4.5 / 5
Thandiwe M., Roodepoort
Ran the OpenView rescan on a second-hand decoder we sent her. Picked up 14 channels she had lost after a frequency move. Noted the antenna cable was the weak point, not the box.
What households told us after living with these setups
Ratings come from people who ran our test boxes and decoders in their own lounges, on their own fibre lines, through at least one load shedding cycle.
4 / 5
Pieter van Wyk, Bloemfontein
Kept a log of buffering on his 20 Mbps line for three weeks. DStv Stream held up during rugby, Netflix dropped resolution twice. Said the Ethernet switch fixed most of it.
5 / 5
Naledi K., Durban
Wanted parental controls that actually lock a profile. Tested two smart TV boxes with her kids over a school term. One reset the PIN after every firmware update, the other did not.
3.5 / 5
Sipho N., Gqeberha
Cancelled a subscription mid-month and timed the process. Two screens, one confirmation email, no retention call. Marked it down only because the app store gap meant no catch-up app on his older box.
Tested in homes across Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Durban and Gqeberha. Devices were bought at retail or sent in by readers; we note where each one came from in the full write-ups.