Sling TV is Now Available For Everyone

by
February 9, 2015

After getting a sneak peek at Sling TV back in January at CES, many people were excited for the potential it held. At the time is was an invite-only system and only five major network channels signed up — ESPN, Food Network, TNT, TBS and CNN — but now the system is live and now has even more channels.

There is a free seven day trial period to test both the opening price point of $20 per month for the “Best of Live TV” service out on its own or even the add-on packages. The previously listed channels plus ESPN2, Adult Swim and the Disney Channel are available for the opening price point, but the extra channels include even more options.

The three channel lineups for an additional $5 each on top of the normal $20 monthly cost from Sling are Sports Extra, News & Info Extra and Kids Extra, with the channels on each shown below.

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After putting in your information to register, Sling shows you a welcome screen as well as listing the service compatibility. CES had a running version of Sling on an Xbox, but the picture below is accurate in saying it isn’t available just yet. The Android app is available, but it will have to be side-loaded. The computer version of Sling works quite well and hopefully the mobile will soon be on par with it.

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Sling shows channel category options in the form of an “All Channels” sidebar and once a selection is made, upcoming programs are shown along with their start times on that particular channel.

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The quality of the broadcasts is up to the consumer, allowing you to select how much bandwidth and thus what the video looks like. On the highest setting neither the video or audio ever stuttered, however the quality seemed to move from the 1080p to about 480p despite my WiFi signal remaining constant.

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For cord cutters, Sling TV is about the best option around for live entertainment. If you’re on the fence, I strongly suggest taking advantage of the seven day trial to experience it firsthand.





 

You can catch David spouting off about baseball, soccer, esports and other things by following him on twitter, @davidwiers.

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John Thacker
10 years ago

Unfortunately for baseball lovers, most of the Regional Sports Networks won’t be on here (same with MLB.tv), at least for now, since it seems like they have contracts with the competing about to launch Playstation Vue service. It’s also a problem for NFL fans. This is good for people who want ABC/ESPN/Disney services, but Playstation Vue has more of the CBS/Fox/NBCUniversal, along with Viacom, Scripps, and Discovery. (I think Viacom and maybe Scripps owned channels are on both.)

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