Fellow tech enthusiast and DC neighbor Joel Ward continues his role as a Features contributor here at Zatz Not Funny. Beyond ZNF, Joel can be found at Joel Explains It All and @joelsef on Twitter.
We’ve been evaluating the Slingbox 500 ($300) at the Ward household these last few months. And the timing was good: We went on a week-long vacation, giving us the perfect chance to try out the truly remote access features of the Slingbox. We also played with it while traveling around town, which was fun—including watching Bill Maher at the pool and catching a preseason Washington Capitals game while at a Nationals game.
However, the best use case is travel. This thing is made for travelers. I’d say we probably aren’t the key demographic for a Slingbox as we don’t travel too much. Yet it’s still very nice to have this option available when we are on the road, or even just traveling around town and finding ourselves—or our kids—bored out of our minds.
The Slingbox 500 has been connected to our Verizon FiOS HD HD DVR (Motorola QIP7232) via HDMI—however, the setup process told us that it required the non-encrypted component connection to actually sling content. I guess the HDMI passes through the Slingbox to the TV so no quality is lost, but the component connection is used to sling the video and audio to the mobile devices and web player. In our experience the quality was fine. I’m not sure how much better it would look if the HDMI input was actually permitted.
We viewed remotely—either inside the house or out and about—using the SlingPlayer app ($15) on our Android phones and tablets as well as the web browser plugin for Windows. It worked well on my HTC Evo 4G LTE and my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S4. We used it a bit more on the tablets—a converted HP TouchPad that’s running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and a Sony Xperia Tablet S. It’s also available for iOS (iPhone and iPad), Windows Phone 7/8, and Kindle Fire. Sadly, no love for Windows RT (at least not officially).
The picture looked best on the Sony since it has the best screen, but the other devices worked well too, depending on the bandwidth available. When enough bandwidth was available, the HQ mode (mobile phone app) or HD mode (only on the tablet app) was quite stunning. I’d love to try it on a Google Nexus 7 or Retina iPad to compare—I am sure those would be even sharper.
Overall the Slingbox 500 is very slick: it has the ability to deliver your full HD picture—if you have the bandwidth—plus remote control of your cable or satellite box, and the capability to “sling” photos and videos from your smartphone to the Slingbox to view on your TV at home using the SlingSync and SlingProjector features on the 500 model. You can also attach a USB drive to the Slingbox and play photos, music, and video files saved to the drive from your computer.
The less expensive Slingbox 350 ($150) may be a better choice for most people. It doesn’t offer WiFi, SlingSync or SlingProjector features, but still has the ability to sling remote HD video which is the main reason I’d consider getting one of these things.
Benefits
Downsides
Issues we encountered