New Hughes E25 DirecTV Plus
Written: Jan 18 '00 (Updated Sep 15 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Picture Quality: |
|
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Speedvision, lower monthly cost than cable
Cons: Awful tech support
The Bottom Line: If you can get a signal at your location you should buy one!
|
|
|
| townsend7's Full Review: Hughes Networks D2532 DIRECTV |
** Jan 2002 Update **
Two years later and I'm still using the same receiver. It's been absolutely trouble free. A great product!
** Original Review **
This is my first experience with DSS, I just signed up on Dec 31, 1999. The unit I bought was the Hughes Gold E25 for DirecTV Plus.
There were two reasons I decided to switch from cable to DirecTV.
First: Speedvision, I really wanted Speedvision. That limited my choices to DTV or digital cable.
Second: The cable company. Like a lot of people I like to do everything I can via the Internet. When looking at my TV options I checked of my cable company's (TCI) site, DTV and Dish Network. Well Dish was out of the running because of the Speedvision obsession mentioned above. My cable company didn't list any pricing on their web site so I sent an email requesting information. A month later and I'm still waiting for a reply. That narrowed my search down to DTV.
What's this Plus stuff? One of the first things to confuse me was talk of DirecTV Plus. I've yet to find a good source of information on DTV Plus. The bottom line is if you're going to buy a new DTV box make sure it says "Plus" on the from. This limits you to the Hughes E series or the newer RCA units. I've heard rumors that Sony will not have a Plus unit on the shelves for a while if at all. Be warned though, your Hughes DTV Plus box will come with the old style (18" round) dish. The Plus service requires the newer 18x24" dish so you'll have to upgrade later to take full advantage of the Plus service. At least that's what they tell me.
Ok, on to the box itself. The unit comes well packaged and documented. Build quality seems very good at first sight. Of course it's hard to tell the quality of solid state electronics by just looking. A more telling tale is that I had to return the first unit I bought because it was defective. Sometimes these things happen, I won't condemn Hughes because I got a bad apple the first time.
Setting up the dish isn't very difficult. First thing you'll want to do is to make sure you've got a clear view of the sky in the direction of the satellite. If anything is in the way forget it, you must have a clear view in the right direction for it to work. If you're reasonably mechanically inclined save a couple of bucks and put up the dish yourself. Once the dish is up, aligned and the RG6 coax is connected, you're ready to go. One call to the very pleasant DTV sales representative and you're watching Speedvision.
One weak point of Hughes is their customer support. In one word it's pathetic. I had several questions with my first unit and the support people I spoke with were unable to answer questions that I expected to be fairly simple to address. The only response I'd ever get was them reading from the manual, they were incapable of or not allowed to do anything else. They may as well play a recording that says "Hello we're not going to help you. You're on your own". Luckily returning the box for another was all I needed to do. My suggestion is to read the manual carefully and if it still doesn't work return it. Don't waste your time calling Hughes for help.
Three weeks into my E25 ownership I've had my first minor problem. My watchword guide was blank. Unplugging the unit it for a little while cleared that right up. It's like Microsoft Windows, if in doubt reboot!
So the first box I bought was defective, the customer support is awful, and I've already had one problem in my first three weeks of ownership. You might expect me to give it a thumbs down. Strangely enough I find myself quite happy with my E25 and DTV. I guess more channels at a lower price (compared to cable) is enough to make me happy. I recommend you give the Hughes E25 and DirecTV a try. If you don't like it you can always return it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
townsend7
|
|
Member: Bob Townsend
Location: Ellington, CT
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 4 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.