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| Features | 5/10   |
|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 4.2/10 |
| Value for Money | 2.2/10 |
| Reviewer Rating | 2.7/10 |
| Overall Rating | 2.8/10 |
| Personal Digital Video Recorder&TV Tuner |  | £129.00Free P&P |
Full review by
Guest.
on 19th Jul 2008
User Rating : 8
Respect :
0
Good Points: It looks good and is reasonably compact.
Bad Points: A command from the remote takes a long time to react. Fan is very noisy. The EPG is forever not updating (even when it IS on standby)
General comments: When I received this product as a gift I was disappointed because the person at the sales desk had told my relative that the machine was a DVD recorder with built in freeview and a hard drive. When I was told this I was chuffed because it did everything, or so I thought. When I took it out of the box there was obviously no DVD slot so when I took it back to Argos they said that it was exempt from the 16 day money back guarantee and did they offer to swap it considering they sold us the wrong thing? Did they heck!All of this aside I have had the machine for 18 months now and up until a couple of weeks ago the machine itself has been great. The other day the machine updated the EPG at 3am as usual and the rather loud fan switched on as it does every day, but then it came on at 4, 5, 6 & 7 am and stayed on for a couple of minutes each time, which becomes very annoying when you're trying to sleep. Also, every now and then the whole screen goes black and you can't see anything, you can only hear it. This too is very annoying when you are trying to watch TV.Upon taking it back to Argos they have said that it is out of the standard 1 year warranty, and having lost the receipt for our extended warranty we have had to take the machine to a different shop for an engineers report (I think thats what it is anyway) and if all the faults found are manufacturers faults then Argos have got to replace the machine because any electrical product with a manufacturers fault bought from Argos has to be replaced if it is under 6 years old.
Guest.'s review and ratings | 333 words
Review by
Marky Mark 1964
on 6th Jun 2008
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
Avoid the Sony SVR-S500- this is probably the poorest piece of electronic equipment I have ever purchased. Very unreliable, very slow to react to any command and very very very very very noisy!!
Marky Mark 1964's full review | 181 words
Review by
barfgwyn
on 23rd May 2008
User Rating : 2
Respect :
0
Noisy, especially at first. The EPG took a few days to appear. If you use the EPG to record a named programme, it cuts the programme off one minute from the end.
As soon as the warranty expired, it claimed to have forgotten everything on its hard disk and then stopped working altogether.
A big disappointment from Sony.
barfgwyn's full review | 68 words
Review by
aocgem
on 6th May 2008
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
I bought the SVR-S500 from a eBay dealer for £80. It has worked brilliantly for the last 5 month, then all of a sudden it delayed changing channel for a few days before it finally packed in for good. I contacted the dealer I bought it off who told me to format the machine and if it still occurs basicallly to get in touch with Sony. Sony dont want to seem to direct me to the right place by giving me numbers for different places. Wish I'd read your guys reviews before buying, I thought sony ...
aocgem's full review | 122 words
Review by
lindylou04
on 19th Apr 2008
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
I got the Sony SVR-S500 of my son he mislaid the power supply leads no problem i thought, tried maplins no avail not a standard part tried partsmasters they gave me a price for one part the figure of 8 lead but when i double checked it was for the complete set (including the ac/dc part ) no that came separately yes can get no problem - except the price £135 thanks but no thanks i could go and buy a new machine for that. Anyone knows differently i be interested thanks.
lindylou04's full review | 94 words
Review by
moccyfondoo
on 5th Mar 2008
User Rating : 7
Respect :
0
I was taken aback when I saw all the negative comments about the Sony SVR-S500 recorder, are they all genuine ?
I took away 1 point for remote, 2 away for price.
I paid more for less, with Sony because of sonys reputation,
My first dvd recorder was a Toshiba, which never worked properly, and packed in completely just after the warranty expired, (it cost a lot more than the Sony too)
I'm v. happy with my Sony at the moment .
moccyfondoo's full review | 102 words
Review by
Guest.
on 13th Feb 2008
User Rating : 2
Respect :
0
I think the Sony SVR-S500 is a poor item and noisy. The machine worked well for five months now its endless problems it is crash after crash. I picked this up from argos and will be returning asap.What a shame I have never been so disappointed with a sony
Guest.'s full review | 53 words
Review by
Guest.
on 23rd Jan 2008
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
The Sony SVR-S500 can be recycled. It fails to tell you that you need an almost 100% signal from local mast ,or you are wasting your money.
Guest.'s full review | 26 words
Review by
Guest.
on 3rd Jan 2008
User Rating : 0
Respect :
0
This was the worse piece of kit I have ever purchased. All the problems I descibed were present to 2 replacement machnes. And the after sales service from the Sony repair centre was in my opinion very poor.
I would recommend to stay well clear.
Guest.'s full review | 90 words
Review by
stevewinning
on 30th Sep 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
The t.v guide on the Sony SVR-S500 has rarely worked and so there has been little chance to record programmes. The machine overheats and constantly crashes. There have been a number of small problems and the latest is that the recorder cannot recognise there is an aerial plugged in. I bought this product because of the Sony name but never again. This has been a thoroughly disappointing piece of equipment that promised so much.
stevewinning's full review | 89 words
Review by
homsey
on 7th Sep 2007
User Rating : 10
Respect :
0
I have owned this (refurbished by Sony UK) machine for a few months now. It does all it is supposed to. I don't know why the previous reviewer complains about no EPG, If it is left on "standby" overnight like it states in the manual it downloads off air the next 7 days electronic program guide, so I don't know what he is beefing about.
homsey's full review | 64 words
Review by
stephenpros
on 23rd Jul 2007
User Rating : 0
Respect :
0
I bought from a Sony centre for £250. It broke and no one was interested as I had mislaid my receipt, funny when I bought it they could go 7 years back in their records. Better off buying from Tesco or ASDA, no prob with returns... rubbish, stay away.
stephenpros's full review | 54 words
Review by
jamesgaffory
on 10th Jul 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
After a couple of returned purchases of Grundig PVRs due to lock up, I decided to play safe and pay more for less but with the Sony brand name. My mistake. The SVR-S500 is overpriced, poorly designed and will make me think twice before buying anything with Sony on it again.
jamesgaffory's full review | 73 words
Review by
burridgeg
on 28th Jun 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
I purchased the SVR-S500 purely because of the brand name and the assumption that in the event of problems I could expect a good aftersale service. How wrong can you be? It has cost me handling charges, a 60 mile round trip and even though I explained that just reformatting the hard drive would not fix the problem (tried that a few times as a temporary fix) guess what? they formatted the disc and then charged me a handling charge and ignored my protest. It has now crashed again.
Would I by fro ...
burridgeg's full review | 138 words
Review by
Fendeal
on 17th Mar 2007
User Rating : 9
Respect :
0
Contrary to all the other reviews I've seen, the EPG works with no problems found at all.
The supposed fan noise is not obtrusive as I have it enclosed in the Sony system cabinet.
I found no more of a controller delay than on any other system I have used or tested.
Overall I'm well satisfied as it takes the place of 3 Recorders/Players.
I haven't used my VCR's for some time now and hope it continues that way.
Fendeal's full review | 188 words
Review by
PhilDavidson
on 27th Feb 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
+1
This Sony SVR-S500 PVR is a complete waste of money.
WIth no EPG the features on the machine are useless.
Considering this is a flagship product from Sony .. my guess is that they tried it, got burned and won't be returning to this market soon.
Don't bother with this machine unless you need something to prop the door open with.
PhilDavidson's full review | 79 words
Review by
J McClelland
on 21st Feb 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
Total waste of space. EPG does not work at all, well not unless you only want to record one programme at a time, one day at a time!!!!! You can only record in advance using timer which then doesn`t label recording, you have to input manually, so if you go on holiday you will need to spend a few hours inputting everything!! I BOUGHT ONE FROM JOHN LEWIS who acknowledged the fault and even contacted SONY, but their solution was I had to contact SONY and download info from them and eventually whe ...
J McClelland's full review | 237 words
Review by
Yrag
on 11th Feb 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
I bought this unit together with a Sony LCD Tv. Set up was easy and the functionality excellent. Simple to use and I was very pleased, except for the fan noise.............it's noisy, very noisy and as the fan is underneath the unit the noise is amplified by the shelf the unit stands on.
After a few days of use the delay on the remote control started to irritate, it can take up to 3 seconds for the unit to respond to pressing a button on the remote, if you are in a rush to set a programme to ...
Yrag's full review | 293 words
Review by
littlejohns
on 31st Jan 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
Bought the unit in December 2006. First 2 weeks the unit worked well enough however, the unit slowed down considerably, the EPG guide did not download correctly, almost 90% of the channels did not show any program details. 4th week the hard drive crashed, all recorded programs were lost.
Returned the unit and received a replacement. same problems occured returned the unit after 3 weeks and got my money back and bought a Humax.
Later found out that the Sony SVR-S500 Digital Video Recorder is i ...
littlejohns's full review | 118 words
Review by
sloppyjoe
on 18th Jan 2007
User Rating : 1
Respect :
0
Bought it from Argos for £180, but get a demo before buying. It's a real dog and not up to Sony's usual standard - seems more like Sony have stuck thier name on a generic OEM box.
sloppyjoe's full review | 109 words
Main characteristics: Functionalities: Digital TV Receiver Video Recorder Broadcast Type: Terrestrial Compatible Service: Freeview Recorder: HDD Recording Time: More...
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