Last Survivor; but wait, where do these packages come from? [Review]

Overview – Last Survivor is an action-packed, top down shooter with a single goal; don’t die. Developer: Kakoide Studios Price: Free (ad-supported) Highlights: Free, ads run at each level Good

Fujifilm X70 review – CNET

The Good Great photo quality for the money and a manual-friendly design are the Fujifilm X70’s high points.

The Bad It has slow autofocus and some annoying controls.

The Bottom Line It’s not for everyone. But if you’re a manual-control freak who views the world at a wide angle and won’t miss a viewfinder, the Fujifilm X70 is a great camera.

Are you a manual-focus-first street photographer who views the world in wide angle and doesn’t care about a viewfinder? Then you’ll love the Fujifilm X70. This enthusiast compact, which incorporates a large-for-its-class APS-C sensor, runs $700 (£550, AU$1,050) and delivers the best photo quality I’ve seen for the price.

But it’s not all lollipops and rainbows. Slow performance and some annoyingly designed controls may mar the shooting experience for some folks.

Image quality

The camera’s native sensitivity range runs between ISO 200 and ISO 6400, with expanded to ISO 100 and ISO 51200; you can only shoot JPEG in the expanded ranges. JPEGs in the entire native range — up through ISO 6400 — look clean. While there are still a lot of reasons to shoot raw instead of JPEG, for the X70 cleaning up noise or improving on the noise-reduction in the JPEGs aren’t two of them.

Fujifilm X70 full-resolution photo samples
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Its raw files generally don’t have a ton of color noise, and even brightening up underexposed ISO 1600 shots by 3 stops yielded decent results. As with most cameras in this class, there’s a reasonable amount of detail preserved in the shadows, but not much reclaimable in blown-out highlights or overexposed shots.

Colors in the default film simulation setting look bright and saturated but still render very neutral. In overexposed shots the sky pushes to a flat cyan, but reducing the exposure corrects it. I do think the setting crushes the shadows a little too much, at least for my taste.

The lens is sharp all the way through the aperture range, from f2.8 to f16, though with the softening around the edges that you typically get from wide-angle lens distortion. The X-Trans sensor, which doesn’t use an antialiasing filter to blur fine edges, contributes to that sharpness. In fact, the photos are so sharp I only half-jokingly recommend that you avoid selfies, unless you have perfect skin.

However, the lack of an AA filter means there’s a lot of moire and edge jitter on fine lines in the video, which can get quite distracting. Highlights tend to blow out as well with the defaults, so some experimentation with settings is necessary. Otherwise, it’s typical HD video.

Analysis samples

At ISO 3200, you can see JPEGs losing just a hair of sharpness if you look really hard.

Lori Grunin/CNET

At the top of its native range, ISO 6400, JPEGs are still very sharp and relatively noiseless. You can see a significant increase in softness in the expanded range.

Lori Grunin/CNET

There isn’t a lot of detail to recover in blown-out areas, but that’s pretty typical.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The X70 renders saturated but accurate colors.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Keeping in mind that the Four Thirds-sensor LX100 was tested at 50mm equivalent vs. the X70’s fixed 28mm, which affects everything from depth of field to distortion, you can see how the X70 preserves a lot more detail at ISO 3200 than the LX100.

Lori Grunin/CNET

The rounded aperture blades produce very nice out-of-focus highlight areas and smooth transitions.

Lori Grunin/CNET

Performance

Despite the incorporation of the same autofocus system as the fast X-T1, the X70 has some of the slowest-performing focus I’ve encountered recently. In center-point focus it iterates back and forth, but in the slightly faster multipoint autofocus it uses a wider area that, like most multipoint systems, doesn’t always choose to focus on what you want and the point selections change with every prefocus shutter half-press. In continuous AF, it forces a refocus even if the subject hasn’t moved.

Time to power on and focus and shoot isn’t bad; because the camera has a fixed focal-length lens, it doesn’t have to extend the lens as part of the startup sequence. But 1.4 seconds still isn’t great.

The camera has an optional High Performance mode which ostensibly boosts startup and focus speed at the expense of battery life. I didn’t formally test with it on, but startup seemed a tiny bit faster and the lens seemed to drive a bit better, but still took a long time iterating back and forth for focus. It also has an eye-detection autofocus mode which lets you choose right eye or left eye priority. (It falls back to face detection if it can’t find eyes, but I find the thought that it can find a face that has no eyes a bit scary).

Focusing and shooting in good light takes 0.7 second — that’s what it should be for bad light, at worst. Instead, in dim light it rises to 1.1 seconds. Two sequential shots for either JPEG or raw also runs 0.7 second, significantly slower than competitors, and slow enough that I tended to miss shots with moving subjects. And with flash enabled that rises to 2.2 seconds.

Shooting in a typical street-photography configuration — f5.6 or smaller, fixed shutter speed and the lens set on manual focus for a fixed distance — is much faster. So if that’s your technique then you don’t need to worry about the X70’s performance. The small files don’t require much processing, so there’s little overhead there.

Onkyo TX-NR656 Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Onkyo

Onkyo produced one of our favorite AV receivers from 2015 in the TX-NR646 and the company has now announced its replacement, unsurprisingly called the TX-NR656.

The receiver joins the company’s 2016 lineup, which features only a couple of minor tweaks, one of which is multiroom capability, building on existing features such as Dolby Atmos and 4K compatibility.

The $699 TX-NR656 puts 170W into each of its seven channels (plus two subwoofer outputs) and also boasts compatibility with DTS: X and Dolby Atmos (with front heights being the main option). The receiver also includes a powered Zone 2 output.

Other receivers in the range includes two more Dolby Atmos receivers — the 140W x 7 TX-NR555 ($599) and the 180 x 7 TX-NR757 ($799) — in addition to the entry-level TX-SR353 ($399), which lacks Internet connectivity and Atmos surround.

Onkyo is one of the last companies to announce a multiroom music system, and this year the company will introduce BlackFire, a system that is also used by Harman Kardon in its Omni speakers. Is it too late to introduce yet another proprietary multiroom product to the market? The answer is almost certainly yes, because once Google enables Chromecast Audio and Google Cast devices (like the new Onkyo range) to operate fully together, you won’t need to worry about learning a new app to control music in every room, you’ll just continue using your favorite.

As a Wi-Fi-connected receiver, the TX-NR656 also offers Google Cast and Apple AirPlay in addition to Bluetooth streaming.

The Onkyo TX-NR656 features seven HDMI inputs.

Onkyo

Like the 646, the 656 offers seven HDMI inputs and two outputs supporting HDCP 2.2 and 60Hz/4K/HDP signals.

One of the receiver’s newest features is the company’s VLSC technology, which it describes as “high-frequency pulse-noise removal technology.” We don’t have any more information at this stage but it sounds similar to Meridian’s MQA system which removes pre- and post-ringing from digital files. We’re imagining that it’s a mode that you can toggle on or off.

The TX-NR656, TX-NR555 and TX-SR353 will be available in the US in mid-April, while the TX-NR757 drops in May.

Microsoft will continue to support Bitcoin in the Windows Store

Over the weekend, people noticed that Microsoft’s Windows 10 Store FAQ had been updated, and claimed Bitcoin is no longer a supported payment method. Now, the company tells Softpedia that this update was “inaccurate information” and that users can still use it to add money to their Microsoft account, and then purchase content in the Windows and Xbox stores. All’s well that ends well, right?

Via: Coindesk

Source: Softpedia

Get to know the Galaxy S7’s Always-On Display – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

According to Samsung, the average smartphone owner checks his or her device nearly 150 times a day: A quick press of the power button to view the time here, and double tap not the screen to view notifications there, apparently adds up fast.

Samsung’s solution for this obsessive checking and waking our smartphones is through a feature it calls Always-On Display.

As the name implies, Samsung’s latest Galaxy devices are equipped with the fancy new feature.

After locking your device, the screen will remain dimly lit. The default setting is to display the current time, with the information moving around on the screen every few seconds. Alerts for missed calls and text messages are also placed on the screen, with a few caveats (more on that in a minute).

The basics

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

The easiest way to familiarize yourself with the feature is to dive into its settings. On your Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, open the Settings app, tap on Display and Wallpaper followed by Always On Display.

At the top of the settings screen, you’ll find the option to disable the feature altogether.

Select the Content to show from the list, to display a drop-down menu with three options: Clock, Calendar and Image.

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Examples of Clock, Calendar and Image options for Samsung’s Always-On Display.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

If you opted for a clock or calendar, you can then further change the look by tapping on the respective clock or calendar style button. There are a total of eight different clocks, ranging from basic digital and analog clocks to a dual-clock view. Additionally, clock users can set a background image for the clock on the display.

There are two different calendar options, both of which include a digital clock.

Selecting Image turns the feature into a screensaver-like feature you would expect on a computer and not a smartphone. Currently there are three different images included on the S7.

Play around with the various items and background images to find something that works best for you.

Further customization is possible

Samsung’s theme store for the Galaxy S7 offers themes that include a custom Always On Display image. Currently, when you open the theme store (Settings > Themes on your S7) the first category are “AOD” themes, which is the acronym for Always-On Demand.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that you can download just the AOD portion of a theme. Instead, you’ll need to download and apply the entire theme. Adding to the disappointment is that you can’t set an AOD image or clock from one theme while using a different theme.

Notifications

Right now, the only notifications that will appear on the screen seem to be from Samsung’s own apps. Missed calls, messages and calendar notifications in particular. Meaning, don’t expect to see Gmail or Facebook notifications out of the box, hopefully that’s a feature added in a future update.

LG’s G5 also offers an always-on display, and it supports all alerts, so one has to think Samsung could as well.

What about battery life?

Part of the magic that makes this feature possible is the type of screen used in the Galaxy S7 (AMOLED) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor. The combination of the two work in tandem to minimize battery usage when the feature is enabled, and should have a minimal impact on overall daily battery life.

Google loses court appeal in Russian Android anti-trust case

Google may have to face a fine and change the way they distribute Android to device makers in Russia. A court in that country has denied Google’s appeal in its anti-trust case against Russia’s local search engine Yandex.

Yandex filed a complaint with the country’s privacy watchdog, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, in early 2015, claiming that Google had violated Russia’s anti-trust laws by requiring the pre-installation of certain applications on devices that used Android. The FAS concluded in September that Google had in fact violated the country’s regulations.

According to Reuters:

“Google filed an appeal, but FAS said on Monday the court had fully supported its decision. The company now has to amend its contracts with smartphone manufacturers in order to comply with the ruling, and pay a fine.”

There’s no word yet on how much Google will be fined by Russia in this case.

Five multiplayer Gear VR apps to share with friends

Virtual Reality does not have to be a solo experience.

Samsung has been hard at work shipping Gear VR units to folks who got them free as part of the Galaxy S7 pre-order, and that means there is now a massive surge in people trying this headset out for the first time. If you’ve been fortunate enough to watch the Oculus Store grow and improve in the Gear VR, you know there’s a ton of things to do in this VR world right now, which is fantastic. No matter how much experience you’ve had in the Gear VR, there’s a good chance you haven’t had a ton of opportunities to enjoy multiplayer gameplay with the Gear VR.

Here are a few games to get you started with multiplayer Gear VR gaming.

• Shooting Showdown 2 — This game is essentially a really advanced target practice sim in VR, with a ton of options for what to shoot and what environments to shoot it, but the real fun comes in when you jump into multiplayer. The game allows for head-to-heat shot counters to see who is the best with their finger on the -trigger- plastic button on the side of your head. It’s good for quick fun, and a great way to introduce someone to immersive VR.

• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes — This game doesn’t require multiple Gear VR headsets, but it absolutely requires multiple people. The person wearing the Gear VR needs to disable a complex explosive before the time runs out, but the only way to know exactly what to do is rely on the second person with the manual. The person not in VR land has a massive bomb diffusal guide to sort through based on the first player’s description of the bomb, and as long as both players work together everyone lives.

• AltSpace VR — This is currently a beta that you install separate from the Oculus Store, but the experience is all about interacting socially with the rest of the VR world. A big part of that experience is simple tabletop gaming and watching videos, and at least one of those things is a lot more fun to do with someone physically near you. If you’re into trying something that isn’t quite finished with your fellow Gear VR users, this is a lot of fun.

• VR Karts: Sprint — Racing with friends is something every generation of gamer has done, and in the Gear VR you can look to your left and right and see your fellow racers from a unique perspective. VR Karts: Sprint is vaguely reminiscent of Mario Kart in nature, and with the right controller you can have a lot of fun with this setup.

• Oculus Social — While not technically a game, Oculus Social users have been doing some fun things to shake up the overall experience as Oculus perfects the features. Live Twitch streaming has turned into impromptu Karaoke sessions on more than a couple of occasions, which is is a lot more fun than it sounds when the person singing before you is a weird floating head that tracks the real human’s movements.

It’s strange to think about being social and play in a multi-user space when you’re wearing something that removes your ability to see the person sitting in the room with you, but the experiences being created here are too much fun to pass up. If you have the opportunity to enjoy one of these apps with someone else, give it a shot. In the mean time, if we left a killer multiplayer experience from this list you should share it with us in the comments section below.

Samsung Gear VR

• Gear VR review
• Five Gear VR games that shouldn’t be missed
• Inside Samsung’s Gear VR web browser
• Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
• Where to buy Gear VR

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Removing System Tuner UI from your Android N Settings

Sometimes a new feature isn’t always a must-have feature. This one can be turned off.

Why would you want to make Android N’s System Tuner UI go away? It has tons of options you can play with. You can clean up your status bar with it. You can turn on and tweak that awesome Night mode with it. You can even re-calibrate your display with it. But you’re not gonna use any of that, are you? Okay, to each their own.

Here’s how to turn it off.

System UI Tuner is not visible by default; in fact, most phones running Marshmallow won’t even give you the option to make it visible and accessible. This is for very good reason: it holds a lot of settings that can jank up your status bar and your quick settings, and not everyone needs to be in them. System UI Tuner is playing host to more features this year, and those features and this menu can change or disappear over the course of the Developer Preview. Nothing is final until N ships in the fall, after all.

If you added System UI Tuner to your Settings poked around, and decided you don’t need any of this awesomeness, you can take them back off the visible menu in Settings quite easily. As a quick reminder: if you remove System UI Tuner, you can’t use Night mode, and any default status bar items you may have toggled off will be turned back on.

Open System UI Tuner. Tap the menu button in the top-right corner. Select Remove from Settings. Tap Remove in the popup that asks you if you really want to remove System UI Tuner from your settings and stop using all the settings therein.

Whether you turn it off or keep it on, be content knowing that if you get fed-up with it, you can banish it to its invisible corner of the system from the Settings menu.

Android N Developer Preview

The Android N Developer Preview is just that — a developer preview. It is not intended for daily use. That doesn’t mean it’s not cool, and that you shouldn’t poke around. But know that things will break. Tread carefully. (And have fun!)

• What’s new in Android N
• All Android N news
• About the Android Beta Program
• Download system images
• Android N easter egg
• Join the Discussion

Streaming music? Google is where it’s at

In last week’s poll we asked what is your favorite streaming music service? There are tons of options out there from Google Play Music to Pandora. With so many options it can be hard to stick with just one. That’s why we wanted to know who had your loyalty, when it came to getting your tunes wherever you might be.

Google Music lead the way in last week’s poll, grabbing first place with a whopping 40 percent. Not far behind at 32 percent of the vote, was Spotify. In third place was Other, with only 8 percent of the vote. Pandora slid into fourth place, with 7 percent. Amazon Prime Music managed to snag 5 percent of the overall vote, and Apple Music had another 4 percent. In seventh place with only 2 percent of the vote was Slacker. Tidal and Rhapsody tied for eighth place, with only 1 percent of the vote each. Our last place was also a tie of 0 percent for both R.dio and Last.Fm.

Was your favorite streaming service on our poll? Let us know why it’s your favorite in the comments!

Sky Q review: The future of multi-room television?

The Sky Q service has been a number of years in the making. Now that it’s here we’ve had it installed in the home and, over the past two weeks, we’ve had plenty of time living with the ecosystem.

For the purpose of this review we’ve got the Sky Q Silver box with a Sky Q Touch Remote, two Sky Q Mini boxes in separate rooms, the Sky Q Hub powering it all, and the Sky Q app on an iPad for watching content elsewhere in the house, or on the go. We already had a Sky Fibre broadband internet connection from an earlier install. As such we’ve not tested the standard Sky Q box, but that is simply a cut-down version of the Silver box (read our Sky Q Silver vs Sky Q feature), so the experience will be similar.

Now Sky Q it is available to buy, here’s what you can expect. Is it worth that upgrade?

Sky Q Silver box review: The big daddy box 

The Sky Q Silver box is at the top of the Sky Q food chain, yet is still housed in a box that is slimmer and less boxy than the Sky+HD hardware – at about half the size. It has a staggering 12 TV tuners inside and is 4K Ultra High Definition compatible, so when 4K content becomes available – potentially later this year – it will be able to handle that.

The Silver box is also the storage hub of the home – even though the router is technically named as such, as it (or the standard Sky Q box) is required to make the whole system work.

The Sky Q Silver box has a 2TB hard drive inside for recordings or to store downloaded shows and movies. And that HDD can be accessed by all other connected devices around the home, including Sky Q Mini boxes, Android tablets or iPads.

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The 12 TV tuners can’t all be utilised for recordings (that would be insane). Instead, one is used to provide the live TV broadcast, one for picture-in-picture view of another channel while looking at the on-screen mini-EPG, and four are for recordings to allow four simultaneous different channel recordings at once, while watching another. There are two tuners set aside for connected tablet devices, and two for Sky Q Mini box connections, so they can all watch content live from the box, plus a network tuner. The final remaining tuner is set aside for future use.

The standard Sky Q box similarly splits its eight tuners, but three are for recordings rather than four, while only one is utilised for external tablet use, and just the one for simultaneous viewing on a Sky Q Mini box. Ultimately that means less simultaneous recordings/viewings from the standard box. Both Sky Q boxes also have a HDMI input as well as out, which could be used in the future – although that functionality isn’t available at launch.

All Sky Q devices will eventually be able to talk to each other over powerline connections, which means that if they cannot detect a Wi-Fi signal or that’s not fast or strong enough, they look to transmit and receive network signals through your home’s existing electrical cables instead. However, that feature isn’t enabled at launch, much to the chagrin of our installers.

You can use a direct Ethernet cable for connection – we have for our setup – but again, Sky engineers have been told they shouldn’t at the moment, and even then you have to have a direct cable from one box to another, or if it must go through a network switch, a decent network switch. We tried with a cheap offering at first, and it didn’t work.

Sky Q Touch Remote review: Buttons and touch-control

Both Sky Q Silver and Sky Q boxes come with a Sky Q Touch Remote. The build isn’t as “spongey” as the previous remote, but functionality has been vastly improved and a plethora of buttons you probably never used have been ditched. It really adds something different to the TV experience by adding swipe controls to the usual button-press experience.

Connected via Bluetooth rather than infrared – so you don’t have to have direct line-of-sight to the Sky Q box – it’s an ideal connection if you want to hide the box in a cupboard out of view. Plus, if you lose the control down the side of the sofa then a quick press of the “Q” logo on the Sky Q box will force it to beep so you can attempt to try and track it down – with three kids in the house, we’ve already used this feature a lot. 

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On the remote itself is a large, round touch-panel that we’ve used the most. It works in a similar way to the latest Apple TV remote – in that swipes and occasional presses on the pad replace almost every other function you’ve previously needed a button for. A click of this touchpad brings up the on-screen electronic programme guide (EPG), which can then be navigated through using the touch functionality.

The touch features don’t just extend to the black circle on the remote, as the silver dial to the top of the dial can be used with swipes to control the speed of fast forward and rewind, although you can still tap if that feels a little too “futuristic”. We like that the rewind and forward functionality can be manipulated by swiping your thumb or finger around the top of the circular strip; move it more towards either edge and the zipping back and forth through video speeds up or slows down respectively.

There are still plenty of traditional buttons, though, including a red record button to make sure you won’t miss a programme, but gone is a direct button to the TV guide (no, really). Newly welcomed additions are a dedicated button to your recordings, search, and a HDMI input switch so you can finally ditch your dedicated TV remote once and for all. There’s also a three-dot button used to jump to the app side-bar and a voice-control button that is currently defunct awaiting that feature to go live.

Meanwhile the standard Sky Q Remote, which comes with the Sky Q Mini boxes, has mostly the same functionality, albeit minus the Touchpad which is replaced instead with dedicated selection of buttons. The experience is akin to the remote Sky HD customers will be used to, but with the functionality of some of the new buttons detailed above. This remote is infrared rather than Bluetooth too, so you will need a direct line of sight to the Mini box – a shame as that means you won’t be able to hide them away like you can the main Sky Q box.

And before you ask, no you can’t use the older Sky remotes with Sky Q. You can, however, use the Sky Q Touch Remote to control a Q Mini – not that such a remote comes with it, but you can buy extras separately if you really want.

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Sky Q Mini review: TV in other rooms 

Even though the Sky Q Mini is essentially a media streamer only, it clevery acts almost exactly like the Sky Q or Sky Q Silver box that feeds it. You will barely know the difference, with little or no lag in video streaming between them.

The one thing we have noticed on the user interface that was different to that on the main set-top-box is you don’t get the picture-in-picture feed on the pop-up EPG or access to the apps like YouTube or Vevo. Other than that everything – all recordings and streamed shows – are instantly accessible in the same way as they are on the main box.

It is super quick in operation too, having the same tech inside as the Sky Q box, save for the tuners. That means 1080p “Full HD” output quality.

Multiple Sky Q Mini boxes can be situated around a home, but only two can be used concurrently. They will also act as Wi-Fi extenders if you have the Sky Q Hub broadband router, working to boost your Wi-Fi signal around the house.

Sky Q Hub review: The source of entertainment?

Dual-band, with 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidths working concurrently, Sky Q has Gigabit Ethernet support, but only two sockets rather than the four previously found on the Sky Hub.

That’s a huge pain, especially if you’ve got lots of other devices needing a connection and a surprise given the amount of smarthome connected devices requiring a bridge to connect directly to your router these days. For us we’ve had to get a network switch (NetGear) to cope with “connected bridges” for Philips Hue and Honeywell Evohome, as well as move away from a wired Xbox One and PS4 to Wi-Fi only.

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The other perhaps strange move from Sky is that currently you need to use the Sky Q Hub router to be able to talk to the Sky Q box and any Sky Q Mini boxes you have. Start using another router and the system knows and won’t work. Sky clearly wants you to stay within the Sky system.

This above point is likely to change, but at the moment your network will be powered by Sky broadband and connected via the Sky Q hub with Sky Boosters and nothing else. For most that won’t be a problem, but those who want more out of their networking capabilities will be disappointed.

Sky Q review: A new user experience 

The hardware aside, the user experience is by far the most important part of the Sky Q setup. Yes, those TV tuners are necessary and the multi-room features exciting, but the main menu system and smart abilities of the software are what make Sky’s new tech next-generation. It’s like the Sonos of TV, or Sling box if you can remember that far back, taking many of the features other streaming services have adopted as standard and applying that to all your TV stations.

It all starts with the homepage (Top Picks), which will come as a revelation to those who already use a Sky box. Although the user interface (UI) on those boxes have been refined to within an inch of their lives, this is a bold new step in the right direction, with a layout that makes it so much easier to navigate – although it does encourage more scrolling and adds a number of additional cool features to initally figure out.

Rather than a top bar of tabs on the conventional Sky boxes, navigation in Sky Q is through horizontal planes, which run from left to right. On the left, there’s a picture-in-picture view of the current channel. On the right-hand side you always see the relevant information of content for a specific section. It’s initially complex but after some learning it’s easy to understand. Flick through menus in a similar way to media apps such as Plex, by selecting subject headings in simple to access lists. They are all meticulously thought out, so that the content you most want to get to quickly is available through as few swipes on the touchpad as possible.

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The other thing you immediately notice about the Sky Q UI is it’s very picture based and content rich. All films and shows are represented by cover art, whether they are your own recordings, streamed/downloaded shows, or content available on the internet (such as YouTube or Vevo videos). And that’s also key to Sky’s philosophy behind the new system: it needn’t ever matter to the end user; it is about presenting the shows you want to watch when you want to watch them, regardless of the source. The new UI really showcases the depth and breath of Sky’s offering.

The menu system has new highlights sections: Top Picks an example of showcase featured shows, or, for example, the Kids section which is even broken down as far as “shows on Milkshake”. The upshot is that we’ve already watched a number of programmes we didn’t know even existed.

There are additional software tools that help aid that goal too, including the My Q section of the homepage. This is split into several sub-categories, with curated content suggestions, suggestions of programming based on other shows and films you’ve enjoyed in the past, and perhaps most excitingly, a function whereby additional episodes of series you are currently watching automatically appear in your collection as they become available.

Watch episode five of Supergirl, for example, and episode six will appear in your My Q section as soon as it has been broadcasted, while things you’ve got half way through watching are ready to watch where you paused them. It’s like the “You’re watching” feature in Netflix and makes things a lot easier to pick up where you left off.

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Sky Q review: Fluid Viewing, not for live TV

Which is handy because that’s one of the big selling points of Sky Q: Fluid Viewing. This feature lets you pick up where you left off on devices around the home. Start watching a recorded show in the lounge and if you want to go and curl up in bed you can simply fire-up the Sky Q Mini and carry on. It’s the same on a tablet too.

Perhaps somewhat misleading is that this is not possible with live TV. There is a work-around, by recording the show before you move locations, but nonetheless something that confused us at the start. Also don’t expect to stream personal videos, Netflix, or Amazon Prime to your TV through the box – because you can’t.

It’s not just about jumping from device to device though. If you click on the touchpad  during a TV show that is either recorded or streamed, you get an option to scroll through other episodes and subsequently download them, all while you continue to watch the one that is currently being played. And if you do the same with a film, you can see recommended similar films.

Music is now heavily catered for too. There’s a dedicated section in the UI that highlights the broadcaster’s Sky Arts coverage a lot better, while music channels, national radio, and now Vevo all get equal billing. Vevo offers three 24-hour music channels along with the ability to create your own radio station based on the starting artist similar to Spotify Radio. When you’ve given up trying to work out what to listen to from the various channels and services from Sky you can Bluetooth or AirPlay music from your own device to the TV. Then send the track to all boxes around the home, synchronising them if you’re having a house party. Sonos who? Multi-room eat your heart out.

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On the whole the new Sky Q software experience is a good one. It’s picture rich, easy to find your way around and comes with new features like the ability to share Facebook pictures or even go as far as check your bill. In terms of parental settings it’s as good as you would expect, giving you peace of mind if you’ve got kids.

This system isn’t always perfect though. There’s no quick way to get to the TV guide, for example. Instead it’s a lengthy process involving four steps. That’s partly down to Sky trying to promote that the box is so much more now, and perhaps a response to how we’ve all changed the way we watch televisions – but those keen to see what’s on TV quickly will find it laborious.

Then there are strange tweaks that make sense but that will be alien to most current Sky users. Pressing “i” on the remote while watching a show or movie brings up the information card, but pressing it again as you used to on Sky HD doesn’t dismiss it – you have to use the dismiss key instead. Likewise you now press down to go up the channels, rather than pressing the up key. That’s logical for many competitor EPGs, but it’s the reverse of what Sky has used for so long – we suspect many long-time Sky subscribers will be initially baffled. Things like this aren’t going to destroy the experience, but you should expect there will be some learning to do, and more so than we expected.

Sky Q review: Apps make for more than just TV

Aside from the new EPG to master, Sky has introduced Apps within the Sky Q experience. There are two types of apps: ones that you can slide load while watching television like Sky News or the weather; and more traditional ones that provide content.

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The first apps that you will get with Sky Q initially are for music and video services Vevo and YouTube. There is currently no Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. They are both as in-depth, smooth-to-run and intuitive as equivalent apps on any other platform. It’s worth noting, though, that YouTube is not capable of 4K video streaming, even on the Sky Q Silver box. Whether that changes in future is yet to be seen, but for now it is capped at 1080p. It is rare to get 4K streaming with YouTube on separate set-top-boxes, though, typically it’s internal TV apps that are 4K-capable – but with Sky Q pushing the future of TV, you might have expected such a feature straight out of the box. 

Sky has secured content deals with other video sources, but rather than present them as separate applications, it places the video clips in one of its own homepage menus, with similar styling to the rest of the Sky Q experience. There’s plenty to discover, with different categories (including “cute”) and we anticipate many more content partnerships to be struck in the future.

Sky Q iPad app review: Sky Q on the go

The Sky Q app – we’re using the iPad – offers a similar experience to the main UI, but on a mobile device. Much of the offering will be familiar to users of Sky Go – albeit with a different styling – but there is the headline feature, something nobody else has managed before: remote access to recordings as long as you are on the same Wi-Fi network.

Not only can you watch your recorded shows streamed from the Sky Q Silver or Sky Q boxes elsewhere around the home, but you can download them for offline viewing. Yes, relaxing in the bath, you can finally watch all those shows you’ve got recorded on your Sky Q box downstairs. For Sky customers who’ve wanted to do this, but have never been able to, it changes everything.

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Move away from the home network and you’ll have to make sure you’ve downloaded what you want to watch before you leave the house though. Not all content is available to download because of rights deals, but the vast majority will be, and we’ve already enjoyed Sky Q on a plane.

Of course, on-demand content will be available for download and to watch offline too, so the app really will be the one-stop shop to watch pretty much anything you want, at home or away, and is perfect for travelling.

Verdict

Having spent two weeks using Sky Q at home it feels like Sky has created a device to suit all tastes and needs, with a strong multi-room focus and a modern outlook on household entertainment desires.

The new user interface is vast and has the power to change how you watch television, encouraging you to watch more content when, where and how you want to. There’s still live TV aplenty, but it’s almost been pushed to the background. Of all the features it’s being able to watch our recordings remotely that we’ve been waiting on for years, which is finally here.

With pricing being within affordable rather than other-worldly levels – certainly compared to previous Sky pricing, although some will certainly disagree – we have to say that Sky Q has all the potential of being the best TV service we’ve ever had.

However, currently it’s very much the version one experience, without the 4K content that the service can and will deliver in the future, and with some small issues to still iron out. But the good news is that the service will get better over time as more and more features are added.