We've just finished playing with the Sony Freeview VTX-D800U, a bit of a mouthful but worth hunting out in your quest for digital television, most Freeview boxes are under £100 now and some are much cheaper, but like everything in life you get what you pay for.

Sony pitch the VTX-D800U at the top end of the market and this elegantly styled unit won't look out of place next to the most expensive of home cinema set-ups, the package contains the unit, remote control, batteries a scart and RF cable, plus instructions and a stand.

First thing is to get it up and running, this is just too simple plug in the power cord and the RF lead into your aerial socket, select the language and away it goes scanning for available channels, after about 2 minutes it had all of the frequencies from the Crystal palace transmitter.

Connectivity to your TV or home cinema system is either via Scart or RF analogue cable (both supplied) using the scart we had it feeding the TV in seconds and the yellow grey menus were on screen, they are easy to navigate even for a technophobe . The on screen image quality is excellent and much better than some boxes we've seen, it also manages to work with signals that are on the fringe of being acceptable some of the pace units we've tried would have given up the ghost where the Sony VTX-D800U hung in there.

One of our other big gripes is the speed at which some of the lower end Freeview boxes handle the MHEG interactive content, press red button = go make cup of tea! not so with the Sony Freeview box instead it loaded pages and services quickly making light work of the BBCi application. The Sony EPG is a joy to use and is ahead of its time in being ready to handle 7 days advance listings when the BBC enable this on their platform, you can store channels in favourites which can then be called up from a large button on the remote control.

To top it all we love the Sony Style, the silver unit sits upright in its stand looking a bit like a wireless router, with its leds glowing on the front, it does get a little warm when left on for long periods so best to make sure that its in free air.

If you are looking for a Freeview Box then you can't go far wrong with the Sony Freeview VTX-D800U and its currently on sale at our partners Amazon.co.uk for £80 including free delivery so you don't even have to pay through the nose.

More Video Technology Reviews -

[ Hauppauge USB Digital Terrestrial Receiver DEC2000T ] [ Sony Freeview VTX-D800U ] [ Goodmans GDB5 Freeview ] [ Aevoe Mobix ] [ Hauppauge Digital Terrestrial Receiver DEC1000-t ] [ Alienware DHS2 Media Centre ] [ MSI Portable Freeview Box ] [ Sky HD Review ] [ Pinnacle PCTV USB Stick ] [ Oggle Freeview ]