Sky Q, review: Easy to use and the multi-room is smooth and seamless

This is shaping up to being a strong and appealing way to watch TV

Sky Q goes on sale in February

You’ll have heard of the new satellite TV offering from Sky, called Sky Q. As of today, the company has revealed prices and availability. The set-top box goes on sale in a few days, on 9 February, with installations beginning at the end of the month. There are several boxes and lots of subscriptions to choose from, but they start at £99 set-up costs and monthly ongoing costs from £42 a month. Not cheap, then, though Sky notes that existing Sky+ customers could expect to pay only a small premium (between £1.50 and £12 a month) compared to existing subscriptions.

So is it worth having? First impressions are positive. I spent some time using the new system. Not enough for a full review just yet, but for some first impressions.

1 The box looks great

The Sky Q box, or its top-of-the-range sibling called Sky Q Silver both look great. It makes you wonder if one day there’ll be Sky Q Gold which will doubtless be something even more sumptuous – or at least gold-coloured.

Sky Q Silver has 12 tuners in, an unprecedented number. The nearest rival is Virgin Media which has three. This doesn’t mean you can record 12 channels at the same time, and good luck with finding enough clashing programmes to want to do that anyway. But you can record four channels while watching a fifth live channel. The extra tuners have different functions including one dedicated to picture-in-picture for a great-looking preview effect and streaming channels elsewhere. This multi-room capability, which Sky calls Fluid Viewing, is one of the biggest new features for Sky and includes streaming to tablets or to the little Sky Q Mini box you can have installed in another room. One tuner’s for data only and one is future-proofing, that is, it’s a spare for now.

The Sky Q box has eight tuners rather than 12 but you can still record three channels while watching a fourth. And the Sky Q Mini also works as a broadband extender, which is handy if your broadband reception has been poor in one room.

2 It’s easy to use

Sky is known for its exceptionally easy-to-use interface on its current boxes. The new system is very different so there’s an adjustment to be made, for sure – not least because there are now columns of menus rather than running widthways, but it’s very quickly second nature.

The menus themselves include topics from the current system (Box sets, Sky Store, Settings) and new ones like My Q which shows stuff you’ve started watching so you can finish – or with the press of a button, start again. This menu also recommends shows you might like based on what you’ve watched. The new interface is slick and attractive.

3 The remote is cool

The new remote includes a touchpad which lets you shoot up and down lists of channels or programmes at considerable speed. The touchpad sits in a silver circle, the top half of which is also touch-sensitive, so you can speed up or slow down rewind and fast-forward speeds without lifting your thumb from the surface.

Recording is simple: one tap automatically defaults to season record, as that’s what people mostly do, Sky says. A second tap changes it to “Record once”.

There’s also a microphone button on the edge so you can speak your movie and programme searches, though this feature doesn’t go live until later in the year, so I wasn’t able to test it. Even so, searching using the remote is already much improved with letters to slide between on the touchpad.

One more thing: lose the remote and just with one tap on the illuminated Q symbol on the front of the box, the controller starts bleeping so you can find it easily. Every remote control should have this function.

4 Multi-room is smooth and seamless

Right now with Sky, if you’re watching a movie you’ve recorded with Sky+ on your living room TV and you want to watch the rest in bed, you can’t easily do that. Solutions include dragging the bed into the living room or downloading it to the bedroom Sky box if you have one and the movie is available on demand, say.

Now, with Fluid Viewing, you press pause on the Sky Q box and then press play on your tablet or on the remote that comes with the Sky Q Mini box. It worked perfectly in my hands-on time, in multiple scenarios, pausing and picking up from exactly the same place.

5 There is more to come.

There will be apps, such as Sky News which will show up at the side of the screen without interrupting the show you’re watching. Sky is focusing on a small number of apps that add to the viewing experience, so don’t expect a slew of games.

Already, this is shaping up to being a strong and appealing way to watch TV. Check back here in a few weeks for our full review.