Review: Sony LocationFree

Only a few months ago, the notion of having your home TV and video beamed to you wherever you are on the planet would have sounded like science fiction.

Very quickly though, there are now two products that claim to do that very thing – Sling Media’s Slingbox and Sony’s LocationFree.

While the Slingbox can be relatively confident about backing up its claims, it seems like the future might still be a little way off for Sony.

As with the Slingbox, LocationFree connects to your Sky+, cable, Freeview box or DVD recorder and uses an infrared device to provide ‘remote’ remote control.

It has built-in wireless to communicate locally, but can also be connected via a router to the internet in order to send what’s on the box at home to either a mobile PC or PlayStation Portable console.

The main difference is that LocationFree doesn’t have its own built-in Freeview tuner and can only be used with one PC at a time, unless you pay £20 to register another system.

In terms of design, LocationFree is certainly the more sober of the two devices. A plain, slate-grey box about the size of two DVD boxes stacked together, the unit makes nothing like the kind of visual statement that its rival does.

And, depending on your point of view, this might not necessarily be a bad thing.

Unfortunately, this is about the only aspect where the LocationFree compares favourably. While the Slingbox is certainly no cinch to set up, for instance, getting going with LocationFree proved – in our case anyway – something of a nightmare.

After several days, multiple calls to helpdesk staff (who told us they were still awaiting proper LocationFree training and refused to provide any support for PlayStation Portable users at the time of writing), our main problem seemed to be compatibility issues with our router and ISP.

We were able to sort it out in the end, but not before we had been thoroughly frustrated by both the complexity of setting up the system and the lack of decent help available.

After the blood, sweat and tears, the actual on-screen picture was a bit of a let down, particularly on the PC. While watchable, it was quite blocky and, for some reason, it was impossible to switch to anything other than the default aspect ratio, which meant that widescreen programmes were displayed incorrectly.

On our PlayStation Portable, things were a bit better. The small-screen picture looked less blocky and programmes were displayed in the right format.

Again, it wasn’t the easiest of interfaces to work with, but then PlayStation Portable owners are already used to slightly awkward controls in many of the device’s built-in media applications.

We didn’t particularly enjoy our time with the LocationFree player. Admittedly, if and when you finally get it working, it’s pretty cool – particularly on a PlayStation Portable – but with far too many flaws and severely limited support, we find it very hard to recommend.

For the moment, if you’re looking for a way to keep up with local TV and watch your video collection anywhere in the world, Slingbox is the way to go. Poor pictures, limited options and poor support (at the time of writing) means Sony really must try harder with this one.

Also consider:
Sling Media Slingbox
A fantastic piece of modern technology, but you’ll need a fast broadband connection to really put it to good use
£180
4/5

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