Sagem ITD59NG - TechRadar UK

Referred to in the press release as the 'Nano' (although this is not made explicit on the box, presumably so as not to antagonise Apple's legal department), this Freeview adapter is a compact 15cm x 13.5cm x 4cm and appears to be intended mainly as a digital upgrade for second-room portable TV sets.

It's about half the size of Sagem's other Freeview boxes but retains a similar designer look that's cute at this size. There's no 'proper' LED readout; a single light glows red when it's in standby and green when on.

The rear panel has a single Scart connector capable of outputting in composite and RGB, and a UHF loopthrough with a modulator for non-Scart TVs. There are no separate audio connectors.

After a swift auto-tune, the software is revealed to be almost identical to that on other recent Sagem Freeview boxes. It's easy to use and better-looking than that found on previous efforts, the main menu making use of scrollable icons.

The remote is small but well set-out, and has responsive buttons. The full-screen main TV list is accessed by hitting 'OK', and a separate button brings up a menu for radio channels.

An information bar displays now-and-next details, and pressing 'info' brings up a programme summary window in which you can also call up synopses of what's on other channels.

A three-quarter screen, seven-day EPG shows a scrollable list of channels on the left-hand side, and selecting each brings up a list of programmes on the right of the screen that can be browsed on a day-by-day basis. Unfortunately, the guide can be rather slow to populate - especially when you're trying to check what's on several days ahead.

You can use the EPG to set reminders and there's a six-event manual timer. There are no favourites lists. But there is support for MHEG-5 interactive and digital text services.

Picture-wise, most channels exhibit slight pixellation on screens larger than 40in, even when the built-in signal meter showed good signal strength and quality at our test area. But this is less noticeable on smaller TVs, with which the ITD59NG is more likely to be paired.

Predictably, RGB is the preferred picture setting, as composite pictures can look a little fuzzy. Sound is agreeably clear despite the lack of dedicated outputs.

The ITD59NG isn't the cheapest budget box around - but there's enough on offer here to make it suitable for Freeview in a second room.