Netgem TV Drops UK Price of PLEIO Freely Streaming Box Back to £99
Digital entertainment platform Netgem TV appears to have responded to British company Manhattan TV’s recent launch of Aero (here), which is a budget friendly (£69.99) 4K set-top-box that supports the new broadband-based live TV streaming service – Freely, by dropping the price of their own rival PLEIO box back from £ to its original launch price of £99.
Until a few short months ago there weren’t any streaming set-top-boxes with support for Freely, but over the past few months we’ve seen a bunch of new kit enter the market, including at the premium end with the Humax FHR-6000T (Aura EZ 4K Freely Recorder) for £249.
By comparison, neither Netgem TV’s PLEIO (retail via Amazon – affiliate link) nor Manhattan TV’s Aero are designed to fully record TV shows. Both are fairly standard but capable set-top-boxes with Freely support, while the PLEIO also ships with the added bonus of 12 months subscription to their premium content service (you don’t have to keep the subscription after it ends); this normally costs £9.99 per month. The PLEIO subscription includes access to 250+ Cloud Games and 150+ extra channels.
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Netgem TV previously had to raise the price of PLEIO due, we understand, to issues with the rising cost of RAM (system memory) and other components. At the time of writing, RAM costs remain high and yet the company has now been able to drop their price back down to £99 and while still retaining the inclusive subscription offer. This is said to be part of a special “Valentine’s offer“, but it could also be seen a response to competition.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Is there an official reason not to just make Freely available as an app on existing devices?
I can speculate sure, but I’m curious about any officially stated reason.
I was thinking the same. If they want people moved over to Freely by the early 2030s, surely getting out to an Android, iOS & webOS would be a good way to gain quicker adoption.
There has usually been a vague reference to the need for specific hardware in order to support Freely’s modern features, although they’ve rarely been specific. Some issues of exclusivity may also be at work.
Old school thinking involving device whitelisting, manufacturers paying licensing fees, and the content owners not paying for their own development. It’s why there are still TVs coming on the market that lack a random app like Channel 4 or, occasionally, iPlayer.
@Alastair
That would be my guess along with copy protection concerns, but I was curious if there is anything officially stated, especially if there is actual technical reasons I may not know of like Mark talks about.
Current business model, the next step will be either an app or administration.
Might also be some clumsy attempt at geofencing too.
The availability of a dedicated box from a recognised brand for £69 surely kills off the idea of paying £30 more to play cloud games. It didn’t work for Ouya in 2013 (I bought one of those to have an Android box connected to my bedroom TV back in the day), didn’t work for Google’s Stadia, and won’t work for the Pleio.
I will be waiting for the Manhattan, Currys lists it as out of stock & and it is yet to appear at Amazon or John Lewis. Unless you want the games it seems the far better option.