Manhattan Aero 4K TV Streamer | Freely Smart Streaming Box

Mostly an excellent box, a few tiny flaws & omissions

I’ve waited for a few weeks of use before I decided to post a review. I have both this box and a legacy Arris Freesat 4K box which is my comparison (and that this somewhat replaces). Both of them replaced a long term Sky Q installation. I also have a current generation Apple TV 4K box. Firstly I should say that overall I’m really impressed with this box. It’s super small (smaller than an Apple TV 4K), seems really powerful / decent CPU and picture quality is excellent. TiVo interface is very good - again very responsive and quick to navigate. I also like the fact there are well chosen direct buttons for YouTube, iPlayer, Freely etc on the remote control. The picture quality is excellent - much better than Sky Q or the Arris Freesat 4K box which feels really slow and unresponsive compared to the Manhattan box. It also supports UHD on iPlayer which is something that the Freesat box doesn’t support - and again the picture and sound quality is excellent. The implementation of HDMI CEC also works fine - whereas the Freesat box doesn’t seem to fire up my 2018 Sony TV, the Manhattan box does without any fuss, and turns the TV off when it is also powered off. I have two Freely devices now - this box and also a Hisense TV which is in my bedroom. My first gripe isn’t really with this box, but it’s with freely itself as it manifests itself on both freely devices in the same way. On more than a few isolated occasions you’ll select a channel on Freely and get the ‘contact support’ verbose error message. Usually selecting a different channel and then navigating back solves the issue. (I’m on a 1Gb symmetric fibre connection in my house with a WiFi 7 router connected to the fibre terminal at 2.5Gb. It isn’t the network…) Also, freely is still missing quite a few channels that are on Freesat - so TLC is one glaring omission, but there are quite a few others. Freely still feels very much a beta product. Also, in both instances, Freely is just an app layered on top. Why can’t they release a Freely app for Apple TV, for example? Specifically about the Manhattan box I’ve had a couple of little issues recently; One is that there is no Apple TV app on the box. Seems like a strange omission as everything else is there like Netflix, Amazon Prime & Disney+ along with hundreds of other apps, but there you go. Also, I’ve occasionally had an audio sync issue with the YouTube app. The only way I’ve found to fix it is power cycling the box. And even then it comes back after a couple of days. Overall though I’m super pleased with the box. It works well and apart from the minor niggles will stay as my primary box now.

Manhattan Aero - brilliant

This is a wonderful bit of kit. Easy to set up both wired and wireless. Automatically switches the TV on and off. Guide is reasonably easy to use but takes some getting used to.

Best streaming box there is available.

I was blown away with the choice of instant available programs to find and watch.I have found a mulltitude of sport choices not shown on Sky!.4k programs look amazing. Netflix and YouTube work perfectly.The menu system is perfect,and operation is quick and responsive. The remote is a joy to use.(will lag if Bluetooth is turned on!)I can see why these are hard to aquire. Well done Manhattan, a device that really does what it says on the tin!!. Pm Baker.