Now TV ups its game

Launching at the end of February for just £15 is the Now TV Smart Stick. It will be the first Now TV box with voice search and can also control your TV. Oh, and you can pause live TV for up to 30 minutes.
If you already have Now packages you can buy the stick on its own for £15. If not, £20 will get you a stick and either one month of movies, a two-month entertainment pass or three months of kids' TV. If you want a month of sports thrown in instead, there's a £30 bundle for that.
Now TV still only streams at a maximum resolution of 720p but the Smart Stick itself is capable of outputting at full HD. Sky is finally upping the quality of Now TV to 1080p later this year, but it won't come as standard and will most likely cost more. I think the service has improved considerably from the early days of outages and buffering and have found the 720p on demand picture quality absolutely fine.
Now TV is a low cost and viable alternative to the year-long contracts offered by Virgin Media, Sky or BT if you don't need to record programmes and are happy with catch-up and On Demand services to compliment Freeview or Freesat. I use it solely for Sky Atlantic shows, dipping in and out when there's something I want to watch. I've just renewed my Virgin contract for another twelve months (got a very good reduction in my monthly bill from Retentions) but will consider Now TV seriously next year.
Or Sky Q without the dish. And more on that little temptation soon...