Electrical brands its just impossible to buy blind now.

This dosn't really apply to HIFI as that is one of the few electrical products where brand ehtos still exists.

However with DVD players and freeview boxes I think the brand is meaningless.

I recently bought a Philips STB200 for £50, it was poorly made, it crashed and was not worth the money at all.

Further research suggested that Philips make this unit for Goodmans down to a price but also stick their own badge on it with different casing.

My sister has a £25 Sagem which has been perfect, I have just bought Wharfdale DV832B for £35 for my parents which seems brilliant so far. Its got a proper solid metal chasis and a very fast processor.

My parents original freeview box only lasted months when I took it apart I discovered it was a DVD player chopped in half!

This was a Mitsubishi box, it turns out that in the UK that company no longer selll stuff, and the Mitsubishi we buy is just a brand just like Alba and Bush.

In conclusion when buying electrical stuff don't be a brand snob, the factory where it was made seems to be 100 times more important than the badge.

 

AT, FWIW the STBs don't seem to crash nearly so much if your signal is strong. We had a similar problem with an older Philips STB but once we had our internal aerial replaced with a modern external one, it stopped crashing. I know that this isn't the point you meant to make, but just thought I'd pass on my experience with the Philips.

 

I don't think it is a signal problem though, it always come up with 90% signal strength and my Philips (DRT15000) and my sisters Sagem never crashes.

I know weak signal does cause it to crash though because of the drop in bit rate.

The DTR1500 is much much better than the STB200.

 

The worst (i.e. from crashing perspective) electronic product that I have ever bought is my Nokia 221 Media wotsit Freeview box. I'm sure a MS trainee wrote the software for it.

 

Getting too hot can also cause some boxes to lock up.

Recently bought a new Humax 9200 (160GB hard drive) and that's been great - it locked up once or twice in the first month but nothing since (and that's with a crap signal). Even if it does lock it has a rocker power switch on the back which makes rebooting very easy.

Definitely recommend this unit - really good picture/features plus 100 hours recording capacity. They are around the £200 mark.

Matt.

 

We've got a SOny 800 something or other, it was quite expensive £100 but worth it, very good picture and very stable, even with a crappy indoor aerial.

 

They are supposed to be great boxes but you can get great boxes for £30 as well if you can live without some of the Sony spec and the wonderful Sony GUI.