AT&T U-verse TV & Internet Review!

Hey guys. Muwen360 is here reviewing something
a little different today. Im actually here today to review the Cable TV and Internet
service provider, AT&T U-verse. So Ive actually had AT&T U-verse since November of
2008 when my family moved to this place so weve had it for almost 6 years now.

But
recently our community, upgraded our contract with AT&T from the U100 service, which simply
means 100 channels which is also not available anymore by the way because the old contract
was like 7 years old and a lot of things have changed since then, and also 1.5 Megabits
per second internet speed, Internet express is the name AT&T calls it. And so we upgraded
from that to our new contract right now which includes the U200 programming basically 200
channels as well as a DVR, access to HD channels. On the internet side, we get Internet Pro
which is the 3 megabits per second internet speed. And we pay about $50 per month for
all of that and this is including taxes and other fees.

So its a pretty darn good deal
for me. And what Im talking about here is not available on retail unfortunately because
this is a contract in which our representatives from this condominium complex where I live
specifically negotiated with AT&T, so it doesnt apply to the general retail. But even for
retail, their prices at least to begin with are pretty competitive. So if you want to
see the prices for U-verse youre goanna have to check out their web site and you have
to type in your address first to see if U-Verse is in the first place, even available in your
area since U-verse is currently operating in just 22 states.

So after you enter your
address, you get to see all of the available promotional offers in your area. You can sort
by the offers that suit your needs. U-verse also offers home phone service by the way
as well if youre interested in that. So the bundles they offer look pretty attractive
and most likely youre going to get the service through purchasing a bundle with TV
and Internet or other combinations because its a lot cheaper.

And they also give you
other perks if you sign up like a $150 Reward card for this one and free HBO for 3 months
and stuff like that. But something thats really important to watch out for is the offer
details because when you sign up at first, the price listed is the price youre gonna
play only during the promotional period whether its 6 months, 12 months, or 24 months.
When that period ends, youre goanna have to pay full price for the service, and as
you can see its not cheap anymore when you have to pay the full price. So definitely
read the terms of your agreement with AT&T. Carefully so you know what to expect.

So now
Ill start talking about the actual service, and Ill start with U-Verse TV. So the equipment
youre gonna get when they install the service, is a receiver/set top box whatever you want
to call it. This one I have right is the Motorola VIP 1225 model and it does have DVR capabilities.
This box is good for recording up to 233 hours of SD or 84 hours of HD programming content.
Unfortunately, U-verse receivers do not support external hard drives for increased content
storage at this time. Im pretty sure most of their packages include a DVR and if you
want to add additional receivers for multiple TVs, you can do so for 8 bucks per month and
also depending on where you live, you might get a black receiver made by Cisco and I think
the Cisco box looks a lot cooler but they gave me the Motorola box which is fine.

This
is the remote youre going to receive, its a pretty basic remote with all the basic functions.
Nothing super special about it. But when you compare this with my old remote, they gave
me 6 years ago, this is one just feels a lot better. The other piece, and the most important
piece of equipment youre going get is the wireless gateway. This thing is basically
the central hub for all you U-verse TV, Internet and voice services if you have it.

So this
is the Arris NVG 589 and this gateway at least for me, is a pretty substantial upgrade over
the old gateway made by 2Wire that I had previously. This gateway supports the newer networking
technologies and it also has a built-in battery for back up in the event of a power outage.
So now I will show you the actual U-Verse interface and this is like the boot up animation
by the way if you care with AT&T branding. So it does take some time to load initially
when your first get or whenever you reset the receiver manually which is what I did
so I can you can show you guys the boot up screen but normally when you turn on the TV,
it's gonna start right away. So now its finished and its playing the last channel
that I was watching.

But anyways when you press Menu button on your remote, you would
get to this screen and this is basically the central command for U-Verse TV. Super simple,
clean, straightforward interface here. The different functions are broken down into their
respective categories. So Ill start with the Live category, and first well take
a look at the guide and by the way you can also access a lot of these functions right
on your remote as you can see there is also a guide button for example.

So in the Guide,
you get to see the show times for the different channels and you can also scroll around to
see the programming for each channel as well so pretty self-explanatory. Then there is
Uverse whats trending and it just tells you the shows that are popular at this time.
Then there is something called my multiview which allows you to see 4 channels of your
choice and you see all of them simultaneously. You can customize it to your preference but
I dont think its all that useful since it just feels weird to watch it like this
so Id much rather just to have one channel on full screen. Then there is the favorites
list, and search so when you want to know when a show will be on, channel shortcuts
which breaks the channels down into categories for easy access and also the government and
public access channels.

Over here in the recording category, where you get to see and manage
all your DVR recordings. So as you can see I currently have 7 recordings and if I click
on this one, I get the option to resume play, start over, set how long to keep it and also
the choice to delete it. You can also see a list of your scheduled recordings, I have
a couple scheduled, and you can also add a recording here or just press the record button
on the remote. You can also see your recording space to know how much more you can record.
Then there is On Demand, and they have a decent selection of movies and TV shows.

They also
have a good selection of free shows for you to enjoy as well and you can use all of these
sorting options to find the one youre looking for. They also have some interactive apps
available if you want to check out. Then there is the help section, with all the resources
available if you need them. We also have the options page, channel options, parental locking,
favorite channels, and hide channels.

System information, and TV screen resolution. The
highest resolution output available is 1080i best for newer HD TVs. And then there are
the audio language options as well. So thats really about it for the main interface.

And
then in places for example when youre in a channel, you can use the arrow keys to see
the upcoming programs on the channel, and when you click the info button on your remote,
you can see a little summary of the show and you have the ability to record the episode
or even series right on the screen and you can also check for more showtimes as well.
You can also see the names for the cast and crew and also the audio language. The picture
quality is pretty decent it also depends on the type of TV have but the picture quality
is quite clear especially on the HD channels as you can see Im currently on the HD version
of ESPN so the quality is really, really nice. Another cool thing that you can do is you
can pause live TV for up to 60 minutes when you press the pause button on your remote
and you can rewind live TV as well so a pretty handy feature if you want to make you own
sports replays. So now Ill do a review on the U-verse Internet service and Im
currently using U-verse for internet connection right now obviously since I am on a web page.
But they offer 4 speed choices available from 6 megabits per second down all the way up
to 45 megabits per second down.

And what you want to be aware is the word up to which means
its not 100% guaranteed that every single time youre on the Internet, youre gonna
get the speed advertised but it should be somewhere close to the speed advertised and
most of the it actually goes above the advertised speed. So the best way to know our current
Internet speed so you would if youre actually getting the speed youre paying for is by
going to a website called speedtest.Net. And this website simply measures the speed of
your Internet connection at this moment in time so lets get started by pressing begin
test recommended server. Then it says selecting server based on best ping.

Then it starts
to measure ping and the basically the delay between the computer and the server so the
lower ping the better. So I got ping of 30 milliseconds which is pretty decent. For the
download speed, I got 3.58 Megabits per second which actually is a little higher than the
3 megabits per second that Im supposed to get. I got a upload speed of 1.43 Megabits
per second and I wish the upload speed could be a little better, a little closer to the
download speed since the upload speed matters to me since I upload to YouTube.

But overall
the U-verse is pretty decent, the Internet from has always worked for me. As in I can
still go on web sites but again as I said earlier youre not always gonna have the
Internet at 100% of the advertised speed since from my personal experience I usually get
3 down as promised U-verse about 70, 75% of the time so its still really good but just
keep that in mind. So overall AT&T U-verse has served well for me over the years and
Im only speaking for myself because everyones experience with the service will be different
due to a lot of known and unknown reasons but still if youre thinking about getting
cable and internet definitely give U-verse a shot and see how you like it. You can always
cancel the service if you absolutely so basically this is just my video review on AT&T U-verse.
Hope you enjoyed.

Let me know in the comments down below what company you have for TV and
Internet. If you also happen to have U-verse like I do, please feel free share you own
thoughts on U-verse as well. Would love to hear from you guys and also please hit the
subscribe button to support me so I can make more great videos like this. Thanks again
and Ill see you in my next video..