any longer. Nothing in my network has changed so i did some research on the internet and found others with the same problem. I called Sling and was told that while still under a 1 year warranty I would have to pay either 29.99 for a one time service consult, or 49.99 for an extended warranty. A person with a similar problem on a sling forum was told after paying the 29.99 that he had to buy a power supply for $50 because there might have been a power spike causing the damage. This is the worst support for a product i have ever experienced and can no longer recommend this product.

Basically as A LOT of Customers bough the Slingbox SOLO, everything was fine for 15 months until I did Firmware Upgrade. Since, then the Slingbox cannot hold a connection for more that 10 seconds. The problem is clear all over the Web and the company and customer support denies and hides the problem. Poor Execution. I spent 150usd for Box + 30 usd Iphone App + 30 Phone Customer Support = WASTE OF MONEY.

Zero Customer Support, and they dont acknowledge Software upgrades caused issue with product.

I've had a Solo for 17 months (purchased from Amazon on 10/1/2007). It worked fine for almost 15 months, then a firmware upgrade occurred and the box has been flaky ever since. Slingmedia has a notice on their support site that this is a known problem (the notice has been there for at least 2 months). But they admit they can't solve it.

See slingmedia support site subject "Streaming in SlingPlayer slows and doesn't recover"

My advice...great idea...was a great product...don't buy.