QuickMode
Latest
TiVo Bolt review: Getting smaller and faster has a price
TiVo has been in the DVR game for the better part of two decades, and even in the slow-paced TV world, that's enough time to see lots of change. Surprisingly, with the introduction of its Bolt DVR (excuse me: Unified Entertainment System) TiVo grabbed a feature from one of its oldest competitors in order to do battle with newer rivals. The company seems to have realized it's not just trying to beat your cable or satellite company's half-assed excuse for a set-top box, as Apple, Google, Roku, Amazon and others join game systems and Blu-ray players in a fight for living room dominance. Now, TiVo has a new design and, for the first time, a solution for easily skipping commercials. Still, that might not be enough to make the Bolt (starting at $300) a good buy.
TiVo's 4K-ready, commercial skipping Bolt hints at the future
This new Bolt DVR may not totally remake the recording technology TiVo is famous for, but it introduces a sharp departure in design and adds features customers have asked for since it started in the late 90s. Just like the leaks suggested, the Bolt is a funky arc-shaped white box that looks different from anything else near your HDTV. Despite being smaller than TiVo's older DVRs -- or whatever cable box you probably have -- it's eye-catching enough for visitors to stop and ask what you're watching TV on. Looks aside, Bolt's main claim to fame will definitely be its ability to bypass commercials with a new SkipMode (No more hidden 30 second skip! We've been asking for this since 2009). That's actually an old trick, and while it's appreciated, where I see evidence of TiVo looking towards the future is the way it's connecting the DVR to Amazon's Fire TV.
