Manhattan SX Freesat HD Box, Black
Manhattan SX Freesat HD Box, Black
The most free TV channels in the UK
Drama, Entertainment, Film, Children’s TV and more. Freesat has over 200 channels for an unrivalled line-up of free TV. See Freesat’s website for the full list.
Free HDMI, SCART & RCA cables
The Manhattan SX includes a 1.2m HDMI cable for HDTVs and the Analogue AV Kit for connecting to older TVs with SCART or RCAs.
See & feel the difference
Connect by HDMI and experience stunning HD with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound. The Manhattan SX even upscales SD channels for enhanced viewing.
| Dimensions: | 2.7 x 12 x 13.2 cm; 457 Grams |
| Model: | sx hd |
| Batteries Included: | 1 AA batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacture: | Manhattan |
| Dimensions: | 2.7 x 12 x 13.2 cm; 457 Grams |
| Origin: | China |
Plugged in satellite cable, attached hd cable to TV, followed instructions on TV to set up.
Watch TV.
Delivery was quick.
Easy box to set up, just put postcode in and it was all there very quickly. The handset is also easy to use and has a subtitle button which is easy to find. The sound and picture was also good.
Plugging it in was simple, following the onscreen prompts for set-up was easy (including linking to our wi-fi for box updates). And then it just worked.
Just looked at it again, and having checked that our 68cm dish is perfectly adequate, OH shinned up the ladder and tweaked around the LNB by about2 degrees, and thanks to the excellent Power/Quality reading screen in the setup we were able to set the optimum for the very narrow band of reception here without using any other gizmos. Result!! All serene.
And if it goes off reception again (we live in an area of high winds and thunderstorms from time to time) we can do it again. (And thankfully have been able to delete stations like GBN and the Godslots.)
Is a good small box, hd picture quality is excellent, remote can be a bit slow and unable to control it with my TV remote which is a bit poor but overall worth the money
This TV set top box is great. The size makes it easy to fit in without being obvious. The best thing is that it really does the job. The picture quality and sound are excellent. Manhattan have done a good job. I can do nothing but recommend it.
Small and easy to set up. Not the greatest picture quality, but we are using this on a second TV and for the money it is great value.
Excellent little box, however remote is pretty basic. Quick delivery.
The item arrived promptly with clear tracking updates. I am not technical at all but found that the set up of the freeview box was simplicity itself. We are very satisfied with the choice of channels and following the easy to follow instructions were able to set up our favourite channels. By doing this you can bypass a lot of the obscure and irrelevant channels although I appreciate everyone’s taste differs. All in all a sound investment and well worth the outlay. Very pleased.
You can order a receiver from the Freesat site but until I can afford one I decided to go with the Manhattan and I am pleasantly surprised. For a little short of 65 you get a basic straightforward receiver which is easy to set up. It takes a little while to boot up and there are no ‘smart’ features apart from wi-fi connection for updates. However, the HD picture is great, sound is great and the programme guide is great. It’s also small and light. What more do you want? I may even get over my desire to record stuff and just watch programmes in real time. We become too obsessed with having to view this and that so perhaps I’ll find a better balance between TV and real life.
All in all, great value for money and Freesat remains way better than Freeview.
I’m not sure if you can get the same performance from a cheaper one
They did this job (I guess) for Freesat, having left the ‘Dutch Humax after leaving the EU
Yes, we know everything gets smaller and in this case was simply to save money as many other receivers of about 10 years ago, had similar sizing inside, but used a much larger box – it sells at higher price!
So, no surprises about its small size – fine.
Worked straight out of the Box in about 7-8 minutes – pity they did not add a Ethernet cable in it – I am a techy and always have cables at hand though!!
I set it up for my elderlies.
Quality seems good, I did not open the box to allow the ‘excuse’ for no Warranty… yet!
Remote is straight forward and most people, especially elderly will be pleased with the simplicity of it.
Bear in mind, buttons such as Guide, Info etc. you ‘can’ simply use the same button to activate a deactivate – press once to activate, re-press to deactivate.
It uses a standard 12v 1.5A PSU – if one day you need a new one, get a 2A, as Companies these days engineer electronics to the limit, really – NOT leaving the usual 20% over-engineering to keep it working for longer!
Do not expect it to work for a long time, but you never know.
I also suggest you to keep it in a open space and away from direct light to reduce ‘heat’ = lasts longer.
Let’s see what happens in a few months.
Overall = Good… for now.
This was easy to set up and smaller size is good. Downside is the slow startup which the old box didnt have, also position of buttons on remote is different but I suppose that’s something I’ll get used to in time.
It arrived quickly, was surprisingly compact with an excellent intallation manual, all very impressive. Very easy to set up, the on-screen programme a great help, lots of options for planning your viewing.
BUT: I could not find any way to access the “on demand” feature that my Humax had provided. No access to “catch up” channels: BBCiPlayer, All Four, My5 or ITVX; nor to any subscription channels (eg NowTV, YouTube, etc). As the catch-up channels, particularly My5 and ITVX, are increasingly broadcasting programmes NOT on their “normal” terrestrial channels, this creates a significant gap in what is available via FreeSat. And a frustrating one. At the very least the product description should have made it clear that his feature is not included. I have contacted the Manhattan help line and await their response, but I suspect the reply will be disappointing.
Another feature it does not have is the facility to plug in an external hard drive on which to record programs. The mentioned Humax box has such a feature should a person wish to make use of it, but not the Manhattan SX.
Otherwise the device has all that is needed to watch Freesat transmissions from the Astra satellite at 28 degrees East, including the HD channels. The EPG feature is totally adequate, allowing scrolling up to 7 days into the future and, while you do this, runs a small picture of the current selected channel in the screen’s top right hand corner. It is a similar feature to what the Humax has, but not one necessarily available on all other basic Freesat boxes. It has a reminder setting feature to flag up later programs for your viewing and will highlight if you create any program clashes. As a point of interest here, when scrolling up or down the TV listings, the cursor does not move, its the listings that move – this irritates my partner who would rather see the cursor move and the display stay steady. In fact since just discussing it with her, I now realise why I find scrolling the listings odd.
There is a button on the remote for switching back to the program you were previously watching, which does not feature on the Humax and which I find very handy when I select a channel that is even worse trash than the one I switched from. I have no issues with the quality of the picture, but this of course is dependent to some extent on the quality of the source material and the slickness of your TV. I get beautiful HD pictures, but my TV is no slouch.
Soundwise, we may be into a different quagmire. First of all the volume buttons on the remote do not work for HD transmission – certainly not on my TV, which is one of the Samsung QLED types – so I have to use the TV remote to move the volume for HD channels. Sometimes the volume on one channel is lower than on another so sometimes the volume has to be increased substantially. However, I get the same issue with my Humax box running a Smart LG TV in another room, so the issue is probably a transmission one rather than a receiving one. Add to this a suspicion that manufacturers are trying to sell sound bars by diminishing the sound quality on their TVs and the situation becomes foggier. For programs deserving improved sound quality, I enhance them by sending sound through my HiFi system, which has a link to the TV. The Manhattan box has no facility for linking directly to such a system.
A question has been asked elsewhere If the Box will work in Spain, France etc. Well my boxes are destined for a house in France and I know they will work because I have done it all before with Humax and Sky boxes – there is no technical differences in doing the set up. First of all, your foreign sat dish must point at the Astra 28 degrees East satellite and be of an appropriate size to catch the signals (I use a Sky dish of a size that works in Scotland, although the smaller one may well work in places like the North of France). The second, critical thing, is to initialise the box here in the UK. In other words, install the box to your TV here in the UK and run it – putting in your post code and everything required to receive the Freesat channels. Once you have done this the box is ready to plug in somewhere on the continent – obviously it must be within the transmission footprint of the satellite.
In conclusion I would say the Manhattan SX Freesat box is a good value buy for receiving Freesat transmissions , including HD ones. If you have a need internet or recording facilities, then look elsewhere.