Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100)
by Sling Media
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List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $129.99 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sling Media Slingbox SOLO (SB260-100)
Customer Review: Fantastic and amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the slingbox solo after reading much about it. I have HD and this allows me to access and stream HD channels without having to buy any extra pieces. Set up was quick, as Slingbox walks you through everything step by step. The only problem I ran into was setting up remote viewing. I clicked on chat, and typed back and forth with a customer service rep. She could not solve the problem and asked if I would let her take control of my computer. I hated doing that but let her. She was not able to resolve the problem, but by watching her click around, I figured out what was wrong. I thanked her and hung up. I took control of my desktop and had the remote viewing part up and running quickly. I wrote this review to explain what happened with my setup and help others too.
I have a wired/wireless router that assigns ip addresses. I had changed my router to have a very uncommon ip address. The slingbox picked that up, but assigned itself an address that ended in 273 if I remember correctly. My router assigned the slingbox an ip address which ended differently. Once I chose manual set up during the slingbox walkthrough and typed over the ip address the slingbox had during set up everything was up and running. I guess I just had a fussy router.
Slingbox is amazing. We went home for Christmas and accessed our Slingbox easily from a coffeehouse and from my parents house. My husband installed mobile software on his dash and was watching a game while we hit the sales December 26. Needless to say we were both happy to be grabbing great bargains while able to check the score and see to a favorite team at the same time. I highly recommend this product.
In the fall, our oldest heads to college. Now we can tape his favorite shows on the DVR and he can still watch them from his lap top. Great product.
Customer Review: slingbox is a great concept but the company is terrible
Summary: 1 Stars
first - AMAZON IS AMAZING. when slingmedia would not help me, amazon totally stepped up and took care of a problem for me that they did not need to. thanks amazon and i didn't know you could make me a bigger fan than i already was but you have.
second - i have had the same problem with slingbox solo that other one star reviewers have had. i too just had my unit for under a year and was still under warranty but like others, technical support gave me a total run around and would not give me an RMA and my options were to pay for a tech support consult or buy an extended warranty... but wtf, i was STILL UNDER WARRANTY - why would i want to purchase an EXTENDED WARRANTY when i'm still under warranty now when the unit has failed?!
these are bad, disingenuous and sneaky people who want to nickel and dime you for every little thing. they don't care about customer satisfaction or their own commitments and you will notice that their culture is one that is absolutely closed and stonewalled.
in every way that amazon shines for their dedication to their customers, slingbox radiates bad faith.
this technology is not worthy of these guys and it is my fondest wish that they fail so that someone bigger, better and more committed to their customers becomes the standard bearer.
i loved my slingbox and i loved the technology. they had a die hard fan in me. but with one phone call to a tech support person far more concerned with selling an extended warranty for a product that was already under warranty when it failed... man, they have earned my enmity.
as for a recommendation, it's a tough call - if it works and never fails, it's great. but if you need to have ANY kind of backup from slingmedia, you are completely out of luck.
UPDATE - for me, it WAS bad capacitors: [...]
Customer Review: Great product!
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm an American currently living overseas in Poland and I have nothing but positive things to say about this product. I was a little nervous seeing previous reviews, but I am happy to say the Sling Box has lived up to my expectations!
We have Dish Network at our home in the USA (no one is currently living there) and use the sling box to remotely access our dish while we're in Poland. We're no longer stuck watching CNN! It has been wonderful.
That being said, I'm pretty good with computers, and just ok with hooking up televisions, but the directions were easy to read (a bit vague), and I had our sling box set up within 20 minutes and was watching live TV within a half hour.
Here are a couple recommendations for better viewing:
1. Buy a sling catcher, you can use your sling box to transmit over your television. The quality is pretty good over a regular television (I don't know about an LCD or Plasma).
2. Upgrade your internet to the highest speed on both sides, otherwise it gets a little choppy, but still not too bad.
3. Make sure you download the sling box software so you have it on your computer. This was a little confusing to us because it's kind of hard to find on the sling media website. having the player gives you much more versatility instead of sitting on a website trying to watch TV.
4. Make sure there is someone at home that can help you with your sling box if you need it. Sometimes if the weather is bad (for Dish) you wont get a signal and won't be able to transmit over the internet. Make sure there is someone who can either tell you or go over and fix your sling box if need be. (We haven't had this problem yet, knock on wood!!!)
Enjoy your sling box! It has changed my overseas experience tenfold since we've had it!!
Customer Review: It works well, good product
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using this Slingbox for about a month, and so far it has worked out really well.
Setting up: The Slingbox is connected to the Time Warner Cable (NY) HD Scientific Atlanta box via components input. The Slingbox is wired to a Linksys DIR 655 router. The setup was a breeze. I followed the steps that came in the box, and was able to choose the right remote control, which looks exactly the same as the physical one that I'm using. I spent about 15 more minutes installing Slingbox player and setting up an online account.
Home Network Streaming: With Slingplayer installed on the laptop, I was able to stream live TV with a nice VGA (800 x 600) resolution without any issues. The connection speed was averaging over 4000 Kbps.
Remote Streaming: Initially I wasn't able to stream remotely at all. After reading online, I found that I need to forward a port on my router to the Slingbox. I believe that, depending on the router, you may not need to do this as during Slingbox setup, it should have configured your router for you. I could be wrong. With everything working, I was able to stream at a lower quality than streaming within the home network. The speed average around 400 - 420 Kbps only, which gives QVGA (320 x 240). To me, this is sufficient watching it on a laptop. It's the limitation of my Road Runner cabe in NYC, which has a slow upload speed. If you are in an area with fast internet upload speed, I'm sure that picture quality will be better.
Overall, I'm satisfied and haven't had an issue with it. Some reviewers mention that Slingbox takes up bandwidth. I haven't experienced that problem. No one has complained about the Internet or latency problems in their online games while I'm streaming outside the network.
Customer Review: Cool and impressive, but the picture is only so-so
Summary: 4 Stars
The Slingbox does what it says it will, and the remote ability is way beyond cool - totally amazing. Honestly though, the picture is OK but not great when viewed in a reduced size box, but pixelates when viewed full screen. I had hopes of getting output from my computer to a TV, but blowing it up to TV size would be pointless.
The Tivo-like ability to pause and replay is neat.
The Slingbox provides a nice ability to have when it is the only option for watching something I really want to watch, but it isn't a way I would choose to watch TV on a regular basis.
Update: I have now owned the Slingbox Solo for a little over two years. The reliability of the device is unacceptable. I am on the second box. The first one was replaced under warranty (after HUGE hassle, including writing a letter to Slngbox corporate office). The second one is now malfunctioning as well, in a way that seems to be a common problem. One failure could have just been bad luck. Two failures means the product just isn't ready for prime-time. I'm not sure if they will warrantee the second one. The other problem is that when their boxes do go bad, getting them to admit it is really a terrible process. Even under the original warranty, you have to pay for their tech support just to report the problem. Well, their corporate office claims that was a "misunderstanding" by the their support representative, but it seems like the support rep was actually following policy, they just have a policy of denying that policy when pressed about it. They say, if you have a problem, just call them, but "just calling them" requires you to pay $30 or so up front for that privilege. If hardware is bad, they need to have a better system for admitting it and fixing it.