If you subscribe to Sling TV—and plan to for some time—the AirTV Mini may very well be the perfect streaming gadget for you.
Unlike a Roku or Amazon Fire TV Stick, the $80 AirTV Mini is constructed round Sling’s reside TV streaming service. The Sling TV app launches mechanically when the gadget boots, and the distant has helpful shortcut buttons for navigating Sling’s menus. While you possibly can actually entry Sling by different units, none of them make it fairly as simple.
Still, anybody who has second ideas about committing to Sling ought to look elsewhere. The AirTV Mini and Sling TV are so inextricable that utilizing the streaming gadget for every other goal could be a problem, and your choices for different reside TV providers are extra restricted than they’re on different units. For most Sling subscribers, a Roku participant, Amazon Fire TV, or Apple TV will nonetheless be higher matches.
A streamer for Slingers
Though it’s a bit hefty for a streaming dongle, the AirTV Mini nonetheless manages to hold out of your tv’s HDMI enter through a brief, rubberized cable. It has a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, which is sufficient for scrolling easily by menus and launching apps at once. It additionally helps 4K HDR video in apps like Netflix and YouTube, nevertheless it gained’t show superior HDR codecs equivalent to Dolby Vision and HDR10+. While the dongle solely has a single micro-USB port for energy, you should utilize a USB OTG cable to plug in an exterior USB onerous drive or recreation controller.
Jared Newman / IDGThe Sling TV app launches mechanically when the AirTV Mini boots up.
Whenever you boot up the AirTV Mini, it masses straight into Sling TV, whether or not you’re paying for the reside TV service or not. (Read our full Sling TV review here.) The underlying software program, nevertheless, is Android TV, so you possibly can at all times hit the distant’s dwelling button to see a menu of different apps, equivalent to Netflix and YouTube. (The Sling TV menu additionally has its personal integration with Netflix, so you possibly can scroll by suggestions or bounce into the app with out visiting the primary app launcher first.)
The distant management is equally Sling-centric. Alongside the standard directional pad and playback management buttons, it has an enormous blue “Sling” launch button close to the highest. It additionally has devoted buttons for viewing the Sling TV information, the channel recall menu, and the information display screen for no matter’s presently taking part in. None of those buttons serve any goal outdoors the Sling app.
Jared Newman / IDGThe AirTV Mini distant has devoted buttons for Sling TV’s programming information, channel recall operate, and data pages.
Unlike the AirTV Player from a pair years in the past, the AirTV Mini has no full-sized USB ports, so you possibly can’t straight plug in a TV tuner to look at over-the-air channels from an antenna. Instead, you’re supposed to make use of AirTV’s networked tuner, a separate $80 field that may stream broadcast TV into the Sling app over Wi-Fi. The AirTV tuner helps USB onerous drives for recording over-the-air channels as effectively, so you would probably have a number of AirTV Mini streamers served by a single tuner and DVR. (I attempted connecting the AirTV USB tuner adapter to the Mini by an OTG cable, however this solely prompted the Sling TV app to reboot with out recognizing it. Hauppauge’s USB tuner didn’t work both.)
AirTVThe separate AirTV networked tuner ($80) can stream over-the-air channels into the Sling TV app.
Taken as an entire, the AirTV system is a handy method to mix Sling TV, different streaming apps, and non-obligatory over-the-air channels. If you’re used to how a cable field launches straight into reside TV, with distant shortcuts for most typical TV capabilities, AirTV gives an identical expertise. And combining Sling with an antenna stays a good way to economize over different reside TV streaming packages. The Sling app on Roku and different units may present the identical content material, nevertheless it’ll make you thumb by extra menus and click on extra buttons alongside the way in which.
Hitting Sling’s limits
The downside at this level will not be a lot the AirTV system, however the underlying Sling TV service.
While Sling TV has a decrease beginning worth than most different reside TV streaming providers ($25 per 30 days for both Sling’s Orange or Blue base packages), it additionally lacks native channel protection in most markets, which is an issue in case you can’t get these channels by an antenna.
Jared Newman / IDGWithout the AirTV tuner, you may not get native channels by the Sling TV app.
Sling’s company dad or mum, Dish Network, additionally tends to play hardball in its negotiations with TV networks, which is nice for retaining costs down however not excellent for sustaining a constant channel lineup. To wit: Sling hasn’t carried HBO since November, and it dropped regional Fox Sports channels—together with the YES Network in New York—in July. Having {hardware} that revolves round Sling may very well be a legal responsibility if the service loses extra channels.
Sling TV additionally continues to pull its ft on 60-frames-per-second video assist, with NBCSN, NFL Network, TNT, and CNN among the many many channels nonetheless missing these smoother framerates. The omission is more and more inexcusable as different reside streaming providers, equivalent to YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now, and Hulu with Live TV add 60-frames-per-second assist throughout all channels. The AirTV tuner doesn’t assist 60-frames-per-second video both, so that you’re additionally getting markedly inferior video high quality for native channels in case you tie in an antenna.
While we’re nitpicking: Although the AirTV Mini has a Google Assistant button on its distant for voice controls, Sling TV itself doesn’t combine with Google Assistant. That means you possibly can’t use voice instructions to launch Sling’s reside channels or on-demand programming. You can’t even discover Sling content material in Google’s top-level search outcomes, as you possibly can with PlayStation Vue.
Android TV annoyances
Even as a streaming participant for different apps moreover Sling, the AirTV Mini runs into a few of the identical issues we’ve seen with different Android TV units, equivalent to Xiaomi’s Mi Box S.
The built-in Chromecast capabilities, as an illustration, tend to cease working when the AirTV Mini is asleep, so you will need to activate the gadget with the distant earlier than you should utilize your cellphone because the distant as an alternative. The AirTV Mini additionally lacks assist for Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu says it gained’t assist the gadget as a result of it doesn’t meet the corporate’s technical necessities. (Both apps do, a minimum of, work through Chromecast.) As with the Android TV-based JBL Link Bar, PlayStation Vue was unbearably uneven in my expertise as effectively.
Jared Newman / IDGExiting the Sling TV app takes you to an ordinary Android TV launcher (with necessary prime billing for Sling).
If you resolve to cease subscribing to Sling TV, the AirTV Mini presents additional hassles. You can’t uninstall or disable the Sling TV app, nor can you progress it out of the primary place in Android TV’s favourite apps checklist. You can’t cease the gadget from booting into the Sling TV app, both, and the distant management will all of a sudden have lots of ineffective Sling-specific buttons.
All of which implies you actually need to be assured in your enjoyment of Sling TV to spend money on the AirTV Mini. More than every other streaming gadget, the AirTV Mini’s Sling-centric distant helps simplify the act of leaping into reside channels from Sling, and it even makes launching over-the-air channels simpler in case you use the separate AirTV tuner.
But one of many nice advantages of cord-cutting is the liberty and adaptability to change between streaming providers as wanted. In alternate for extra comfort round Sling TV, the AirTV Mini hinders your means to change to the competitors. That’s in all probability all the level.