Toshiba RD-XS35 DVD Player/Recorder with 160 GB Hard Drive
If they're going to make it, MAKE IT RIGHT!
I don't get why companies make products that are feature rich, but don't send them home with test groups to fine-tune the detailed problems. <br /> <br />I had to send this unit back because it was so non-intuitive and not user-friendly at all.  The pause live tv function was useless, and I encountered a bug that locked my system up every time (see this product's discussion forum below).  How many more bugs might I find?  This thing had to go back. <br /> <br />The feeling I got from this unit was that Toshiba tried to implement as many features as possible (by as many different people) without making any attempt to integrate them. <br /> <br />For instance, the TV Guide On-screen feature was most important to me, as it was a guide that comes over the air or cable for free -- no subscriptions required, and no digital cable box required.  Great!  However, it was as if TV Guide just sent Toshiba an applet to run on the machine that was basically set in its own world as far as the RD-XS35 was concerned.  The only integration was the fact that I could press the record button to record something from the guide.  The guide was slow, awkward, and hard to use.  Info from the guide was not provided on a given channel unless you started the TV guide applet again. <br /> <br />The second most important feature to me was being able to \\"pause live tv\\" like a Tivo box, or a cable or satellite DVR does.  Their implementation of this feature is HORRIBLE.  It is nerfed to the point that this feature is useless.  You see, in order for you to pause what you're watching, you have to enter \\"timeslip mode\\" which takes about 10 seconds to start! It will start recording the channel, bump you back 10 seconds, and LOCK YOU ON THAT CHANNEL UNTIL YOU EXIT THE MODE!  You can, at that point, pause, REW, and FF what you're watching.  But you have to exit the mode (which takes another 10 seconds and two confirmation messages) to change the channel and restart the whole process over again elsewhere.  INCREDIBLY dissapointing and worthless. <br /> <br />Lastly, there is a \\"menu\\" button, an \\"EASY NAVI menu\\" button, a \\"content menu\\" button and a \\"Quick menu\\" button all on the remote, and all of which do different things, none of which are integrated.  What the heck?  Can they make operation of this thing more confusing?  It was as if some engineer on one side of their R&D building says \\"ooh I have an idea for a main menu button\\" and he puts in in.  Then another engineer on the other side of the building says \\"oooh *I* have an idea for a menu button\\" and he puts it in as well, but neither of them talk to each other at any point in the process.   <br /> <br />There are 13 thousand ways to enter the setup menu of the device but only one way to exit it.  With the exit button?  NO, that would make too much sense.  You have to open a hatch on the remote and find the setup button in the lower left hand corner and press it.  Great.  And there are a million buttons under that hatch, none of which seem to do anything useful. <br /> <br />The \\"info\\" button really pretty much does nothing, except in the TV Guide mode. <br /> <br />My advice - save your money for something that actually does what you need it to do.  Why spend so much money just to be frustrated?  Private DVRs are about to boom big time, and *someone* out there is going to get it right.  Toshiba definitely did not.