Recommend me a good & cheap freeview box?

[Simba27]

I've got a Mico freeview box from Asda, and it's a worthless pile of junk. Every time I press a key on the remote it takes at least 5 seconds to respond, up to several minutes on occasion. It freezes up at least once a day . It freezes up every time I try to use Text. Sometimes the picture jumps, sometimes the sounds goes. I'm getting fed up with reaching down the back of the TV cabinet and pulling the mains plug several times a day. :-HB

Also, when I go into the weather on teletext and select "South East" (or anywhere else), it shows me the weather map of Scotland. Is this normal on freeview or yet another bug in this crappy box.

So, I'm looking for a replacement. Can anybody recommend me a good and cheap freeview box? I don't need anything fancy, I just want one that actually works properly.

Also, does anyone know of any alternative software that I could load onto the Mico to make it work better? Surely it must be a clone of something else.

 

[rolfw]

I've seen a few Mico boxes and they all seemed to work OK, perhaps you have the Friday afternoon one.

Why not take it back to the shop, they will probably swap it for another make.

I have used lots of Sagem Freeview boxes and they always seem to perform well.

 

[Simba27]

Thanks Rolfw, I'll check out the sagem boxes.

I can't return this Mico box as I've had it for quite a while. I remember reading bad reviews when I first bought it, but I thought people were just expecting too much from a 24 quid box.

 

[Simba27]

I'm still looking to buy a Sagem box.

My Mico box has taken a turn for the worse now, in addition to it's previous faults, it now reports poor signal and the picture breaks up but I know the aerial is OK.

I opened it up and had a look inside: It uses a Phillips chipset. I noticed that several of the capacitors were swollen and leaking electrolyte - that must account for some of the problems I've been having.

The problems caused by faulty caps in PCs are well documented (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague), and my Comag satellite system was also aflicted by this. Given that this has been known about for some time, I have a suspicion that manufacturers are deliberately using components that they know are going to fail shortly after the warranty runs out.

 

[bitonw]

So grap some caps for a couple pennies and bring your box back to live?

 

[2cvbloke]

Personally, I'd reccomend a tried & tested former On/ITV Digital box, I have a Nokia 9850T myself and it's very good, it works 99.99999% of the time, and it's TopUpTV capable (well, thst is until they make everyone use their "Anytime" PVR boxes). There's usually loads on eBay and most are pretty cheap too. The only downside is that they don't have an EPG list like most modern freeview boxes do, but they do have their default Now & Next thing...