Talk to me about Sling....

[umsami]

For those of you who use Sling (TV streaming service), talk to me about it.

 

What do you like? Hate?

 

If you switched to another service, which one and why.

 

They are tempting  me by having ads pop up on my Facebook feed. :)  We have pretty good Internet data speeds from Xfinity, but I find them evil for actual cable TV.

[FriedClams]

We have it. I generally love it, but it can be temperamental. On the iPad it's usually fine, Xbox is the worst, computer is usually good. I find it crashes more when I actually want to use it - like for Saturday football - so that's super annoying. I love the no contact party and I don't see us going back to cable, ever.

 

ETA - we have the basic and sports but only keep sports during college football season. I usually drop it all in January until I get sick or bored. LOL

Edited November 20, 2016 by FriedClams

[ThisIsTheDay]

We ditched cable two years ago, opting for Netflix and/or HuluPlus. Dh also got Amazon Prime for videos, which imo has been a giant waste of money. A few months ago, we added Sling to the mix so I can again watch HGTV and Food Network.

 

It's not available in HD in my area. I don't get every channel; there are one or two that should be part of the package but aren't available in my area.  (My husband would watch that if it were available.)

 

It's slow to load. There is a several second delay between what I'm watching and what is streaming. Sometimes I watch something at home, and a friend watches via cable at the same time, and this is how I know we are delayed from what she's seeing.

 

At this point, I'd ditch Neflix all together and pick it back up if someone wanted to watch a series, but my college kid uses it. Prime's already paid for, but we don't use that. I'm happy with Sling because I get exactly what I want with those two channels, and it's worth the $25/month to me.

 

 

[KatieJ]

More specific questions.

Can you watch it using smart tvs or roku?

The channels listed, are they the same as what is currently playing on cable or is it a mini version such as roku channels of let's say the History channel? IOW are watching the current shows of HGTV and Food Network, Hallmark, PB s, etc

[Rockhopper]

We just cancelled Sling after about 4 months and went with Playstation's Vue.

 

We really liked Sling. It made "cable cutting" much more bearable for us, primarily because my husband could get live sports, and particularly football. I liked getting some channels like HGTV to zone to occasionally. For the price, we were very pleased with what was offered.

 

The one thing we had so much trouble getting used to, though, was not being able to pause. Now, that's ridiculous really when you consider that it we never had such a thing until a few years ago -- but man! did we love it and miss it. So handy, especially during things like football games. 

 

Anyway, Playstation Vue has pause, and some limited rewind and record options too. We're still exploring them. And they have Fox News which my husband likes. My youngest does most of her viewing on Netflix but Vue does have Disney and Nick channels. I've actually forgotten what Sling had -- one or the other or both though.

 

For Vue, you have to have certain devices -- Playstation, of course, but we use our Roku and I know that Amazon Fire Sticks work also.

 

I think they're both excellent services that give "basic cable" options without having a 2-year commitment to DirecTv or Time Warner or... Neither has contracts, just month by month, and both offer free trials -- so I'd suggest just giving it a try.

 

EDIT: Yes, you do get full channels, with their live lineup. The popular channels may also have some on-demand shows listed so sometimes the screen can get a bit confusing, but yes, full channels.

Edited November 20, 2016 by Rockhopper

[Mergath]

We have Sling- the $25 a month package (I think?) plus the news add on, along with Amazon Prime.

 

I like it. It's nice to be able to have MSNBC or HGTV on in the background while I'm cleaning at night. Dh won't admit it, but he could watch House Hunters all day long. ;) They have a good selection of on demand shows.

 

We don't have any issues with it. We have reasonably fast internet (60mbps) and it comes in super clear and never has to buffer, even if dh is gaming on his computer while we watch it.

 

It's annoying that you can't get channels like ABC and NBC if you aren't in a major city, and commercials suck.

 

If I could only afford one tv service I'd probably go with Amazon or Netflix, but Sling in combination with one of the two gives us more than enough to watch. Just as much as when we had 200 channels of cable, but at less than half the price.

[Rachel]

My husband loves it because for $25 per month he gets ESPN and the SEC network. If you aren't a sports fan you can save $5 per month. I don't use it much, I like HGTV and a few other channels we get but when I watch tv it is 9/10 times something on Netflix.

 

We watch it through our roku but on occasion through the iPad. The only weird thing is during a game most of the time there aren't commercials but instead an espn logo and an annoying 10 second song that just repeats. If you do get a commercial or two, it will be the same one over and over throughout the game, usually the AD counsel or something random. It isn't a big deal just a difference compared to watching the same channel via satellite or cable.