The best boxes to record and watch TV

The Aura is Humax’s most recent set-top box, offering 4K HDR support and plenty of storage. It’s not perfect but it’s competitive when put against other Freeview boxes.

The design of the Aura mimics Sky Q in its aesthetics: a black, sleek, and curvy effort than the older FVP-5000T. We do find that the glossy sheen can pick up dust and requires a wipe every so often. We’re not fond of the remote packaged with the Aura. It’s large, stuffed with buttons and the feedback is stiff.

Android is the interface of choice, divided into four tabs. The home screen can be customised and there are lots of shelves to scroll through, however traversing the interface isn’t always the speediest experience with a little lag noticeable. It’s the one area where we feel the Aura should be better.

In terms of apps there is plenty to choose from within video, music, sports, and fitness; from Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV+, ITVX, Paramount+, TikTok, Mubi, Deezer, Roxi, Discovery+, and more. It’s not as many as Fire TV, Google TV, or Roku, but it’s a strong enough roster of apps. If you’re looking to record content, there 1TB and 2TB versions available.

With its AV performance, there are positive gains in overall sharpness, clarity, and detail with HD broadcasts. Noise is pretty much removed. It’s with HDR content where the Humax Aura struggles the most as it only supports HDR10 and not Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Playback of HDR streams have a dimmer appeareance with less contrast than Dolby Vision streams.

With music the Aura delivers a dynamic and snappy performance streaming from Spotify. It sounds clean and neutral in tone, showing plenty of skill in navigating the differences between quiet and loud, with a performance that’s spacious, clear, and well defined. This is a solid if expensive Freeview set-top box. Manhattan has launched the T4R and T4 recording/streaming boxes and we’ll be looking to review those models soon.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Humax Aura