Topfield TF5800 Freeview PVR

Posted by T3 Online on Sun 10 Jul 2005

Got time to kill? Then you'll love this.

How much is too much TV? With the ability to suck up 88 hours' worth of reality tat, this PVR certainly won't leave you begging for more, and its range of features will be enough to sate even the most obsessed addicts among us.

When it comes to recording, for example, the Topfield is as flexible as a Russian gymnast. It supports the seven-day Freeview EPG and enables you to record two channels at once. What's more, depending on which channels you're recording, you can watch a third via the picture-in-picture viewer!

It doesn't stop there either. There's also a USB port, so after downloading a small application from the Topfield website, you can connect it to your PC to transfer MP3s into it or TV shows out and onto your hard drive. There's even a slot for accepting a CAM card-reader, so it can receive Top Up TV via a £50 add-on.

With this much on offer, you'd think there'd be no complaints, but actually we do have one or two little niggles. The picture-search function is limited to 6x speed, which is rather slow, and the unit is also slightly noisy in operation. In addition, we found it could be a bit unreliable at responding to programme timers set via the EPG.

Nevertheless, it's difficult not to be impressed with this PVR. It might be a tad pricey in comparison to rivals such as the Inverto IDL-7000T, but considering all the features you get, it's worth the extra outlay.