Gadgetory

welcome to the future of TV okay fine that's an overstatement but the service I'm reviewing here is the first of its kind and at least provides a glimpse of where TV might be headed I'm talking about sling TV it's an alternative to traditional cable and satellite TV and the best part is the cost it's just 20 bucks a month for a package that includes ESPN TNT CNN the Disney Channel HDTV and others these are live TV channels just like you get from cable but delivered over your internet connection I'll start with the good parts there's no contract and no obligations if you don't like it you can just cancel in your out 20 bucks sling TV comes in the form of an app and chances are you already own at least one device it's compatible for most of my testing I need a Roku 3 connected to a big TV but I also tested the Android and iOS apps on my phone and an iPad slinks has a bunch more devices including Xbox one Amazon fire stick and chromecast and even some smart TVs will be supported video quality was very good for the most part in testing I experienced few instances of buffering and lag if your internet connection is robust enough to handle Netflix or Amazon streaming it should do fine with sling TV the app also has a bandwidth limiter so you can avoid using up all your data aside from the lack of popular basic cable channels like regional sports networks Comedy Central Fox News Bravo and AMC slink TV also has its share of downsides on most channels your prevented from pausing and rewinding so of course you can't skip commercials there's no real DVR functionality and not much available on demand the biggest red flag for many people is sling TVs single stream nature you can't watch a second stream on the same account for example a second TV in the bedroom while one stream is already playing still if you like a channel lineup and don't mind the restrictions sling TVs basic $20 price with no commitment makes it worth a try who knows you might even like it enough to ditch cable I'm David Katz buyer for Cena