UPDATE: Our own Boxee Box review is now live. See what we made of it now!
Our own Boxee Box review is in the pipeline, but in the meantime, we thought we’d round up the other verdicts online on this curious media streamer for you. Is it an Apple TV beater? Pointless compared to a HTPC? Read on and find out what the experts thought here in our Boxee Box review roundup.
If you’ve been following the Boxee Boxe all year like we have, you’ll know it’s a strking number, like a neon cube sunk into the ground. In his Boxee Box review, Engadget‘s Nilay Patel nails it when he says it sports a “polarising design”. He loved it, while CNET refrained from making a verdict on the look, only criticising its “relatively tall height (4.6 inches) and ‘unstackability’”. CrunchGear‘s Matt Burns on the other hand wrote: “Hate it? No, I don’t hate it, but it annoys me that I can’t stuff it in my office AV rack.”
CNET and Engadget were divided over the Boxee Box remote, which features a full QWERTY keyboard on the back. “The remote design seems genius at first, but it loses a lot of its luster in real-world use,” said CNET. Engadget on the other hand thought it got the job done (“You’re not going to sit around writing email with it, but it’s more than passable for searching and the occasional password entry), only criticising the fact that it’s all too easy to pick up the wrong way round thanks to a very uniform front face.
The Boxee Box hardware has been put together by D-Link, but the software is courtesy of internet start up Boxee itself. On PC and Mac, it’s proved wildly popular, but the interpretation of it found on the Boxee Box wasn’t met with huge approval by reviewers.
Boxee Box: Everything you need to know
CrunchGear though that “The interface is slightly retooled to better fit within the 10-foot interface rules, but the result makes it feel…a bit dumbed down,” also flagging up “an itsy-bitsy bit of lag on the Boxee Box.” Engadget meanwhile was much more harsh, simply calling the new Boxee Box UI “ugly.”
“It’s like a cross between an Apple TV and Roku, all stirred up with some cutesy graphics…it’s also much less functional in many ways, particularly when it comes to accessing local media — getting to your stuff now requires many more clicks,” Engadget wrote.
Those looking for a media streamer to play back everything stashed on their hard drives will be pleased to know that the Boxee Box performed as well as could be hoped – very, in other words. “Great news, everybody: The Boxee Box plays everything,” declared CrunchGear. “Once you select your file sources, the Boxee Box scans and adds the content to the library. It even adds artwork, relevant info and sorts by genre if it can find it. This is a real family-pleaser…Playback is awesome too.”
The only complaint? “1080p or 720p files play without hesitation but the color levels seem a bit off. The blacks are a touch grey.”
Curiously though, Engadget ran into a problem streaming over Wi-Fi: “Our Boxee Box suffered from extremely slow throughput speeds on WiFi and couldn’t seem to hold a connection for very long, and when it dropped it required a restart.” We’ve not run into any sort of problem like this, and neither did other reviewers, so this may be a one off.
It’s not just enough to playback videos you’ve already downloaded any more. A good media streamer needs to serve up loads of web TV too, something which the new Apple TV proved disappointingly inept at. Sadly, despite a vast array of preinstalled apps (131), the Boxee Box’s IPTV options got the thumbs down from US reviewers.
CNET found that though the Boxee Box “does a decent job of trying to collate all of the free video content available online…the information is often outdated or inaccurate”, and complained about the lack of premium UIS streaming options like Netflix and Hulu Plus. Engadget summed up the feeling pithily: “It feels like having an endless amount of Blu-ray extras with no actual movie to watch.”
CrunchGear meanwhile was more concerned about the US content available currently through Fancast.com on the Boxee Box – something networks shut down on Google TV recently. “Will the Boxee Box work the same way in a month that it does today? Even Boxee doesn’t know that.”
It’s worth stressing however that these issues might not be relevant in the UK, where the Boxee Box comes with BBC iPlayer and Channel 4oD support out of the box – we’ve also been told a Lovefilm movie streaming app is in the works too, so if you’re on these fair shores, stay tuned for our own Boxee Box review for a UK take.
Reviewers were ultimately split on the Boxee Box. After testing, CrunchGear was still enthusiastic, calling it “without a doubt the best stand-alone media streamer on the market”.
But CNET and Engadget came away a bit more jaded. CNET preferred to hold out for more online services, saying “the company is promising many of the updates before the end of the year, but until then, buyers should hold off until Boxee catches up with the competition.”
Engadget glumly concluded: “Unfortunately, in practice the Boxee Box just isn’t polished enough to be worth the hassle right now..as shipped (it) feels like less of a finished product than an excellent rough draft of the future.”
It looks like the Boxee Box hasn’t quite lived up to its promise thanks to dull online services, but that could change for the UK. Watch out for our Boxee Box review this week to find out for sure.
Boxee Box review scores
CrunchGear NA
Engadget 6/10
CNET 3/5
