Manhattan Aero 4K TV Streamer review: Freely has never been so free

The UK TV landscape is changing and the days of aerials and satellite dishes are coming to an end. Internet provided television (IPTV) services will eventually be the norm, and while that relies on every household gaining access to solid, dependable broadband, it simply makes sense.

We're still in its formative days, of course, with the government not even considering a new digital TV switchover until 2035 at the earliest, but Sky is already making its own move to an online-only future with Sky Glass and Stream, while Virgin Media is following suit with its Flex plan.

Then there's Freely, the completely free, internet-streamed UK TV service backed by the country's major broadcasters. That is helping us transition too.

Its only barrier has been access. Until very recently, you needed a new Smart TV from the likes of Bush, Toshiba, JVC or Hisense to get it. And although others, including Panasonic and Philips, have some Freely sets available, they've been limited in number and scope.

Netgem broke the mould with the release of the Pleio at the tail-end of 2025. An Android TV-powered puck with Freely on board, it finally enabled you to add the service to any set. But although you get 12-months of free access to its extended FAST (free ad-supported TV) channels, a subscription fee eventually kicks in. Freely stays free.

Now comes the second set-top-box with Freely on board, and this time it's a simpler proposition. It comes as no surprise that Manhattan has been making satellite and Freeview boxes and recorders for decades, as its Aero 4K TV Streamer has similar DNA. And it's instantly a serious contender – not just for Pleio, but Sky Stream and Virgin Media Stream, too.

So what's the catch – if there is one – and what do you get for a surprisingly low entrance fee? Well, a lot, it turns out...

Price & Availability

The Manhattan Aero is remarkably priced. Available from several UK retailers, including Currys (click here for the direct link), Amazon, and John Lewis, it will set you back a mere £69.99.

Considering it includes access to more than 450 free TV channels without any subscription fees, that's quite a bargain.

Indeed, once you've paid for the box outright, you don't have to put your hand back in your pocket at all, if you don't want to. There are also numerous streaming apps and services available to subscribe to – such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ – but the choice is entirely yours. You get more than you could possibly ever watch regardless.

Design & Accessories

You can certainly see Manhattan's experience with TV devices in the Aero – it's a compact and well-built little box with just a few connections on the rear. It essentially keeps things simple.

The box has a surprising heft to it, feeling well-made for its price point, but it's also primarily designed to be hidden out of view. It's fractionally smaller than a Sky Stream puck, so will never dominate your AV cabinet.

The remote, on the other hand, is awash with buttons – much more so than Sky's equivalent. It's roughly the same size as a Sky Stream / Glass alternative, but is certainly not shy when it comes to options.

As well as a dedicated Freely button, you get shortcuts to Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, and YouTube, plus TiVo+ Free – 400 FAST channels available from the off. There are also buttons to jump to the TiVo homescreen, the Freely TV guide, and a microphone button to activate voice search.

As the box is HDMI-CEC enabled, you can use the myriad of other buttons to control your TV's volume and the like. And thanks to wireless connectivity, you can even use it without line of sight. No stone is left unturned.

Aside from the box and remote, you get a USB-C power supply and HDMI cable in the package.

Features & Channels

Cunningly, Manhattan opted to partner with TiVo for the launch of the Aero – a decision that has paid off with one of the smoothest, most content-rich experiences on the market today.

Previously the supplier of Virgin Media's set-top user interface (UI), the company has realigned its platform and strategy in the last few years, to use its vast experience of content management on a wider selection of devices.

This includes the numerous Freely TVs, and the Manhattan Aero uses the exact same system. It opens with a homescreen offering easy access to Freely channels, apps and content rails, but you can get more granular the more you explore.

Freely itself offers 50 UK TV channels to stream for free, plus some regional variants and radio stations. The list has grown rapidly since the service's launch a year-and-a-half ago, and it is expected to continue to do so throughout 2026.

Considering it is backed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and 5, it's natural that all the main terrestrial channels are available. The U network provides its channels too, including U&Dave, and U&Drama.

They link with the respective catch-up and on-demand services, so you can start a show on BBC One from the beginning if you join halfway through, for example. An on-screen prompt will appear and you'll be taken to BBC iPlayer to watch the show. The same is true with the other main channels.

All of the free TV services are covered – iPlayer, ITVX, 4, and 5 – and other apps are available to extend your viewing, either for free or paid.

Freely also works like a conventional over-the-air digital service, such as Freeview or Freesat, but delivered over the internet instead. You get an electronic programme guide (EPG) you can open to see what's on all channels, or you can bring up an embedded mini-guide at the bottom of the screen as you watch, to scroll through each channel and its current content.

Aside from the headline feature, TiVo provides more than 400 additional free channels to stream through its TiVo+ Free section. These are collated from multiple apps and services, such as Pluto TV and Rakuten TV, so there's plenty to watch. In fact, it's a little overawing at present, as they don't get their own EPG. You currently have to scroll through the channels in an app-like rail, which is hardly ideal, but I've been assured that a better guide is coming.

You can, of course, use voice search to find what you want to watch. This also works with the TV Shows and Movies tabs, and is intelligent enough to recognise commands like "all movies starring Tom Cruise". It'll bring up content from numerous free and paid-for services, and you can choose which one suits you best.

There are a couple of caveats though. Weirdly, the TV Shows tab shows big shows from the likes of ITV but tries to send you to Prime Video to watch them (rather than ITVX). That's because ITVX is also available through Amazon's app, but it seems like a strange workaround.

There is also the lack of a few big brand streaming apps. You get Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, YouTube and a bundle of lesser-known ones, but no Apple TV, Paramount+, Discovery+ or Now. This latter omission could be a deal-breaker for those wanting to ditch Sky but keep some of its programming, such as live Premier League or F1 on Sky Sports.

However, until the TiVo system adopts the official Now app, there is one, almost hidden way that it can be resolved. The Manhattan Aero supports Google Cast, which you have to turn on in the settings. Once discovered, you can technically stream Now content to your box via the Now app on your phone, tablet or laptop.

The same is true for the other absentees – bar Apple TV, which doesn't support Google Cast (on an iPhone, at least). Alternatively, you can actually subscribe to Apple TV, Paramount+, and Discovery+ through Amazon Prime Video. It offers them as third-party subscriptions, and thus you can watch their shows and movies through the Prime Video app instead.

It's a bit more complicated that way, but it's an effective solution for now.

The other thing to note about the Aero and TiVo service in particular is that you don't have to download and install apps on the box itself. As with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Select, all the streaming apps are hosted remotely – including sign-in, the menu systems and video. So instead of navigating through the Netflix app running on your device, the icon you click on is merely a portal to the cloud.

In truth, you would never know. The quality is just as good as if the app were installed locally. The same with the experience. And video is presented in exactly the same way – up to 4K HDR10+ and with Dolby Atmos, depending on the service and your subscription tier.

One benefit to this is that app updates are instant and seamless, being done on TiVo's servers rather than your box, and no matter how technically demanding they get, they'll still run on your device.

In short, every effort is made to make the experience as intuitive as possible, and it certainly feels that way.

Support & Specifications

The Manhattan Aero 4K TV Streamer is a largely uncomplicated device. It is designed to keep things simple for TV viewers who just want to plug it in and get going after a short set up phase.

There's a HDMI output on the rear, alongside USB-C for power, an additional USB-C port, and a LAN Ethernet connection if you want to hook it up to your network via a cable.

It also comes with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, which is fast and stable enough to cope with 4K HDR streaming. Indeed, although I always connect my AV gear via Ethernet, I didn't notice any difference when running the Aero wirelessly instead. I imagine many buyers will do just that.

The box supports up to 2160p (4K) video out and HDR10+. There is no Dolby Vision on board, which might irk some, but HDR10+ does appeal to a wider audience, such as those with Samsung TVs (which aren't Dolby Atmos-enabled). That's arguably better for such an affordable device.

Audio purists will be happy that there's Dolby Atmos passthrough available, so you can listen to the enhanced surround sound format via an AV amp, speaker system, or compatible soundbar. And there's standard Dolby Audio besides.

It's also worth noting that the Aero supports the HLG HDR standard, which is used by most broadcasters.

As I've mentioned before, you can Google Cast video from your iPhone, iPad, Android device or PC, and Bluetooth connectivity is available for both the remote and additional accessories down the line.

Performance

The first thing you notice after setting up the box is just how fast it operates. The TiVo front end is lightning quick to navigate through. That includes opening streaming apps, such as Netflix, which works much faster than on other TV boxes I own.

That's in no small part thanks to being hosted on remote servers, with much beefier processing power than a small streamer could afford. But it doesn't always work out that way.

While the Netflix experience is as smooth as I've ever encountered, Disney+ seems to take longer to settle on the best picture quality. In fact, I've found Disney's service has stuttered on other devices recently too, such as my Google TV-powered Philips OLED, so it might just be "something their end" as TV viewers have said about TV signals for decades.

It is strange though, as the problem cannot be anything to do with the box itself. After all, everything is streamed from the same source – remotely by TiVo – so no service should be any different. But I wouldn't feel right not mentioning it.

All other services, including Prime Video and Freely, worked just as well as Netflix. And in up to 4K HDR10+ and 1080p respectively. The Freely channels take a beat or two to change between them, but that's common with IPTV and something both Sky Stream and Glass also exhibit.

Sound performance was equally impressive, with Dolby Atmos thundering through my Denon amp and Sonos Arc capably (I tested it on each, in different rooms).

You can basically get out of the Aero what you want. And although it's never going to compete in advanced AV terms with devices two or three times the price – such as the Apple TV 4K and Nvidia Shield TV Pro – you're never going to care during a Homes Under the Hammer rerun.

Verdict

Having been impressed with the rise of Freely over the last year or so, I've been eagerly looking out for a capable streamer to allow me to get it onto a TV of my choosing. And I've been spoilt by two options.

The Pleio is still a very decent device, not least with its Android TV apps and prowess, but I can't help but feel the Manhattan Aero is the box I've really been waiting for.

It is as traditional as they come, which is important if we're to convince the non-digital savvy to switch to streaming. And thanks to the TiVo user interface, it is wonderfully integrated and easy to use. The experience is super quick too, which helps get you to your viewing pleasures without fuss.

There will probably be more complex and powerful devices down the road, but in many ways, this little box is exactly what we need right now. At the right price, too.

There are some caveats, with the absence of a few native streaming apps, but it has all the main live channels and plenty more besides, and with no hidden costs, to boot. It does exactly what it is designed for and does it very well. That makes it a five-star product for me.

Your experience might depend on your broadband speeds, of course, but maybe the savings on paid TV subscriptions will encourage you to upgrade.

And with the future of TV so reliant on it, now's a good time to get ahead of the curve.

Also Consider

The obvious alternative to the Manhattan Aero is Netgem's Android TV-powered Pleio puck. It was the first streaming device to market with Freely support and offers a few more features than its peer. You get access to the Google Play store for starters, along with access to Netgem's own cloud gaming service. You even get a Bluetooth game controller included in the box. However, it is more expensive and while it comes with 12-months access to cloud gaming and Netgem's own collection of FAST channels, you'll have to pay a monthly subscription after the first year.

Another option is Sky Stream, which is Sky's own answer to the Manhattan Aero. It is long established now, and runs on the exact same operating system as Sky Glass – so you can access all the same channels, on demand and streaming services as the connected TV. You will need to take a Sky subscription though, which starts at £15 per month, although that includes a stack of entertainment channels and Netflix standard with ads.

Finally, Virgin Media O2 has its own Stream box that's available with its Flex plan. It includes over 150 TV channels, apps and on-demand content, but is only available as an add-on to a broadband package. You'll have to take that into consideration.