Sky Glass Reviews: Is It Better Than Sky Q?

On paper, Sky Glass is an impressive TV system at a tempting price. It’s convenient and easy to use, the specifications are impressive, the audio quality is great (for built-in speakers) and a lot of people will be persuaded by the fact that it’s a relatively low-cost monthly add-on to a Sky subscription.

Meanwhile, for those who can’t or don’t want to install a dish, Sky Glass is a far better option than Now, delivering all that exclusive Sky content in optimum 4K resolution.

Before you take the leap, however, you need to ask yourself – very carefully – if you wouldn’t be best served by sticking with separates. With Sky Q and your own choice of TV you’ll get a more potent TV system with better picture quality than Sky Glass, more channels and local program recording plus plenty of streaming apps. Add a soundbar, which you may well own already, and you’ll likely get better audio quality as well.

That means Sky Glass is a difficult thing to wholeheartedly recommend. True, it’s a more elegant thing to have in your home than a Sky Q box, a TV, and a soundbar and, yes, it does the job of streaming Sky services in 4K well. But, for most people, Sky Q plus a TV of their choice will deliver a superior experience all around.

Sky Glass is the first telly we’ve ever used where all of our favorite streaming platforms work seamlessly together and finding new shows, documentaries and movies is simple and (dare we say) enjoyable. Glass really does manage to cut out the stress of being overloaded with new boxsets from Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, and Apple TV+ while trying to keep track of what is happening in the TV guide.

Sure, the picture quality isn’t going to blow you away, but if you can pick up this telly-and-soundbar combination for a good deal, it provides a solid viewing experience. Of course, if you’ve splashed out on an OLED telly in the last couple of years, Sky Glass will be a significant downgrade. However, Sky Glass shows a huge amount of promise for a first attempt.

Let’s not forget that when Sky Q launched back in 2016, it had its fair share of bugs too. But in the years since its launch, Sky has refined the experience on that set-top box – and it has since managed to win every award in its field. It’s a shame that Sky Glass has arrived in a similar state, but in our testing, we’ve seen some amazing potential with this custom-designed telly.

Sky Glass is an ambitious device that gets a lot right but a few things wrong and I have the feeling that the second version might be the one to wait for.

Crucially, its picture quality is on a par with good budget TVs rather than the very best 4K sets and while it sounds great, few people will buy a TV for audio performance alone. As a result, Sky Glass’ desirability rests on two factors: ease of use and interface.

On the first, it’s a definite winner: this really is a one-cable solution that could give you access to almost all of the world’s streaming content without the need for multiple devices and cables. If you value simplicity above everything — or are unable to install a dish on your house — Sky Glass is easy to recommend.

As far as user experience goes, it’s a mixed bag. Sky Glass has the bold aim of unifying content from live and on-demand services and it may well be that this is what the future of TV looks like; I certainly hope so, because when it works, it’s great. But at the same time, it’s not really unified — voice control only works with some content and not everything is available on-demand. Plus, the lack of a DVR means that if you miss a live show on certain channels, you’re stuck; Sky Q plus a soundbar and TV will still be a better option for many people. That said, if you don’t already own a better TV set, Sky Glass is a good option.

Sky Glass is all about convenience. Its streaming system and built-in soundbar removes bundles of cables, boxes and the dish. But while its software and service show lots of promise, it is has bugs and small annoyances, most on-demand apps are slow and clunky, and there are extra hoops that must be jumped through to get to content that make it less convenient to use.

I have no doubt updates will fix many of the issues. But the reliance on terrestrial catchup services and their limitations may always be worse than old-school recordings. If you only ever watch live TV or content hosted directly on Sky’s platform or Netflix, Glass is great.

The screen is decent but not spectacular, competing best with lower-priced mid-range sets. The sound is great unless you want a real cinema experience, and the remote is great too. The price is tempting when bought monthly, although you must add the cost of the Sky service on top.

Glass is a work in progress with an enormous potential yet to be realised.

Ultimately, how much you like Sky Glass will depend on your expectations. If you are expecting a flagship TV’s picture performance, and sound to rival a Sonos Beam Gen 2, you are going to be very disappointed. This costs less than half that sort of setup, though, and it performs well given its limitations. Sky should be particularly pleased with the balanced picture performance, which avoids the temptation of trying to dazzle and takes a far more subtle approach that is better suited to its abilities.

That said, the smeary motion is bothersome, and the sound, while generally very good, lacks the dynamic range to be really exciting.

Sky Glass as a platform is very nice, though, particularly in terms of presentation and content aggregation. It’s a shame that to get it you have to buy the TV, but one suspects that won’t be the case for very long. If the Sky Glass Puck were available as a standalone device (preferably with a hard drive for proper recording), we’d be all for it. As it is, the Sky Glass TV is a solid, but niche proposition for those who value style, neatness and convenience over outright performance.

Combining everything you could need into one user-friendly system, there’s literally nothing else out there like the Sky Glass. This is by far the best TV you can buy for streaming because you won’t need any extra tech to access Sky’s premium library or your favourite streaming apps.

The Sky interface is just so good, everything about it is simple and intuitive, even the remote doesn’t take much getting used to. With smarts ranging from motion detection to voice control and recommendations tailored to what you like to watch, it’s a shining example of how brilliant technology can be in 2021.

It’s not all about the smarts though, the picture and sound quality are just as impressive even if they’re not best in class, and because everything is packed into one device it saves on energy too.