So Tata Sky recently launched its new hybrid box in India called tata sky bench plus which not only lets you watch live television but also supports hot star and prime videos and it's not the only player in the market 8l and HTV launched something similar a while ago called a telex teaming.
This smart so what are the smart set up box and how do they differ with regular set up box or even streaming devices like firestick and chromecast and here's the fun part I don't recommend buying them why well this is me now from tech wiser calm and let's find out now.
Which lets you watch live TV channels at a monthly subscription cost which is usually around 150 bucks and requires an antenna and on the other side we have streaming devices like chromecast firestick or me box which lets you watch OTT content like Netflix prime videos HOTSTAR or even YOUTUBE and it works on Wi-Fi phoenician.
Now these new hybrid TV box or smart setup box offers both OTT content like Netflix frying videos and hot straw via Wi-Fi and also supports live cable TV through dish antenna now also concept is nice but there's a lot of room for improvement in these hybrid boxes.
Let's start with Tata Sky bench plus it comes at a price of 6 thousand rupees and the process of installation is more or less similar as a regular dish TV setup that is you have to install the antenna on the rooftop and then connect the coax cable to your setup box which then connect to your TV using an HDMI cable so yeah if you want to use one of the setup box you need to connect it with an antenna this also means these hybrid boxes are not portable.
I mean sure you can still watch the OTD content like Prime videos in YouTube if you remove the coil cable and take it to another place which only has Wi-Fi however it's still too bulky for that I mean it comes with a remote a box an HDMI cable and of course this bulky power adapter which blocks all the other ports no matter how I put this in.
Talking about the box it runs Android TV and comes with eight gigs of internal storage and two gigs of RAM which is also expandable via dedicated SD card it also comes with a USB port which means if you have a movies on your pendrive that you would like to watch on your TV you can watch it well not exactly I tried inserting a pendrive and it wasn't detected as a storage device rather it only.
Lets you expand the internal storage of your Android and then move app data on it you know like we used to do in all Android days with SD card however I did find it useful when you have to attach an air mouse one thing that I didn't like about Tata Sky pinch Plus which by the way I also noticed with a till extreme is the lack I mean check this out when I switch from one channel to the other the screen goes flat for good two to three seconds I mean this shouldn't happen in the 4k device with two gigs of RAM it supports compatible Android apps from Google Play Store and also supports voice search by a Google assistant and of course since it's an Android TV box it obviously comes with chromecast built-in.
Which lets you mirror your android screen to a bigger television but you can't mirror your iOS screen here tsubame just like Dish TV there is no Netflix app for Tata Sky bitch plus as well yes there is no Netflix app in the Play Store.
We tried side loading the Netflix app and it didn't work so that was about the setup box now let us talk about the monthly recharge to get the set of box working you have to do a monthly recharge of minimum 153 rupees where you get basic life TV packets like you get with other Tata Sky connection and on top of that you get a monthly Tata Sky binge service and after a month of free trial you need to pay 249 rupees every month for binge service.
Now here's my biggest letdown see if you don't want to spend 153 to pieces just for the minimum recharge you can also not watch OTT content like Prime videos hot star and of course YouTube which is already free in fact if you don't do a monthly minimum recharge the whole setup box is useless I mean it makes sense if I'm not able to watch cable television but not letting me watch prime video host star or even YouTube make little sense all you see is a blank screen asking you to do a minimum recharge that's it,
It's not just about Tata Sky bench plus let's talk about the a telex team box and the a telex team stake so the 8 an extreme box is similar to Tata Sky bench plus status you can watch both cable and the OTT content but with few caveats one it's full HD and not 4k like bench plus but then again the box only costs 4000 unlike the Tata Sky benchpress.
Which cost around 6000 on the spec side it has 2 gigs of ram and the internal storage of 8 gigs.
Now let's talk about the 8 l extreme stake the italics team stick on the other hand is basically fasting which means it doesn't support cable television and run Android OS instead of fire OS well kind of Android OS so yeah it's heavily skin and you will see a lot of stuff on the home screen on the software front both the extreme stake and the extreme box up pretty much same so you get in Android TV box with the buildin chromecast and Google assistant similar to bench you also get a till extreme 4000 rupees per year which includes like z5 whoo eros now Hungama plays Shamar ooh and stuff like that.
But there's one good thing unlike the Tata Sky bench Plus and the dish smart from Dish TV you can watch both Netflix and prime videos in a telex team box and the italic stream snape speaking of which on a side note we got in touch with the ATL regarding the minimum recharge and as per their you need to recharge the extreme stick that 999 rupees per year in order to access all the service including YouTube.
This against makes little sense and we will update the description as we have more info on it so let's sum it up while you do get cable television and prime videos without having to switch your HDMI port there are couple of caveats with these hybrid boxes number one there's no Netflix in case of Dish TV and Tata Sky Plus and second you have to go through a minimum recharge of 153 rupees if you don't do that you cannot watch any OTT content and third portability but this is useless without an antenna so overall as of now .
These hybrid boxes only makes sense for people who are interested in cable television and want to watch ott content like Netflix and prime videos but for most people I don't recommend buying them instead I recommend you buy a streaming device or a fire stick or even an Android TV box it's gonna cost you same plus you get portability freedom to watch whatever you want and you don't have to go through monthly subscription or even consider getting an Android TV instead if you're planning for an upgrade obviously so that being said check out our other videos on best climbing devices and best Android TV apps right there as always it's been a signing off catch you later.
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