Topfield TF5810PVR Freeview

bob wilson, on December 29th, 2010
I was initially quite pleased with the upscaled picture quality. I persevered with MyStuff and TAPS, eventually got it to perform. The forum members are very helpful, but some seem to enjoy talking down to those who are not as adept as them. I became increasingly irritated at the frequent problems and system crashes. Bought a Humax HDR T2 and realised just how bad the Topfield 5810 is.

Widget, on November 10th, 2010
Owned a Toppy 5800 now for 6 years & it's the best thing since sliced bread, bought a 5810 for the larger HD & it's probably the worst thing I've ever bought. Can't understand how they could get the newer model so wrong.

Bizman, on July 4th, 2010
Had mine two weeks now and am utterly delighted with it. I haven't had a chance to install MyStuff yet so I am using it out of the box.

mr c shea, on May 10th, 2010
total crap !!!!!do not buy this pvr, you will be very very disappointed.slow remote and small buttons,most annoying,when second rec starts, playback of watched recording will stop !!! you have to find it again,and start from begining and try to fast forward. buy a humax hd-free sat,or 9300t=320gb or if you want a 500gb try humax web site.

Luke,Bristol, on April 23rd, 2010
Dont know what people moan about, loved mine, okay maybe channel ordering is a little tricky and mine has now bust after 5 years but otherwise great

Andrew Evans, Warwickshire, on April 9th, 2010
I would say that the Topfield TF5810PVRt is a great disappointment, and in no way merits its apparent status as one of the top PVRs. I can say this with confidence having owned a Humax 9200 TB, a TVonics DTR-FP-1600 (odd looking but works really well), and a Thomson DTI-1600 amongst others. In short, I am well positioned to judge from a practical ownership position. First the good points about the Topfield. i. It is a nicely made PVR (although case a bit flimsy on the top) with a good scrolling display and generally nice looking. ii. It does have an HDMI output and the picture quality up scaled to 1080i is reasonable (although certainly no better than the above). iii. My unit is fitted with a 500 GB hard drive so there is plenty of space. iv. The Altair software works for file transfer. The Humax unit supposedly could also transfer files to PC, but large transfers always failed to copy across i.e. a file for a 2 hour film. In practical terms, the Humax system doesn’t work. v. It is quite quiet and responds to the remote control quickly, although not as quiet as the TVonics and nothing like as quick. The Humax can be slow to respond. I’ll come to the remote control unit below… Now for the bad points; i. The remote control is a cheap and nasty unit. Topfield should copy TVoincs or Thomson and use their Sky based system. It is too small and an ergonomic disaster. Keys used the most should be on the top of the remote, not bottom, and should not be too small as they are on the Topfield. How this remote ever passed the design stage is beyond me for a supposed premier product. ii. The EPG is OK but only lists 4 channels. Should list at least 8. I know you can download a 3rd party MyList EPG which is comprehensive, but that’s not the point. It should be designed properly in the first place. iii. The EPG lacks a find facility. Again, available with a TAP but should have been installed in the first place. iv. And now my biggest gripe. Why doesn’t the 5810 have a resume feature!!?? I frequently stop what I watch and can usually go straight to where I left off; the Humax, Thomson and TVonics all do this. The Topfield doesn’t. Fast forwarding(and why only 16X max!) is ineffectual, and there isn’t even a skip function. In short, the Topfield 5810 is a badly designed and mediocre product. It certainly does not deserve the accolades it has collected. For a £130 PVR, I would give it 3-stars. At £229, two stars is a generous rating. I wish I had bought the new TVonics DTR-HV250.

Paul Langdon Dorset, on December 11th, 2009
I seem to have a different experience from others. Absolutely fine functionality out of the box. Yet to take advantage of the add ons which is part of why i chose the Topfield. I should add that my Humax was v.poor and consistently failed to record as the time kept freezing. Also the Topfield RC although criticised will control the volume via HDMI unlike the Humax. It would be a five but the batteries to the remote were missing. Bought mine from Peter Tyson on the web and they included a HDMI cable. I must have the sam Topfield as Phil C.

Phil C, Bucks, on November 29th, 2009
Got rid of a Humax after it kept freezing and replaced it with this as it was the only other one John Lewis had. Seems great so far - good picture, excellent features and easy to set up. Have I got the same machine as everyone else?

Maria, Cardiff, on November 12th, 2009
Bought this to replace an old Humax 9200. Plus points - good picture. Minus points - too many to mention but primary frustrations are that you can't change start and finish times of a recording; pressing the record button sets a fixed 2hr recording rather than just to the end of the current programme; box display is poor and it currently scrolls the channel name which is very distracting; on-screen messages are unclear; remote is poor and some functions counter-intuitive - volume up on the left and down on the right for example. Apparently you can download various "TAPS" to customise your box and fix some of these problems but this is only useful if you are a PC user (as opposed to a MAC user). Why these issues couldn't be addressed by the manufacture I don't know. We had it for two weeks and then returned it to John Lewis as we were becoming more and more frustrated with it.

David, Swansea, on November 6th, 2009
When you buy a Freeview recorder for £300 you expect it to do everything well out of the box. You don't expect to have to install 3rd party add-ons (TAPs) to get features that other boxes that cost £100 have as standard. If you do decide to install TAPs then system stability suffers and many TAPs are buggy when run on a TF5810. However, what you absolutely expect a £300 box to do is record your timers and series link programs reliably and accurately. The TF5810 regularly fails to do this. You also expect rock solid build quality. My TF5810 has been for repair 4 or 5 times in just 1 1/2 years of ownership. Although the TF5810 has many good features, it gets all the basics wrong.

David, Swansea, on August 5th, 2009
For a supposedly advanced PVR, there are some pretty basic features missing: Channel re-ordering (exists but affects only channel +/- not EPG) EPG text/genre search Page Up/Page Down on timers/recording screens (EPG has it, but uses non-standard << and >> buttons rather than channel +/- which every other set-top box or PVR I've ever used uses). As for the grid EPG, it shows only 4 channels at one time, which when there are around 32 channels I watch makes it pretty time consuming to find out what's on! Oh and to top it off it is back for repair for the third time!

Andy Fareham , Hampshire, on July 13th, 2009
Was meandering the internet when I came across these reviews of the Topfield 5810 and was really quite shocked ! I have owned a Topfield 5810 since January 2009 , prevously having owned a Sony PVR , and I have also just purchased a Sky+ box for the sole reason of watching Sky Sports. Of all 3 boxes the Topfield wins by a country mile, its flexibility is stunning and the service I received from the distributor Turbostat was exceptional (the first box I received had a minor cosmetic flaw). Infact having heard all of the rave reviews for Sky+ , I wa completely underwhelmed by it when I started using it a month ago. There are however caveats for my glowing praise of the Topfield box, the EPG software supplied with the box is absolute 'pants'. Fortunately there is a very dedicated and active user community out there who have developed a whole family of Topfield Apllication Programmes (TAPS) which you can install for free , visit Toppy.Org for more info. The most important of these TAPs is called 'Mystuff' and it transforms the Topfield from a Digital TV receiver with a big hard disk into the most flexible and complete PVR I have come across. Mystuff introudces the concept tof control timers , far more powerful than 'series link' it allows you to harvest the Freeview EPG data, searching out such things keywords, days of the week, channels to search in and much much more. I probably use only about 10% of the features of 'Mystuff' but it makes Sky+ look decidely second rate. Be warned though, in order to install TAPS on a Topfield you need a little but of technical knowledge , but if you are comfortable installing software on your home pc you shouldnt find it too much of a challenge. In summary an extemely fleixible and powerfull PVR, but ONLY after you have chucked away the supplied EPG software and installed TAPs. If you want something idiot proof that doesnt require fine tuning suggest you go for something like a Humax. Becasue of the need to customise it I have to give it 4 out of 5 rather than 5/5

Keith, Durham, on March 6th, 2009
Had a Topfield for 2 years. Still working great.

Richard, Cheshire, on March 1st, 2009
I'm confused now, all these reviews are negative and anyone reading them would stay well clear of this machine. I read a review from Tech Radar.com who praise it beyond anyting else. As others have found, review sites may have not actually have used or tested this machine. I havn't got one but it was on my shopping list. If we can't trust the experts to guide us consumers who are we supposed to trust? It makes me wonder if Bankers and politicians arn't the only ones who deceive fro cash.

Techathon, London, on February 15th, 2009
I'm glad Digital Spy exists to give plain, honest reviews like this. John Lewis sell this box, they should be ashamed. It fails in all areas.

James Hague, Liverpool, on January 21st, 2009
Dont want to sound negative but I have to agree with everyone else here about this box. My box has stopped updating the EPG and there are big delays in watching a recording. For a box that costs £279 from John Lewis I expected more.

Sahron Metel, Bradford, on January 13th, 2009
Got this for Christmas for the family, its now in pieces, the good people at Topfield wouldnt take it back, repair or give any advice and it didnt work, so we put it in the bin. Like everyone else says here, its a waste of cash.

Dan Clide, London, on December 26th, 2008
Got this for Christmas, utter crap, broken already!

Daniel Mount, Blocswich, on December 21st, 2008
POOR record performance: SLOW responce: BAD screen layout: EPG is pathetic: TOO expensive: WORST customer service: LOUD noise from box