ADB i-CAN Easy HD 2851T review

The first Freeview HD box to offer BBC iPlayer access

ADB i-CAN Easy HD 2851T
The BBC iPlayer integration is top notch, allowing you to stream HD content at a push of a button

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While operating the iPlayer interface is a generally silky, if occasionally slow, experience, switching back into Freeview HD mode is troublesome; we found that the quickest way was to switch off the box and begin again, though its boots up with haste.

That said, the interface for Freeview HD – which maker ADB calls 'Carbo' – is yet again class leading. We're talking smooth, rounded and nuanced graphics and plenty of easy-to-use menus.

A simple, transparent channel list can be brought up to change channels (or to choose radio stations and interactive services), and by scanning downwards using the remote's central arrow buttons while watching live TV, it displays that evening's TV schedules.

i-CAN easy hd 2851t epg

The information you want is never far away, but kudos in particular goes to the i-CAN's eight-day EPG. Studded with the Freeview logo (though strangely not the Freeview HD logo), it presents nine channels and three hours of schedules simultaneously, with a programme synopsis box popping up over the channel you hover over.

It does lack a preview box; instead its transparent black/blue/red/white graphics float over whatever channel you're watching.

Freeview HD channels are sumptuously detailed, with plenty of subtle details in close-ups and a majestic depth to images, though the regular standard-def channels do disappoint – the i-CAN seems bereft of upscaling tech, which leaves the likes of BBC 1 and ITV sprinkled with blocking, digital noise and a low-resolution that causes jagged edges a-plenty.

It's the one lowlight on an otherwise comprehensive picture performance.

Jamie Carter

Jamie is a freelance tech, travel and space journalist based in the UK. He’s been writing regularly for Techradar since it was launched in 2008 and also writes regularly for Forbes, The Telegraph, the South China Morning Post, Sky & Telescope and the Sky At Night magazine as well as other Future titles T3, Digital Camera World, All About Space and Space.com. He also edits two of his own websites, TravGear.com and WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com that reflect his obsession with travel gear and solar eclipse travel. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners (Springer, 2015),