Sky DRX 890 Plus HD Box with 2 TB Hard Drive

My old box hard drive had gone so replaced it with this. It was an easy process and I am so pleased with this new box. The picture and sound is far superior to the old one. Sky have stopped replacing the old boxes and want everyone to go on Sky Q which doesnt work in our house so the engineer recommended to buy a box. We have the magic eyes which are far simpler. Would highly recommend.

I have always been a Pace man myself still am, was quite shocked that Sky would choose Amstrad only to make their boxes, past experience with Amstrad especially as a service engineers point of view, cheap and cutting corners, Pace boxes have always been great design and quality components, mine is still working but thought I would chance it so far it’s lasted a week! the Pace I have had for years and will definitely hold onto it.Never thought I would ever replace a Pace for an Amstrad feel quite embarrassing having it in the house but no choice now.I will update this review if it should go pop within the year.On the positive side the space on the hardrive is nice, also at last Dolby Digital over HDMI, the Wi-Fi is useful if you don’t have an Ethernet available, I have so not necessary for me, it is also quicker in the menus, picture and sound quality about the same, and it does run slightly cooler then the Pace but still not as cool as my Freesat Box.Setup was is very very fast and easy, no need to ring Sky you can self activate it yourself.

My old Sky HD box was only part recording sometimes and as it was 5 years old I thought an upgrade was in orderWhat a shock when this bad boy arrivedIt looks sleek and modern compared to the old one . Came with a nice new remote too. Setup was easy and all you have to do is pair your viewing card with the new box , tool me 2 mins on sky website.Picture seems super crisp and remote response is quick. Add that to 300 plus hours of recording and you have a great buy for the money. Very pleased

With my 10 year old SD Sky box finally starting to fail I looked around and found that the newer boxes don't have the RF out ports, given that I needed this I paid a little extra for the model with this feature . Delivery was the next day and, fortunately reasonably early for me ( we usually don't get them until early evening). On opening the box, despite others experiences, everything looked to be new and present so I discarded the instructions and started setting it up, ten minutes later everything was up and running. It's that easy. 'Pairing' your card to your new box is a doddle as long as you can connect the box to the internet (ethernet cable did it or me) but a call to Sky should do the job too. A quick tour of the 'secret' installers menu had all the other settings changed to what I thought I needed, job done.On switching the telly on the next morning I found I had no freeview signal, after a few choice words I discovered that there is an Eco mode on the box which seems to cut the power to the RF feed, so if you're using the RF out for other TV's you will probably need to switch this off. On checking one of the other TV's running through the RF out I then discover I have no ITV, Ch4 etc on freeview. A few more choice words and an extensive internet search (knowing the right thing to google is essential) I discover I may need a 4G filter, now installed and everything is finally working. In conclusion, the box itself is as advertised and setting up, for most, will be straight forward ad for the few that need to, after a few tweaks it will be an excellent replacement for ageing equipment.

The item arrived in good time so pleased about that and got it connected up pretty quickly and seemed to work. Had to go online to get the sky card paired and also to get the remote to work the TV. The last bit wasted half an hour because I couldn't get the box to accept the codes I was inputting just using the remote. Anyway got there in the end and tested recording and that seemed ok.I saw that the box was set to Eco mode for standby and thought will this record if the box goes into standby ? Checked out Google and advice was ok - it would record whilst in standby so left it as Eco. I have been using a Thompson Sky box for many many years. A good 10 years that lasted ..no 15 . It performed very well ... until it didn't last week.That was always on ( greenlight showing). So for many years I have used two other devices to record Sky stuff. An old Sony thing which must be 20 years old now I think and still going strong.I use that for documentary stuff and a slightly more modern Panasonic Freeview recorder for everything else. I decided I could make the old Sony redundant and record documentary stuff onto the new skybox's hard drive.The other night I was recording onto the Panasonic device overnight and the skybox standby got in the way. 3 progs ruined. That's because it wasn't set to record onto it own hard drive. Overlooked that so I have changed the standby setting setting to None. Wasn't very made up to see that the box was made by Amstrad - first skybox was an Amstrad and it was a disaster. Picture quality is ok I think. Can't say for HD as I don't have an HD sub. Just using one sat feed also. Therefore not using it to its full capabilty. Mostly due to Sky's costs. They keep putting up cost by 6 or 7% each year. Crikey. The ad breaks are so long which is the main reason I don't watch anything live on Sky.Bit torn on whether to give it 3 or 4 stars. Erring on the side of caution I think so 3. partly because its Amstrad and the trouble pairing the viewing card and getting the remote to work the TV .. apart from that I think it's working ok .. at the time of writing but have only had it a week days so early days yet.Postscript - just tumbled to the fact that there is no autoview so channels were not changed when set for reminder . Typical Sky. This means that recording onto another device is compromised. There was no reason to chop that function other than to be awkward. Therefore definitely 3 stars.

Good product. Promptly delivered. Excellent service from Chigwell and Daniel following product query

when it came to plug it in there was no picture on the tv screen, the cooling fan was not working and the unit came broken.