Sky Glass Gen 2 Review
This review was written by a Superuser who has received a free Gen 2 device from Sky, as part of the Superuser programme
I have had the Gen 2 almost 4 months and thought I would post a (very detailed) unboxing, setup & review .....
Sky Glass Gen 2 Review
Background
Having previously ordered and received a Gen 1 Sky glass 43 in April 2022 and a Gen 1 Sky Glass 55 in January 2024 I was able to compare all aspects of both models from ordering phase to everyday use. The Gen 2 replaced the Gen 1 in our main living room where we watch the majority of our TV.
Delivery
The first Gen 1 43inch I ordered was delivered on time by Panther and I (mistakenly!!) refused the offer of Panther unboxing and setting up the TV. Even though I had ordered the small Gen 1, it was a laborious process to build and required 2 people to build and construct the stand using a screwdriver to install the stand onto the TV. It took at least an hour of unpacking and building to get the TV onto the TV stand.
Having since received several Gen 1 43 replacement sets under warranty, I subsequently chose to have the delivery team build the replacements, which although helpful, was a little inconvenient. I felt far more comfortable when I discovered that the assembly of Gen 2 had been simplified!
Having been offered a delivery date of Friday the 14th of February, I was able to immediately view the order myskyapp on my iphone.
Having been offered a delivery date of Friday the 14th of February, I was able to immediately view the order myskyapp on my iphone.
I was informed during the ordering process that I would receive a delivery window via email the night before the delivery date. As promised, I received an email the night before delivery (13th February) with the stated information on the delivery window.
Delivery window was stated as between 08.32 – 10.32 am. On the morning of the delivery day 14th February, I received a call at 8.36am from the delivery driver advising that he would be arriving within the hour. The delivery driver also asked if I would like him to take away the packaging when delivered. I politely declined as I wanted to document the unboxing experience! A thoughtful and presumably environmentally friendly request. Kudos to sky!
A further email was received on the morning of the delivery to confirm the delivery window along with the delivery drivers details. Another good touch from Sky!
At this point the tracking info in the Mysky App was updated to show it was dispatched, and live tracking was also available within the app.
An informative, smooth and efficient pre delivery service.
At 9.34am Brandon the delivery driver arrived with the Gen 2 Sky Glass to much excitement from my household!
Surprisingly Brandon was on his own but still managed to carry the TV and deliver it into my house. The Gen 1 deliveries were always a two-man team so the process has been streamlined for Gen 2.
One happy customer following delivery!
Unboxing & Assembly
Definitely a two-person operation! Myself and my partner carried in the Gen 2 from the hallway to the living room, aided by the carrying notches on the side of the box.
This photograph shows the Gen 2 still boxed next to the 55 inch Gen 1 which was still in place. First impressions of the packaging were good and definitely a far smaller footprint in terms of the box size compared to Gen 1. Still a heavy package though!
All of the packaging, as per Gen 1, was all cardboard and recyclable adding to the eco friendly design of the product.
Instructions on how to open the box were on the top edge of the box
Quite straightforward, with 4 small hard cardboard squares holding the box outer sleeve onto the inner sleeve. The flaps on the squares needed to be pulled outward to remove the squares before the outer cardboard sleeve could be lifted off.
Next is the part of the unboxing which should probably carry a warning, or maybe require further instruction. The outer sleeve needs to be lifted up and off the inner sleeve. I am not sure if we had defective packaging or whether it had worked its way loose in delivery, but sitting on top of the tv underneath the outer sleeve is carboard strips with the remote, paperwork, power lead and stand legs. Now, as we found out, the stand legs are quite heavy.
We carefully lifted up the outer cardboard sleeve and when we lifted it off the inner sleeve the cardboard section containing legs and power cable fell onto the floor. If the legs had hit a human foot it would have caused some damage! This part of the packaging definitely needs to be modified or improved.
The stand plate itself is located in the box and needs to be assembled by adding the legs. The stand needs to be popped in place before removing the remaining cardboard and lifting the TV onto the stand.
The stand assembly was pretty straightforward. The instructions for the stand assembly were on the cardboard stand packaging, and easy to understand. Again, all fully recyclable.
We placed the bottom stand plate onto our TV stand and inserted the legs into the holes and sliding them across to lock into place.
Next – and possibly the trickiest part of the entire process ……. And (in our case!) required a third person with a torch! Again – maybe some more thought or instruction required. Two persons need to lift up the TV and place it over the stand poles while lowering it down. The issue with this process is you cannot see the holes from above, and the arrows that are there to guide are small and the same colour as the TV. We had to get a third person with a torch behind the TV to help guide the TV into position directly above the stand poles.
A suggestion would be that it may be much simpler to have some guide lines on the actual stand, either stickers or engraved into the stand. Either way these would not be visible if they were on the back of the stand.
There was some paperwork included in the box as above – energy rating stickers and warranty info.
Tv build complete! One further difference I noted is that due to the design of the stand there is a slight wobble to the TV when touched or held in comparison to Gen 1 which was much more sturdy and balanced. I think I actually prefer the stand on Gen 1.
We next proceeded to plug in the Peripherals – Amazon Firestick and Xbox one S. Also plugged in the external aerial coax and the power lead.
A change from Gen 1 which I found slightly annoying from a cable management point of view is that the Mains Power lead input is now located at the opposite side of the TV. This makes tidying the cables behind a lot more difficult.
Speaking of Cable Management I also really miss the stand with the hole on Gen 1 that allowed the cable to run through as photograph above. Much tidier and a feature sorely missing from Gen 2.
TV Setup
I am very familiar with the Glass / stream setup routine having owned 3 pucks and two glass TVs since 2022. The process is simple with ample on-screen guidance, and we were up and running in 5 minutes.
The system found my Virgin Media router (no full fibre in my area yet …. Sorry Sky!) straight away!
I chose the password option as I have struggled with WPS setup on glass on a non-sky router in the past.
I would point out that the WIFI password input screen is a lot easier with the full screen keyboard than it was with the previous scroll / up down line of characters. In all likelihood this may have been updated in a recent software update.
Next a relatively short update period – installing the newest firmware …. Hopefully!
Next the remaining picture / pin / enhancements setup – same process as Gen 1 Glass.
Finally, all finished!!
Live Camera Setup
I was interested to see how easy the setup process would be with the Sky Live Camera which I already own. I experienced occasional connection errors with the Gen 1 Glass, sometimes requiring multiple power cycles to get it recognised.
We placed the camera on top of the tv and proceeded to plug into HDMI3 and the usb C port for power.
Plugging in was straightforward! I didn’t see the on-screen message advising that Live was installing but its possible I missed it. The LIVE rail didn’t appear at first, although from experience I know this can take a little while to populate. I used the voice commands and said “SKY LIVE” and the main sky live menu appeared.
I loaded up a quick game to check the camera was functioning ….. returned to the glass home screen and hey presto! As suspected the LIVE rail had appeared. Easy!
Streaming Apps
Next part of the setup was logging in to the many streaming services / apps available on Glass. I have plenty of experience carrying out this task but I still find it laborious, and the most time consuming part of setting up a stream / glass device.
Having to select each app then pairing with the mobile phone to get access is still time consuming and frustrating, although both Paramount plus and Netflix were already logged in …… possibly due to the subscriptions being through Sky marketplace. If only a method to store login information could be implemented by Sky. This would make the process a lot more streamlined. Even being able to share the logins between devices within the home (stream pucks, other glass TVs) would be beneficial!
Just a point with the on-screen keyboard. Adding functionality to the keyboard such as dedicated buttons on the remote for “backspace” “caps lock” and “enter” would make it a lot easier when typing usernames or passwords. The amazon firestick uses the rewind button on their remote in conjunction with the on-screen keyboard to great effect for backspace. A feature Sky could take note!
Picture & Sound
It was noticeable immediately how much sharper and brighter the Gen 2 picture was out of the box compared to the Gen 1. The first two settings I changed once the Gen 2 was up and running was to change the picture mode to VIVID and to turn on the enhanced BASS BOOST. WOW! a much, much brighter and sharper picture than the same size Gen 1. Night and day difference. Took me a little by surprise!
I had vivid mode turned on permanently on My Gen 1, but this felt different, new and vibrant! It almost lit the room like a lamp! The 4k quantum dot display is really a massive upgrade on the first Gen to the point I considered changing the picture settings back to AUTO!! Top marks Sky for the massive jump in screen quality.
You can see the difference in picture colours (from the same movie) above. Gen 2 is on the left, Gen 1 on the right. The colours pop and sparkle much more on the Gen 2. The difference in the colour of the sky is amazing.
The picture lighting is also a lot more consistent on the Gen 2. I found the backlight on the Gen 1 to be patchy with different consistency in different areas of the screen. No such issue with Gen 2 … consistent lighting and brightness all over. No obvious darker patches / shading anywhere on the screen, which the Gen 1 suffered from in my opinion. I could literally feel the brightness at the back of my eyes! The new advanced HDR and the zonal dimming technology is a much-needed upgrade, and the darker blacks don’t look as blotchy as they did on the Gen 1.
I briefly tried the extra vivid mode which I found to be a lot less garish than the equivalent extra vivid mode on the Gen 1. It was a more subtle, yet brighter difference. I found the Gen 1 almost unwatchable in Extra vivid mode but the difference was far more subtle between both these modes on the Gen 2.
I have both a firestick and a Xbox one S, and both looked markedly better on the Gen 2, brighter, sharper and more vibrant on the home screens, with a much smoother scrolling action when navigating around the devices.
Viewing Angle
We mostly found the viewing angle on the Gen 1 to be really limited. The Gen 1 looked washed out and dark with no definition from anywhere other than viewing straight on. Again, another issue with Gen 1 making it almost unwatchable from certain angles. No such restrictions with Gen 2. Bright and vivid from wherever we view it, even from the slightest angle. Well done sky (again)!
Gen 2 on the left above from the smallest angle! Still viewable and in focus. Gen 1 on the right. Not so good and washed out, less bright.
One slight issue we noted is that in VIVID mode some of the white colours on the screen had a shimmering / flickering effect. We swapped to Auto for comparison and the shimmering white effect was not present. Hopefully this can be adjusted in a future firmware update.
In terms of sound ….. I was always impressed with the Sound in Gen 1. It was the unique selling point from my perspective along with the ability to watch sky tv without the eyesore of a satellite dish. The sound on Gen 1 was better than the £100 soundbar I had with a previous TV with the added bonus of no extra cables or mains plugs. The Gen 2 Dolby Atmos integrated soundbar is better, no doubt aided by the extra speaker and new placement of the speakers. I found the sound in the Gen 2 to be louder, sharper and cleaner. The surround sound is better and more focused. Subtle differences, but just enough for me to hear the difference. The bass is smoother with less vibrations than Gen 1. Gen 1 really struggled at times with the enhanced Bass Boost.
Gen 2 is much cleaner on the Bass with no distortions on any bass heavy sound! A good and well needed improvement. A point to also note is that the volume is louder on the volume indicator / setting on the Gen 2. I find we are not raising the volume setting to the same on-screen level as we did on the Gen 1. Again, probably due to the extra speaker that was somehow squeezed into the same size chassis.
General
Having had both the 43 and 55 Gen 1 in anthracite I chose the Atlantic Blue colour for Gen 2. A really nice subtle dark blue with matching speaker grille. I am very happy with my choice and would recommend to fellow customers if they want a slightly different look to their TV. The basic design remains the same – one which I found appealing in Gen 1. Very square edged with speaker grill on the top edge. It looks high quality and feels like it’s made of premium materials (which it hopefully is!).
The overall footprint of the TV has shrunk due to the changes in the design of the stand. The new size enables us to move the TV back further on our current stand which is appreciated.
Gen 2 on the left photograph above is able to be almost be flush to the wall! A nice design approach altering the aesthetic of the room in our case.
The accompanying colour matched remote is in the same Atlantic blue and looks fantastic! Much more striking than the plain black remote.
The remote feels more premium and gone is the rubber backing of the Gen 1 remote – to be replaced with a smoother less rubbery plastic back. A joy to hold! The buttons have a much nicer, more pronounced clicking sensation when pressed. I was a fan of the original glass remote design and still prefer it to the older sky Q remote.
Verdict
A much anticipated and improved update. Picture sound and design have been refined and is a much better overall package than the Gen 1. The picture is outstanding and we won’t miss the Gen 1 at all in that respect. We are very pleased with all aspects of the Gen 2 with only a few minor cons, namely the redesigned stand making the TV slightly unsteady, the lack of cable management that was present on Gen 1 (offset by the smaller footprint!), and the awkwardness of slotting the TV onto the stand during the build phase.
The order and delivery service was excellent, and the offer of extra services by the delivery company are to be commended, especially for those who may need the help to setup.
The added bonus of being one of the most eco friendly designed and manufactured TVs on the market is to be applauded, and the ability to recycle all of the packaging is most welcome.
The upgraded components and visuals far outweigh the cons and we are extremely happy with our new TV.
We also have a happy daughter who has “inherited" our 55-inch Gen 1 Glass TV at her new home. Following a quick phone call with Sky it was activated on her account and she started her first Sky TV subscription!
