Nikkai A52HF Review

Overall Rating

Cheap - if you have a spare drive kicking around it is probably the cheapest way of getting onto the PVR bandwagon.

Reasonable picture and sound quality for the price

Buggy firmware
EPG keeps resetting to current time and date when trying to set timed records
Misses 50% of set timed records! A recent fault...
No Interactive
PVR functionality very basic - e.g no resume play from last position
Will not dual record
Does not dual record
If you try to 'live pause' whilst recording another channel you get a freeze frame (as normal) - when you release it just starts 'playing' from live - ie no live pause and no indicated error either!!!
Remote is fiddly and no logic used to plan its layout
When programming a record - often the wrong time and program is selected for no apparent reason!

I purchased the Nikkai A52HF from Maplin many months ago for £49.95 - I know they are a tenner cheaper now... The Reason I purchased was that I had a spare 80gb fluid bearing drive (important if you are worried about the sound of the the hard drive 'whirring'!) kicking around...
Initially all seemed ok - initial installation went ok... As a basic Freeview receiver it works fine (apart from lack of interactive!) - but as it in bare bones form is double the price you should expect more! The PVR functionality is rubbish... It works - sometimes. You cannot rely on this unit to record your set program... There seems to be virtually no memory available to capture the full EPG - when you enter the full EPG you always have to wait for it to update before you can scroll forwards to set recordings... programming a record is fairly intuitive bad made unacceptably frustrating thanks to the buggy firmware which regularly keeps resetting to the current time and date when you are trying to scroll forwards to set a recording - all the time waiting for the EPG to update!

In summary the basic hardware is good value for money - but the firmware lets it down badly... There appears to be no way to upgrade the firmware - so you are stuck with it!

This has to be the worst example of a product that has reached the retail marketplace with a method of operating that ranges from frustrating to impossible to use!

Maybe you get what you pay for - but bear in mind if you are having to purchase a hard drive as well - you are in right in the middle of the fully equipped Freeview PVR's without all of the drawbacks above!

I can guarantee if you buy one of these your 'bargain' purchase will turn out to be rather poorer value for money than originally anticipated...