Sagem ITD62

I have to confess from the outset that I'm not much of a telly viewer. I spend more time on the 'net than watching TV, but my wife enjoys her telly and she had begun to make ominous noises about NTL and Sky. In vain I pointed out that 99 channels of digital dross is no improvement on 5 channels of terrestrial dross, and that we could watch the Ashes Series in the pub, but she was up for the digital revolution. We compromised on a Freeview box and I shopped around, eventually going for the Sagem, which I managed to get for £39.99.

It's very basic, with only four sockets - power in, RF in, RF out and scart out, but it's neat and unobtrusive. Setting it up was a doddle from the clear and uncluttered On Screen Display and in a few moments it was happily scanning and finding eighty odd radio and TV sources. I was mightily impressed until I discovered that large numbers of them were either subscription only or featured perma-tanned hustlers trying to sell me stuff I'd never heard of and didn't want. That said, all the freeview channels came through solidly and I have to admit the picture and sound are noticeably better. I also liked the information panels at the bottom of the screen detailing the channel, programme, time etc, and, on Radio 5 Live Extra's cricket coverage on Channel 76 at least, a brief on screen summary of the scorecard appears as you listen to the commentary. Nice touch!

The remote control is a fairly good example of its kind; small, neat, logically laid-out and it feels solid. I'd heard that some of the cheaper set top boxes are a bit sluggish when it comes to channel changing but the Sagem is quick and positive.

I was a little disappointed with the scart lead which is only just long enough to reach from the back of the box to the back of the TV. If we had a larger TV, we'd have had to buy an additional lead.

Another occasional annoyance is that the box sometimes decides that, just for fun, it will do another scan for channels. This however may have rather more to do with our old aerial than the box itself.

All in all the Sagem has done its limited thing very well in the six months or so we've owned it. If you want the likes of Top Up TV, or to connect up to video recorders, DVD players etc, then this ain't the box for you: but if you just want to get the free-to-air channels at a low price then you'll struggle to do better than the little Sagem.