Refurbished though....

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4ddp

You can get the better looking, but otherwise identical, "Dual" in Asda for £80 apparently. Great value.

They could have tried a little harder with the refurbishing too. I've got one (version 3.9 of the firmware for those that are interested) and it came with coffee stains on the battered manual and flat batteries in the remote. Whoever tested it on 12th January clearly didn't use the remote control.

I payed £99 at Argos (now reduced to £95 ) - so for a coffee stain on a manual you'll read once and 2x AAA batteries you saved yourself £24!!!

Bargain.

As it turns out I haven't. I can't think of the technical term but this unit is pumping out widescreen pics that fall off the bottom of the TV screen and that is beggar all use to anybody. Seems to me like a unit returned as defective and only superficially tested.

Or not tested at all, more likely. The customer seems to do the testing with Dabs' off the skip offerings.

So it seems. They clearly have a different idea of what a refurbished unit is from the one that I have.

I have just received the Dabs Value PVR that I ordered on Saturday, it is the Digihome PVR80, and it does look like an Argos return since it has the number 532/0864 imprinted on the box. which is the Argos Digihome stock number. The delivered parcel was the bare manufacturers box with a delivery label stuck on it, and the contents were roughly packed, resulting in the remote control being slightly scratched (unless this was scratched before being returned to Argos). There was no scart lead, but the manual does not give a list of contents so I don't know if this is normal.

When I first plugged in and set up the PVR, I got the message 'No Signal' and it would not do anything else, the manual is very vague and does not give much information about setting the PVR up, but I knew the signal was OK as I had been using a Freeview box successfully previously.

I had looked at this forum whilst waiting for the PVR to arrive, (thanks guys), and I had seen someone mention a factory reset, this is done by unplugging the PVR, then holding in the 'OK' button on the box (not the remote) whilst putting the plug back in, I tried this and the box configured properly, downloaded the channels, and is now working OK.

This, and reading what others have said, leads me to believe that they are not reconditioned, merely Argos returns resold with the minimum (if any) checking. The firmware version on my box is 3.9 but I will probably leave this to see what the OTA update does on the 3rd Feb.

I have saved £24 (inc.p&p) on the Argos price, but if I knew at the time of ordering what condition the PVR would be delivered in I would have gone for the Asda Dual version, which I believe sells for £80.
Last edited by cossall : 23-01-2007 at 09:58

"There was no scart lead, but the manual does not give a list of contents so I don't know if this is normal."


Also no scart lead with mine from Argos on Sunday so the £5 price reduction spent on scart lead!!!

Thanks, I don't feel so bad now

At least 1 satisfied customer.....marshman.

http://www.pvruk.co.uk/reviews.cfm?a...0%20,%20PVR160

I've returned my box. Mine didn't come with a scart lead either but it did come with a co-ax fly lead.

Curiously the Dual branded Asda version of the box comes with a scart but not the fly lead.

I returned my box too.

It froze at the disk checking stage, sometimes before, and had no output at all from either scart socket.

I tried factory resets etc but with no joy.

On the box the previous supplier had marked "Screen Fault : no output" so it wouldn't have taken dabs much work to discover this was true or not.

Perhaps their testers aren't quite what they ought to be.

Conclusive proof if ever you need it that these boxes are not refurbished, merely taken from the skip and sold to you.