I don’t think anyone expected Foxtel group would be launching as 2024 but they’ve done just that, and for most people, it’ll be a perfectly great TV that has a decent picture, great sound and provides an all-in-one TV and streaming solution just like the Hubbl puck.
The TV comes in 65-inches and 55-inches and in five different colours, black, blue, green pink and white all which have a matching colour remote. I’ve seen mixed thoughts on the design, but I actually quite like it especially if you’re somebody who wants a TV with a design that feels different to that of just your standard black box.
When it comes to the stand, it’s a fairly minimalist design there as well, with it being super easy to put together and it not taking away from the TV design at all.
My only criticism is that it is quite thick, although this is for good reason. It has a soundbar built-in that offers Dolby Atmos surround sound with 3 outwards firing speakers, 2 upfiring speakers and a subwoofer. This is by the best sound that I’ve heard from a TV with a great amount of bass and a surprisingly decent amount of directional audio. Obviously, when comparing to an external surround sound system, it still won’t compete but if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution it does a great job.
When it comes to the actual panel, it’s a 4K Quantom Dot panel with local dimming and Dolby Vision/HDR 10 compatibility. It’s a fairly mid-tier panel by today’s standards, which isn’t surprising given the tech inside the TV is quite old. If you’re a general user, you’ll probably be totally happy with the TV, but there are better options at this price point without doubt. The colours pop and it has a good amount of brightness with 78 total dimming zones in the 55-inch version and 112 in the 65-inch version.
It has three HDMI 2.1 ports, but unfortunately, it only has a 60Hz refresh rate, so if you’re a gamer, you can’t take advantage of 120hz gameplay which is a shame as from a ports point of view, it has the capability, and it’d be a hard recommendation to make if you’re going to be using this primarily for gaming, but I can’t imagine that’ll be the case for many people.
As far as other inputs go, it has an Ethernet port as well as an antenna port, but obviously you’ve got Wi-FI and can even access free-to-air without the aerial which we’ll get into in a bit. As far as the Hubbl features go, it’s quite similar to the experience you get in the $99 Hubbl puck, with a few differences. Obviously, because there’s a TV built-in, the UI accounts for things such as picture and sound modes as well as accessing your HDMI sources, and in Hubbl fashion, this is all really easy to use and understand.
There’s a few other unique elements including an in-built microphone with a switch that can be either controlled with a physical switcher or by using the UI, and this is used even when the TV is off to turn it on or quickly go to a channel or search for an actor, and it works really well. There’s also some other features that are supposed to be technology that can detect whether you’re in the room to turn it off and on but I couldn’t get this to work properly at the time of writing.
The setup process is fairly easy, especially if you’ve already got a Binge or Kayo account in which case you can log straight in. After connecting to Wi-Fi, you can either connect an aerial to get your free-to-air channels in or put in your postcode where it’ll pull in all the local channels from your location once you sign into the free-to-play apps. I will preface this by saying that I’m in Metro Melbourne, so if you’re regional, your mileage might vary in terms of what channels pull in digitally.
You then want to login to your various streaming apps, and for a select few such as Netflix and Disney Plus, Hubbl can even manage subscriptions which is one of the most exciting things about the device. Not only can you pull all of your subscriptions into one handy page to see your total monthly fee and easily manage all subscriptions, you can save between $5 and $15 per month for having three to five streaming services in your Hubbl stack. At the time of writing these include Binge, Netflix, Kayo, Flash and Lifestyle, but hopefully others will be added over time to make it truly useful.
Hubbl’s greatest benefit is that it does a better job at anything else on the market in pulling in all streaming services (bar the likes of Stan and Paramount which are coming soon) as well as free-to-air TV into one really great curated and easy to use experience. There’s already a load of great curated sections on the homepage and it’s a weird, but fantastic experience seeing the likes of Netflix next to 9 Now content and Disney Plus content next to 10 Play content.
Whilst it’s a great selection of curated content currently, I do hope that we see more personalisation as I’m almost certain that everyone’s experience will be the same out of the box in day one, so I’d love to see recommendations that are specific to me.
You’re able to pick and choose content directly from the home screens, or various sections which will take you directly to the content in-app, or there’s also all of the apps if you prefer a more traditional experience for each of them as well. Your continue watching section at the top of home screen will keep tabs of your current position or FTA channel that you’re watching.
There’s also a TV Guide which pulls in all of those previously mentioned free-to-air channels as well as content from Kayo, Binge and Flash. It’s similar to what you’d find in Foxtel, but again, considering this is available even when you don’t have an aerial plugged in, this feels like the first time that we can actually ditch that cord without having a subpar experience.
Arguably my favourite feature of Hubbl is the Watchlist feature, which is represented as a plus button on the remote. You can add in various TV series or movies from any of the streaming services or free-to-air channels (except Netflix at launch) and have one watch list containing content from all of the services.
For the most part, I was really impressed with the entire watching experience. Apart from the few missing streaming services missing, and the likes of Netflix not being in Watchlist, and a few other weird glitches like Kayo/Binge 4K content not appearing on my device, it was a much preferred experience to viewing all of these content within my Smart TV or even Foxtel.