Vodafone TV (The One) goes in the direction of the saying that "less means more". Practically, the application you use on your phone or tablet is somehow complementary and synchronized with the hardware equipment, so that you can control all the video content (Live TV and streaming) you consume, in a centralized and well-organized way.
Besides the software part that we will discuss in detail, the solution also requires a hardware part: a router and a media box.
The router
The router is a robust tool in metal clothes, and I was surprised by the good quality and its functions, especially for a router that somehow comes in a package and package with the rest of the services: 4 ports for connecting devices via cable and for Wi-Fi, beamforming, MU-MIMO, 2.4 and 5GHz, good coverage area (I tested it in a space of over 100m2) and the results were impressive .
On cable, in my tests, the internet speed was around 900Mbps, and on WiFi around 500. However, the upload is limited, this is something I would pass to the negatives, something like a maximum of 50Mbps, my measurements showing 30-40, but this is not a limitation of the router, but of the subscription. Of course, for most users, who are mostly passive consumers of content, the one that matters is obviously the download. The router is therefore solid, you can use it quietly on cable at almost 1Gbps/s, or on WiFi at half that speed, even on a large surface the signal is ok.
Mediabox
The second piece of equipment that comes with the package is the mediabox, a black box actually responsible for the magic. And the connection happens like this: you connect the mediabox to the router with an ethernet cable, and from there you go out with a coaxial cable to the TV. All your content consumption happens in and through this mediabox, that one device to rule them all, which centralizes content consumption, be it Live TV, VOD or streaming from related platforms.
And to all this is added the possibility of pausing and viewing the respective content later, even if it is Live TV, recording, programming and recording, and so on. But we will discuss each of them in their own time. So the media box is the second element of this set-up and undoubtedly the central one, and with its remote control you "control" the content.
Vodafone TV application
And the third element of this set-up, of this package from Vodafone, is the application on the phone. Vodafone TV is available on iOS and Android, it is installed extremely quickly and simply, you create an account and you're good to go. Why the application is important: because it contains almost everything and allows excellent and very simple control of the entire system directly from the phone. From the moment you open it, it synchronizes with the media box.
Functions and capabilities in the app
The connection process went flawlessly and in a few seconds I had the mediabox recognized in the application. In the main "Home" section you will find a long list of channels, all available for subscription. Not only can you command and control them from your phone, play, pause, record, etc., but you can send them to the TV via mediabox, you can record and watch later what you recorded, you can watch the program from the beginning, you can rewind, you can set parental control, you can see in real time what is playing on the TV at that moment, so you have a bunch of smart and simple functions.
You have notifications about the recordings, the list of downloads, (which you can choose to do either only via WiFi or via the mobile data subscription), cloud storage space, and the possibility to manually or automatically delete the recordings. The application is an excellent companion for the entire set-up, it still has small hiccups here and there, but otherwise it is very practical and well made.
Vodafone TV system as a whole
Let's now move on to the actual part of the content and how it happens. You basically have two sources that Vodafone TV integrates: Live TV, with all the functions described earlier and the streaming part.
Live TV
On the Live TV side, in addition to all the functions described before, replay, recording, pause, etc., it is also the first media box available with us for 4K. Maybe for many this thing is not so relevant, because there are not many Live TV channels in this resolution, unfortunately there are only 3, Insight, Eurosport 4K and Look TV 4K, but the media box is future proof, you count this aspect as others will appear.
But here I also have an observation: the 4K channels are not available in the Vodafone TV application either, so you will not find them in the list, you can only access them from the remote control directly through the mediabox, and the application shows you what is running on the TV at that moment, but it doesn't show you which channel or other details.
Video streaming
On the streaming side, you can load your Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO GO and YouTube accounts into the mediabox, part of them being, as we know, 4K, depending on the subscription. Except HBO GO which is not 4K. So you can synchronize all your video streaming accounts with the mediabox and have them all in one place: Live TV and all your streaming accounts.
Netflix and Prime
Netflix and Prime went great, you have shortcuts on the remote control for both and you can hot swap, or rather hot switch between them and Live TV. There are times when the mediabox seems to be thinking a little, but nothing to annoy you or waste your time. The services are going well and I quickly got used to this system of having everything in one place, on one remote control.
Hbo GO
Only HBO GO has some sort of glitch. You cannot hot switch from the remote control directly in it. If from Netflix you can switch to Prime and from Prime to Live TV and from there back to Netflix or YouTube, with HBO Go the situation is not the same. You must either go to the Home menu on the Vodafone TV TV, (actually the media box), or be on Live TV to access HBO Go directly from the remote control. Those from HBO understand that they were asked to develop an html5 app for this media box, which would have allowed including this hot swap, but it was a bit complicated and difficult. And I suspect that they didn't beat their heads too hard either, because the roll-out of HBO Max is coming next year anyway, which solves all these problems and will replace this rather weak application called HBO Go anyway. So the cat is not in the yard of the media box and the Vodafone TV system, but is with the content provider itself.
Youtube
As for Youtube, that too is integrated and works flawlessly. So basically you gather in the same place everything that means Live TV, including 4K stations, streaming services and platforms like YouTube, on the same application, on the same equipment. The application on the TV, like the one on the phone, is quite simple and intuitive, and gives you access in an organized way to all the resources centralized in a single platform.
Another observation is that they have not integrated the streaming platforms in the phone application in any way. They thought that you probably already have them installed on your terminal, phone or tablet, and that if you access them from there, you can anyway send the respective content directly to the TV via mediabox, although the Vodafone TV application on the phone still shows you at the bottom what is currently playing on TV (Prime, Youtube or Netflix). If you don't want to use the phone at all, then you can still access them directly from the remote control.
Functionality and conclusions
The Vodafone TV solution is very flexible and well integrated, there are a few things I have to complain about, maybe this thing on the phone app that doesn't show me the channels 4K in the list and the story with HBO Go, which will most likely be replaced by HBO Max.
There are other interesting things, for example you can select channels and Live TV programs to record for the last 7 days to see or review them later, you have access to them also from your phone, you have this Push to TV that I have already talked about, you have parental control and the management of the screen-time of the little ones, you have video on demand directly from the mediabox or from the application, (over 3000 hours of films, series, documentaries and kids content), you have Restart TV which gives you the opportunity to see from the beginning a program that is already running LIVE on the TV, or the so-called Catch up TV which allows you to see the programs that were already broadcast up to a week ago (and the channels that supports this function are marked), possibility of scrolling, recording in real time, or scheduling a future recording, so a lot of facilities.
That's why I said at the beginning that Vodafone TV seems to have focused not so much on specifications and hardware, but on software and experience, because in the end the experience is what matters, and this Vodafone TV is an experience simplified consumption. It does not bring the fastest router, the most powerful box, or the fastest net, but focuses on an ecosystem that integrates very well multiple content resources and puts them together in a logical and organized way. You don't need to access each content distributor from your own and separate account, but you have them all aggregated and integrated in one platform.
One More Thing
For the Vodafone TV app on your phone to work in combination with the media box, they must be on the same network, in Romanian, on the same network on the same router. And I wondered if they are only related to the router that comes in the package. Answer, no! As long as the phone and the media box are on the same WiFi network, the system will work. Our Mercusys mesh that covers the whole office is connected to the Vodafone router, so I connected the mediabox to the mesh, having the phone also on the mesh network, and it went very well, as long as the primary connection also originates in the Vodafone router.
Costs
The content consumption experience on Vodafone TV, be it Live TV or streaming, is very good and uniform but... how much does this entertainment cost? If you are a new customer, it is 10 euros per month, more precisely 9.9, so about 50 lei. If you already have a Vodafone subscription, it is 2 euros less, that is 8, but with 500Mbps net and without HBO included. The top version, the one I tested, which is exactly the same, only that the internet is at 1Gbps and also has HBO, is a little over 16 euros, or 14.4 if you already have a subscription to Vodafone. So I would say that the best deal as a new customer is the 10 euro package. As far as I know, this offer started recently and I understand that it will be valid until somewhere around January 2022. Enjoy watching!