Evesham ebox Plus review

At the rear, you'll also find two infrared blaster outputs, which you can theoretically use to control other set-top boxes, but they're so fiddly to get working reliably we'd advise avoiding them if you can.

By installing a D-Link AirPlus G 802.11g PCI card, Evesham ensures it's easy to connect the ebox Plus to an existing wireless network to get programme guide updates and to share media with other devices. Alternatively, there's a Gigabit Ethernet port to provide much faster throughput.

The ebox is covered by Evesham's Silver warranty - one year of on-site cover followed by two years of return-to-base support. Only the first year includes the cost of parts, though, so you'll save money if you can repair the system yourself after that initial year elapses.

Overall, the ebox Plus represents good value, despite not including a display in the price like the LX2000 bundle. It's powerful enough to handle Media Center with large collections of music, video and photos, and it has pretty much all the connections you'll need. It still lacks the simplicity and reliability of a set-top box, and it's marginally too noisy for our liking. If you can live with these compromises, though, it's a solid choice.

Author: Jim Martin