Best Freesat Boxes & Recorders 2022 | Сomparison & Buyer’s Guide: HD & 4K Recordable TV Boxes

One of the easiest ways to get access to plenty of TV channels without any subscription is installing a Freesat digital recorder box. The service offers around 200 free-to-air channels, which are available through digital satellite. When compared to other free-to-view TV services — Freeview Play and YouView — the Freesat satellite television service has the advantage of offering more channels, including HD ones. The key difference, though, is that Freesat is delivered through satellite, not an aerial. That is why it is a cheap option for customers who have already installed a satellite dish.

Freesat does not make receivers and PVRs itself but rather cooperates with manufacturers like ARRIS, Manhattan and Goodmans. Until recently, the most reliable and recommended Freesat recorders were those produced by Humax. But now, Humax is no longer making Freesat units, although there are still some left in stock. The reason is that Freesat has chosen another manufacturer, ARRIS, to produce its new 3rd generation set-top boxes and receivers.

As Alistair Thom, CEO, Freesat, explained the company’s choice: “We partnered with ARRIS because of their expertise in combining a rich array of linear, on-demand and OTT video and popular apps into a single, convenient and seamless experience”.

The new product line includes 500GB, 1TB and 2TB hard drive options for digital video recording, and one without. All these models deliver high quality, crystal-clear 4K satellite TV as well as offering Wi-Fi connectivity. In addition to being packed with features, the new recorders have a sleek and space-saving, compact design.

Freesat 4K TV Recorder Review & Comparison

Freesat recorders vary in the number of channels, storage capacity, and extra features they have. While some models have series recording and live program pause functions, others offer convenient one-button recording. The new recordable 4K TV boxes by ARRIS can connect to your existing satellite dish, have the ability to restart, pause, and rewind live TV. These devices can record up to 4 programmes at a time and allow for remote recording with the help of the Freesat app. The main difference between them lies in their storage capacity.

The most affordable one, the Freesat Recordable 4K TV Box 500GB, comes with 500GB of storage, which is around 250 hours of recording. With more than 170 subscription-free channels, it also lets you watch content from on-demand players, such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Britbox, ITV Hub, and Amazon Prime Video. On top of that, it is easy to install: just plug your satellite dish cables into the box. In case you do not have a dish, you will need to set up the one with a wideband LNB.

However, the most popular product from this line is the Freesat Recordable 4K TV Box 1TB, which is #1 in Amazon’s Home Audio Cassette Player category. The recorder offers 1TB of storage or up to 500 hours of recording.

If this is not sufficient for you, opt for the Freesat Recordable 4K TV Box 2TB that will give you as many as 1000 hours of recording space. The latter option will cost you around £290, but it is really worth buying. As one of the customers put it, “2TB is a huge amount to fill.”

As for other manufacturers of Freesat units, they make cheaper but not-so-advanced recorders. If you are on a budget, you can try the Goodmans Freesat Recorder with an auto-setup feature and a twin tuner. The unit can record two channels at a time, upscale content to HD resolution, and has an electronic program guide. Apart from not being a 4k recorder, the Goodmans unit has the drawback of having only 140 digital channels.

Best-Selling Freesat Boxes & Recorders in the UK | Comparison Table

Testing & Customers Reviews

We found reviews from real YouTube bloggers about the products from our article.

darren taylor: "I purchased Freesat 4K TV Box 500GB from Amazon a few weeks ago. I would say it's very good remote control. Reminds me of the old Sky plus HD. This was already programmed to control my Samsung TVs but I'm not sure if this will control other makes. When it's off you have a red light when it comes back on you have a blue light. Sometimes you get like a purple light if it's updating but I've only seen that once or twice. If you press the home key this takes you to the recommendations pages. The remote has guide and on demand shortcuts, iTV hub shortcut, iPlayer shortcut, and Netflix shortcut. I say really it's not a dissimilar from Sky Q in a way. I think it's a bit better than the old Humax box I had before. I have this on 4K at the moment and the picture is really good. But one thing I did find when I plugged this into my SKY Q HDMI port which has an HDR filter applied to it that the screen looks a bit washed out. But removing this the picture looks really good now because it's just like a standard picture setting. And when you press information on the TV it does say HDR in a way so you don't need to apply HDR on your TV because it already applies it from the box.

Mine connected wirelessly to my internet and I've got a wideband LMb. Sometimes it can be a bit slow to populate but it's not a deal breaker. Overall I would say this would be a good Sky Q replacement. My SKY Q bill is due to go up again and I'll be paying nearly 47 pounds just for a bit of Netflix Sky movies and Multi-room and I'm just getting the price increase come October. Then the Multi-room goes up to 15 pound. This one at the moment is in the bedroom and I'm getting another box downstairs. Obviously you'll need to be connected to your dish for this to work. There's no wireless options as in SKY Q but luckily we still kept our old SKY Plus Multi-room so I'll be able to use this box upstairs. So overall this is good. My TV watching has changed. I mainly watch Netflix and Amazon. The wife watches Coronation street and Emmerdale and if I want to watch anything on Sky I'll just get to order now TV subscription every now and then."