Now TV Combo review (hands-on): Now TV Combo is now on sale – a broadband package for the modern age

Update: Now TV Combo is now available to buy. Our full review of Now TV’s flexible broadband, phone and TV package will be coming shortly, until then you can read our first impressions below.

Original: For a long time, Now TV has offered stripped-back Sky TV with extra on-demand features for those who don’t want to fork out for a full-blown Sky package. However, with the newly announced and soon-to-be-launched Now TV Combo, the on-demand service is branching out into broadband, calls and live TV.

Now TV Combo may sound tricky to get your head around at first. In essence, though, it’s perfectly simple: for a one-off setup fee, you can pick up a broadband, TV and phone package with no monthly contract, on a model which is fully scalable and changeable month on month. Think of it as the Giffgaff of TV and broadband packages.

So, what do you get as part of Now TV Combo? Every Combo package comes with the new Now TV Smart Box, a Now TV Hub for connecting your home to broadband, and your pick of a Now TV “pass” to suit your needs. No matter which pass you opt for, be it Sports, Kids, Movies or Entertainment, the new Smart Box also offers up more than 60 Freeview channels – with 15 in HD – plus catch-up services such as iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and Demand 5, and the ability to pause and rewind live TV.

Now TV Combo hands-on: Now TV Smart Box

Now TV’s latest device, the Smart Box, is a complete overhaul of the previous Now TV streaming box. As with the previous box, it’s been built for Sky by streaming hardware specialist Roku.

The new box is larger than the original Now TV box – in fact, it’s larger than most rivals, including the Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. However, compared with the lot of them, it’s the most stylish. Its low-profile glossy plastic shell looks attractive and feels like a device you’d put on the TV stand under your screen, rather than tuck it away behind.

As an overall package, it’s pleasingly simple to use. While Now TV has never been a particular headache to navigate, the team has polished the interface and the improved guts of the Smart Box, meaning everything feels snappy and responsive. Content – depending on your internet connection – is quick to load and run. The new Now TV homepage is a welcome addition, providing you with a quick way to jump right into the last live TV channel you watched or browse a selection of curated programmes – a bit like Sky Q’s My Q section.

The Now TV Kids section has also been overhauled to match that of the iOS app interface. Here, extraneous information is stripped back, and content becomes much easier to navigate for younger users. Programmes play automatically, too, as children are – like hungover adults – quite happy to watch shows endlessly.

One big draw of the Smart Box over a traditional Now TV streamer or standard monthly pass is its inclusion of live-broadcast, Freeview TV. This means you don’t have to go through the rigmarole of switching inputs when you want to watch “normal” TV, and it comes with the added benefit of a pause-and-rewind facility.

Unfortunately, live TV only outputs at up to 720p, where Now TV, catch-up and paid-for content can display at 1080p. There’s no 4K support, although since this has yet to arrive on Sky’s premium TV platform, Sky Q, that’s hardly surprising.

The Smart Box also contains all the connectivity you’d expect. You’ve got 802.11n Wi-Fi and Ethernet, a microSD slot and USB port, plus HDMI for your video output. It’s possible to play back media files via the USB port if you can’t find anything to watch on the various available services, or if you want to show off your holiday photos.

Now TV Combo hands-on: Now TV Hub

The Now TV Hub comes as standard with every Now TV Combo package as it’s your gateway to the rest of Now TV’s services. It is, to all intents and purposes, a bog-standard wireless router. It’s compact, at just 141 x 53 x 140mm, so smaller than both the BT Smart Hub and Virgin Media’s Super Hub, but a tad boxier by comparison.

Hardware-wise, you get four 100Mbits/sec Ethernet ports, WPS Wi-Fi setup, and compatibility for ADSL and fibre connections, while for wireless the hub gives you single-band 2.4GHz, 802.11n Wi-Fi. This is wireless at its most basic. I haven’t seen a router this limited for years.

There is some positive news, however: the Now TV Hub will automatically select the best channel for the device you’re connecting to it, shifting things around accordingly as devices move and change, so at least Wi-Fi interference shouldn’t interrupt your TV watching too badly.

Sky also says the Hub can also switch into a low-power mode when it’s not in use, kicking back into full-power mode when you’re back online. Naturally, that’s great for saving minimal amounts of power here and there, but – just like its automatic signal switching – we’ll have to test that for ourselves once a review unit turns up.

As Now TV Combo allows you to switch broadband speeds and packages month on month if you wish, the Now TV Hub is capable of working with any of the three incoming connection speeds. Now TV’s “Brilliant Broadband” runs at up to 17Mbits/sec, with its mid-range “Fab Fibre” taking speeds up to 38Mbits/sec. If you want to go all out, however, Now TV’s “Super Fibre” can deliver 76Mbits/sec to your home, provided you’re within the right network reach.

Now TV Combo hands-on: Pricing

Here comes the tricky bit for Now TV Combo: pricing. Because there are so many options and variations, working out a flat price for the Now TV Combo can get quite complicated.

First off, if you already have an affordable broadband package you’re happy with – and you may already have a Now TV subscription – then you can buy the Smart Box outright for £40. That makes it cheaper than the Apple TV, Roku 3 or the Amazon Fire TV (although the latter does support 4K content). In fact, it makes it just a shade more expensive than a Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV Stick. If you don’t already have broadband, or fancy switching provider, the Smart Box comes as standard with every Now TV Combo package.

When you begin to delve into the Combo pricing structure, things get a little harder to understand, especially if you’re shopping for a bargain. First up, there’s the £18-per-month line rental to pay, which is mandatory across all the Now TV broadband packages.

If you opt for the 17Mbits/sec broadband option alongside a Now TV Entertainment pass, it will cost just £10 per month on top of that, bringing the total cost to £28. Choose the top-end fibre option, which provides a 70Mbits/sec connection, and it will set you back £25 per month with line rental on top.

While the antiquated necessity of line rental is a kicker to seemingly affordable prices, £28 per month for 17Mbits/sec broadband, calls, Now TV’s Entertainment Pass and the benefits of a Smart Box is not really all that bad.

The Sports package ups the price considerably. While that’s partly down to the base cost for access to Sky Sports, any sports fan will also want access to BT Sport content. Since BT Broadband packages come with BT Sport for free, it may work out cheaper to take up one of its packages and buy Sky Sports via Now TV as and when you need it.

Below is a table of the monthly pricing options for Now TV Combo, just so you can have a look for yourself at some of the available options:

Now TV Combo hands-on: Early verdict

As a concept, Now TV Combo is a welcome one. While we’ll need more time with it to see if the Smart Box is as slick as it felt initially, and to discover if the Now TV Hub is as competent as is claimed, it looks as though Sky has found a smart way to take its streaming service to the next step.

Is it something people will actually want? Well, that remains to be seen.