Sky Glass review (hands on): Is this the future of TV?

Our Verdict

Sky Glass is a revolutionary approach to string-cutting Tv, combining a 4K set up with a Dolby Atmos soundbar and congenital-in streaming, no dish needed.

For

• Excellent sound
• Bully new interface
• One-box-solution
• Well priced

Against

• Bulky design
• Muted colors

Tom's Guide Verdict

Heaven Drinking glass is a revolutionary approach to cord-cutting Boob tube, combining a 4K set with a Dolby Atmos soundbar and built-in streaming, no dish needed.

Pros

• +

  Splendid sound

• +

  Great new interface

• +

  I-box-solution

• +

  Well priced

Cons

• -

  Bulky design

• -

  Muted colors

After more than thirty years of delivering content to British Telly screens, Sky is cutting out the middleman and venturing into Television receiver hardware itself, in the grade of Sky Glass.

What is Sky?

If y'all're reading this outside of the U.Thou., you might not know what Heaven is — which is fair enough, equally it's mainly a histrion in the U.K. and Europe. Heaven provides broadband, mobile and cablevision TV services, makes streaming boxes and has dozens of its own channels. It also offers original programs, and broadcasts almost large sporting fixtures in the U.K."

And it's something of a revolutionary product: Sky Glass is an all-in-ane 4K Television set, with the full Sky Q television set parcel built in, plus a Dolby Atmos soundbar. What's more, there's no need for a satellite dish or prepare-acme box — instead, Sky'due south TV service is delivered over Wi-Fi, with an updated user interface that aims to bring you lot more of the content you lot dear, no matter where it comes from.

That ways Sky programmes sit nicely aslope your favorites from the best streaming services. Netflix, iPlayer, Disney+ and many more are here, meaning no dipping in and out of different apps to get to what yous want to scout. It could spell the terminate of the satellite dish as we know it.

And so, is this the ultimate all-in-one home movie house package? We got a closer look at it at Heaven'due south London launch event to find out. Read on for our Heaven Glass hands-on review.

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Sky Glass review: Price and availability

Heaven Glass volition be available to buy in the U.Chiliad. from October eighteen and will be bachelor in three screen sizes: 43in (Southward), 55in (1000) and 65in (50). They will all have the same specification, then yous'll get the same experience no thing the screen size you choose.

Sky Glass S will retail at £649, M will be £849 and Fifty will be £one,049. However, in another revolutionary approach, Sky will offering customers the selection of paying for their Tv as part of their monthly Sky subscription, in the same way as you would a mobile phone contract.

You can pay for your TV over a 24 or 48 calendar month contract, meaning it starts at £13 per calendar month for the 43in, £17 per calendar month for the 55in and £21 for the 65in. The price of your chosen Heaven packages go on top of that, with the toll of the Sky Ultimate Telly package coming in at £26 a calendar month — which includes your subscription to Netflix.

You'll have to pay an actress £5 per calendar month for Sky Ultra HDR and Dolby Atmos, plus farther uplifts for Heaven Sports (£25p/1000), BT Sports (£24p/one thousand), Sky Cinema (£11p/m) and Sky Kids (£5p/m).

The adept news is these are all on rolling 31-day contracts, and so yous can conform your contract to adapt your needs every month, if needs be. Not to mention you lot'll be able to upgrade your Television receiver as and when a new fix becomes available, but as you would your mobile phone.

Interested? You tin can pre-register for Sky Glass now.

Sky Drinking glass review: Blueprint

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Compared with the super-slim TVs that make up our best TVs guide, Sky Glass looks pretty beefy, to say the least.

That's considering there's a lot more than going on here than just a 4K screen. It holds six speakers for handling Dolby Atmos sound, which are positioned below the TV (for the center channel and sub), either side of it, and along the top.

There'south also a built-in wall mountain and a discreet, color-matched stand that makes the TV look similar it'southward just balanced on its lesser edge.

Thankfully, it manages to pull off the chunkier look with considerable conviction, and is available in a pick of five colors to conform your decor, with a brushed anodised aluminum finish.

The grille along the bottom is customisable, too. It comes in a standard gray speaker mesh, just you tin can alter the fascia to lucifer the TV, or even opt for one of the more bold limited-edition designs.

Equally far every bit connectivity goes, everything offered equally part of Sky Glass requires simply the power cord and Wi-Fi. There are three due east-ARC HDMI ports should y'all wish to connect devices, such equally a games console or Blu-ray histrion, but otherwise Sky reckons you'll be gear up to go within ten minutes out of the box.

Sky Drinking glass review: User interface

(Epitome credit: Tom's Guide)

At the heart of Sky Drinking glass is Sky'due south new user interface, which takes a lot of what we dearest about Sky Q simply simplifies information technology, so finding the content you want to watch is a lot easier.

While we've become used to dipping in and out of unlike apps to get to all the content we love, that doesn't hateful it'due south not annoying. Sky wants to tackle that by placing its content alongside that from partners including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All iv and YouTube, to name a few.

That means you'll be able to admission programmes from these partners within Sky Glass, in a single experience, without having to open up another app.

On the new homescreen, yous'll notice a carousel of personalized recommended content from all partners, based on your viewing experiences. Scroll through all of this to the correct, or roll left and access recently watched content, apps, channels and even inputs.

Whorl down and you'll find separate tabs for genres, as well every bit the TV guide, which has as well had a tweak. To help yous get to the content you desire, Heaven has produced a simplified 'Now and Next' carousel for your most-watched channels, or you tin customize this if you prefer.

Of course, the total TV guide is at that place likewise, just as Sky users will call back it, with a curlicue wheel for separating it out into genres every bit earlier.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Another key new feature is something chosen Playlist, which replaces traditional recording. There is no hard drive in Sky Glass — instead, there's a "+" button on the remote, which will place content yous want to watch into a hub, which is then stored in the cloud. This ways no recording limits due to a limited number of tuners, and no hard-drive limits either.

Once you choose to place something in your Playlist, Sky Drinking glass will pull other episodes from that aforementioned programme into it too, so it's e'er ready to become. That might involve borer into different serial on different platforms, depending on availability, simply yous'd never know the difference — it's all presented as a Sky Drinking glass experience, badged up with the core provider on the thumbnail.

The only annoying part? Sky will surface content whether you're subscribed to that service or not. So you might discover yourself clicking into things that you can't actually spotter, without a further subscription (though think, Netflix is included in Sky Drinking glass' basic parcel). Heaven says its algorithm will learn what you can and tin can't admission over time and prioritize the content that'due south free to you, merely time volition tell as to how effective this is.

Playlist is also currently unpersonalized, so everyone in the household'south Playlist content volition appear in the same space, and can't be separated out. Sky has said it is working on this, though, with profiles or similar likely to arrive later, and so look that to change in the not-then-distant future.

Sky Glass review: Features

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Sky Glass features a number of handy smart features to make the user feel even smoother.

This includes far-field voice search, which means you lot won't need to press a push button on your remote to use vocalisation functionality (though this remains available if y'all prefer).

Merely say "Hello Sky" and a command — be that a aqueduct, a genre, role player or a specific bear witness — and Sky Glass volition jump into activeness to find information technology. You tin can even control the Tv set with your vocalization, including navigating to HDMI ports based on what's plugged in. Maxim "Hello Sky, Xbox," for example, will take you to the relevant HDMI for your Xbox Serial Ten or Series Southward.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

A further smart feature is called Glance, which uses motility-detection engineering to wake the Tv when you enter the room and displays personalized content on the screen based on your Goggle box habits — nigh similar a screensaver. All you need to do to start watching is option up the remote and information technology will swoop direct into the home screen, without you needing to press a button.

There are further plans for this in terms of on-screen content, with talk of weather, news and artwork, that will aid ensure your TV is not only a black screen in the middle of the most sociable room of the business firm.

Every bit for other rooms in the firm, Sky has announced the Sky Puck, which gives yous the Sky Glass feel on other screens you might already have, at an extra cost of £10

Sky Glass review: Performance and first impressions

Sky Glass uses a 10-flake 4K Tv set panel with quantum dot engineering science, which is the tech institute in the best Samsung TVs. Nonetheless, Sky has been quick to ostend that it has sourced and produced all of the hardware itself, so there are no other parties involved on that front.

In terms of HDR, the Television receiver supports HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision and features Intelligent Zonal Engineering science for its backlighting, promising "darker darks and brights that look brighter." This is supported past an auto mode for moving-picture show and audio — aimed at delivering the most appropriate pic and sound settings for what you're watching at the time.

That's null new, just is handy if yous ofttimes experience confused by TV settings and desire to get out those complexities in the hands of AI. Television receiver tweakers can override this and volition have access to some custom picture settings, but don't expect to be able to adapt it much beyond the acme-level stuff.

In terms of how it looks, from our cursory demo, it'south arguably non going to bother the high end of the market — but then we don't expect that was the goal. This is about, as Sky told usa, getting the "all-time feel to the most people." So, if you lot wait a mid-range cinematic performance, with a height-notch user interface, you've got information technology about right.

That means colors are a little more muted than we've seen elsewhere, and the opening scene of Mad Max in Dolby Vision lacks the punch that we're used to seeing in the very best. But outlines are crisp, there'southward a proficient amount of detail there and contrast, from initial impressions, looks good too.

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

However, information technology's the sound that really steals the show. The Dolby Atmos performance from the congenital-in soundbar goes loud, wide and sounds very solid indeed. From a TV that costs £849 at its middle (and probable most pop) offer, information technology'southward got to be one of the most confident audio performances we've heard at this price.

But what happens if your Wi-Fi goes down?

Although the bulk of the service is delivered wirelessly, Sky Glass has a back-up Tv aeriform input that can access standard over-the-air channels should your broadband connection go down.

Heaven has confirmed that 98% of Wi-Fi users in the U.K. should be fine to have Sky Glass installed with their connection as it stands, and it also won't pig your network in a manner that would bear upon anything else y'all want to do online while viewing.

Sky Glass review: Outlook

At that place'southward no dubiousness that Heaven Glass offers a revolutionary have on TV every bit nosotros know it. With no demand for a dish or a box, and the simplicity of a one-wire setup, it takes all the complexity of buying a new Idiot box away and blends it with a seamless content experience that hasn't really been available until now, in the U.K. at to the lowest degree.

Its operation may non carp the all-time in the market, but we suspect that won't matter. This is about bringing the experience of 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos to people who may accept been scared off past the idea of cutting the cord before — whether from a tech or toll perspective.

Heaven says Sky Glass offers approximately a xxx per centum price saving based on ownership a similarly specced TV and Atmos soundbar separately, only information technology's the convenience of it that we doubtable is really going to land with consumers more than anything.

Being able to pay for the toll of your TV with your Boob tube subscription is a real game changer and will aid to bring better hardware to more people, so the content they're watching tin be enjoyed and experienced as information technology should exist.

We're looking frontwards to taking a full look at Sky Glass when it launches in the U.Yard. on October 18. Cheque dorsum for our full review then.

Verity has been writing well-nigh technology for most 15 years, and has contributed to the likes of What Hello-Fi?, Stuff, Wired, Metro, Evening Standard and TechRadar, to name a few. She has item experience in audio and Telly reviews, which ways she's usually listening to music or watching movies, and passing it off as piece of work. You'll always find her in the living room, recalibrating terrible Television receiver settings, at parties.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/sky-glass

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