Manhattan TV Reviews 72

If I had seen Trustpilot reports on the Manhattan TR-4 Recorder I would have never bought this unit. I do have other recorders a Sony & Phillips, but they are running out of space, hence my purchase of the Manhattan T4-R recorder. I have now had the Manhattan T4-R recorder for about a week and record various programs for the following week, which range from programs that are BBC1, Channel 4 and accross all of the channels that are on Freeveiw. Only half the programs was actually recorded even though it had the Record Symbol against the program to be recorded, and of those programs that were actually recorded, most of those programs had picture freezing spots when playing the program back. That is to say the picture would freeze for a moment several time during playback then try and catch up with the sound. As a test I have recorded the same program on three recorders a Manhattan a Sony and philips recorder. The Sony & Phillips recorders played back the program perfectly, the Manhattan T4-R had freezing spots on playback.
When reporting this to Manhatton's Tech Support and explainning the problem, the Tech Support went off at a rate of knots spouting off all sorts of technical jargon and would not let me speak at all, which is absolutly RUDE. Manhatton's Tech Support considers that there is nothing wrong with their Manhatton T4-R and would not listen to a word I was saying. If their Tech Support will not allow their customers to get a word in edgeways when customers report problems to them, then they must already know about the problems and pitfalls of this unit. If Tech Support is not prepared to listen to their customers then their Tech Support is non exsiting and they are just as bad as the reliability of their products. Buying the Manhattan T4-R is a waste of time & money and is absolutly a load of rubbish. Just look at the complaints on Trustpilot.
I urge those that are looking for a TV recorder not to buy a Manhattan T4-R, buy something else instead.
Derek Gutteridge

Aero 4k freely box freezing during every advert contacted support gave me a work around still not fixed now ignoring my emails usually British manufactured rubbish

The device I purchased from Amazon uk mid Jan 2026, Model T4-R 2TB, was faulty from day one it now appears. However, due to nature of the fault it took me several weeks to confirm this. Basically, the device refused to wake up from standby mode, not always immediately, but at indeterminate intervals. What this actually meant was that scheduled programs wouldn't get recorded because device wouldn't wake to record them! And neither could you power up the device from from remote when in this state. In fact the only way to recover the device was to unplug power cable, and then reinsert it.
Now, after checking Amazon uk returns policy, which informed me that my device was just outside the 30day returns window, I decided to contact MANHATTAN TV for support since the device came with an one year warranty.(Two years, but only if you register- Is that even enforceable?) Anyway, that was a big mistake. After explaining my situation, and that I wanted to return item for a refund their attitude was one of well, we don't do refunds, but if you want to return it to us, at your expense, then we will look at it. And while legally, they may have been within the law, their attitude felt like they were almost saying it was incidental that we make the things, because Amazon sold it to you so tough.Nice when a company excepts responsibilty for their products eh!

So here I was with a device that cost me around £240 pounds just a few weeks before, and no way to get a refund. I decided to go back to Amazon, and speak to their support, and fortunately they chose to do the right thing and make a full refund.

Moral of story is, DON'T buy Manhattann TV's recorders, because not only are the devices of poor general quality in my opinion, but also their support is equally unresponsive! Yes, they seem like a good deal, but stick to Humax would be my suggestion.
Finally, why does MANHATTAN TV appear to have several review sections on Trustpilot - all bad scores, I might add?

Aero box is a fantastic product; any technical queries answered expertly by Alex.

I wish i had read these reviews before purchasing.....the picture is rubbish and who the hell designed the remote control...no dots to show you where you are in the dark ...not as good as my 8 year old BT box......

Bought the T4R 1 week ago. Everything was great till today when there was a 'hard drive error'. Waiting for response from customer 'help' team. Not confident that I've bought a reliable machine.

I've just returned my T4R to Amazon after just 48hrs.
It frequently failed to display the HDMI link on the screen of my TV.
It missed recording programs because it said there had been a power cut, no such thing happened.
When it was managing to actually record a program, or I was watching one, it would not respond to the remote control.
In order to restore control of the T4R, I would have to switch it off and back on again, which meant that if it was recording at the time, the recording was lost along with all the other programs if failed to record!
I sent an email to Manhattan for help, but they never replied, it would seem that their customer service is as bad as the reliability of their products.

Worst TV recorder l have bought. So many quirks and very unreliable. Customer service couldn't explain all the problems with it. A waste of money.

SD PICTURE IS FUZZY ie NOT SHARP AT THE EDGES. TECH SUPPORT WOUDN'T ACCEPT THAT SAYING IT'S A MATTER OF PREFERENCE AND QUOTED HIS OWN PREFERENCE AS SD.
BBC SUBTITLES DIFFICULT TO GET. TECH SUPPORT SAYS TRANSMITTER MAINTENANCE COULD BE FAULT AND RECENT UPDATE COULD BE THE FAULT CAUSE. A FURTHER UPDATE IS DUE, HASN'T HAPPENED YET, 7th JAN 26. WILL ANOTHER UPDATE CAUSE FURTHER FAULTS I WONDER,
PICTURE FROZE MULTIPLTE TIMES RECENTLY,LASTED ABOUT 20 SECONDS EACH TIME. 1 OR 2 MINUTES OF OK PICTURE AND SUBTITLES IN BETWEEN. THIS FAULT CLEARED AFTER ABOUT HALF AN HOUR. TECH SUPPORT RESPONSE WAS LOTS OF JARGON.
ALL IN ALL I RECOMMEND DON'T BUY.

Absolute rubbish. Takes minutes to switch on and knocks itself off regularly for a few seconds. Don't waste your money on this rubbish.

Google says The T4 is the best, Having had a T2 before and only lasting less than 2 years because the hard drive failed I will not be buying a T4.

I bought a Manhattan T4-R box to replace my Humax FVP-5000. The Humax had given good service but was failing and has been replaced with the Humax Aura, which wasn't getting great reviews. Setup was quick and easy with only one problem which was the Channel 5 streaming app kept freezing then crashing and the box restarting. Everything else was fine. I emailed Manhattan and 2 working days later received a very clear email from Abdul taking me step by step through installing the latest update (not yet available when using "Update software" in the Settings menu). This resolved the problem and the box has been great since. A small issue I found was when I turned on the TV occasionally the Manhattan would turn off but this resolved itself when I used the HDMI-CEC link on my LG TV so both TV and Manhattan now turn on and off from the same remote so presumably the separate remotes were interfering with each other.
After 2 weeks of use I'm appreciating the technical advances made since the Humax was made and just keeping my fingers crossed for reliability from the Manhattan.
Update. Since writing my review I have contacted Manhattan's customer services team twice. The first was a minor issue when the box wouldn't switch on one morning; I had a comprehensive reply which explained the issue to me and the steps being taken to try and address this (it is a problem not wholly within the company's control so they are working with others on a solution). The second time was a suggestion concerning how programme guide information is displayed - I prefer one channel at a time and (usually) just scrolling through my Favourites. At present this requires a few button presses. The reply I received thanked me for my suggestion and said it would be forwards to the relevant people for consideration. And unusually - I think it probably has been.So far I've been very happy with the T4-R box and the customer care side of the business so I'm surprised at the poor ranking on this site.

The T4-R is useless. It has a mind if it's own. Frequently fails to record. Often cuts recording short due to 'loss of signal' even though the tv works fine. Cuts recordings short despite 10 minute padding added. Tech support is rubbish and fob you off with technical jargon that makes no sense, not even to them. Customer support is zero.

Don't rush to respond to the message that I sent will you? The T4R recorder is now becoming a useless brick not recording scheduled programs. When we do a recording it will just carry on and not stop when program has finished. When we try and switch to a channel through the guide it puts a 🔔 on as though we want to be notified that the program is about to start. Also when live paused it keeps showing a program at the bottom of the screen which was on 2 days ago!

this review is only about the Manhattan t4 other products maybe fine !
it is advertised as 4k it is not really ! it has 4k output but only at 25 hz which is unviewable , even in normal mode the picture is poor due to the upscaling to my 4k LG TV , the digital sound was also not great .
only suitable for cheap standard TV sets . the aps was not very reliable either bah .

I purchased a Manhattan T4-R 500GB recorder to replace an obsolete YouView box..
Everything works perfectly apart from when you watch live TV through the set top box. The picture keeps freezing momentarily. It is extremely frustrating.
This obviously also affects the recording.
Maybe I was just unlucky..........?

I bought a Manhattan T3-R Freeview recorder From Amamzon in December 23 and after 18/19 months the hard drive failed meaning I could no longer record, paue or rewind live tv. I complained to Manahattan who said I should have taken out an extended warranty and I pointed out that an item that fails in so short a period does not meet the criteria of the Consumers Rights Act 2015. They referred me to their T&Cs which left me baffled. With hindsight I should have done more research before buying by looking at Trust Pilot, Which? and if I knew then what I know now I would never have bought it. Best avoided.

Manhattan T4.R 500gb I bought this to replace our virgin box as getting very expensive. So for the price it is a good quality bit of kit easy to set up and information book easy to follow only had it a week and find it very easy to use.

How do we give zero stars ? The buggiest freeview box i've ever had the misfortune to own. Remote control randomly stops working, and only a power off and back on with the box itself will restore the remote control. There's a host of other silly bugs in this T3R but too many to bother listing. Just bear in mind that i also have a Humax Foxsat and Humax Fox T2 freeview box, both bought 2nd hand years ago, so they were already old, but they both still work pretty near faultlessly. How the manufacturers can manage to build this much more modern box with such poor performance, and sell this rediculous pile of manure to the public, is unfathomable.

Apart from a few minor niggles (really don’t like the layout of keys on the remote), the convenience of a Freeview recording box means that I can put off the evil day when streaming is the only option - looking at you Freely. I bought the T4-R last year and love the choices it provides. Regular firmware updates iron out any existing issues and introduce new features including the very-welcome YouTube app. After some recent glitches, I got in touch with the support team and they have proved to be very responsive and helpful. A UK based company that offers excellent products and service, not something one encounters every day.