Pros & Cons
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- Physically and technically identical to the excellent Slingbox M1.
- Slingplayer apps are now free.
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- $50 more than the Slingbox M1, which is still available and is the same hardware.
Sling Media's Slingbox line of place-shfiting devices has made it simple and economical to watch your own home television service on the go. Slingboxes take the video output from your cable or satellite box, or any video source connected to your home theater, and stream it over the Internet to your computer, mobile device, or media streamer of choice. The Slingbox M1 was easy to use and worked reliably, but required you to pay extra for the apps needed to watch content remotely. That changes with the Slingbox M2.
With the introduction of the Slingbox M2 ($370.00 at Amazon) , the Slingplayer mobile apps are now free. This comes at a price of its own, though: The M2 retails for $199.99, $50 more than what the list price of the M1. Whether this is a fair trade-off depends on how many devices you plan on streaming stream to, but even at $200, the M2 is a very accessible, useful home entertainment tool.
While it has a different name, the Slingbox M2 is functionally identical to the Slingbox M1. Its design, setup process, and how it works with Slingplayer apps are all exactly the same. The Slingplayer apps themselves are also unchanged, save for the fact that they're now free. For a detailed look at how the Slingbox M2 works and what the user experience is like, read our review of the Slingbox M1 ($344.51 at Amazon) .
The price hike for the M2 itself might seem unpalatable, but the M1 required the purchase of Slingplayer apps to watch content on mobile devices. These apps were $15 each, so if you wanted to stream to multiple platforms, you could easily end up spending more than $200. With that in mind, the M2's price hike seems fair, since Android, Fire TV, iOS, OS X, Roku, Windows, and Windows Mobile apps are now all freely available.
The M2 replaces the M1, but until all of the old inventory is gone you can still pick up a Slingplayer M1 for its launch price of $149.99. If you can find an M1, grab it and enjoy the savings. If not, the M2 is still a strong deal thanks to Sling Media's policy change. No matter which one you get, it's an Editors' Choice.
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