People are cutting the cord at an alarming rate — alarming if you’re the president of a cable company, that is. Or unless you’re fuboTV.
For everyone else, the fact that you can now pick and choose between a bunch of different streaming TV services, rather than just paying the traditional $60 a month to whichever cable company is in your area, is fantastic.
Plus, there’s even a fuboTV free trial available for 7 days linked below!
Most of the big names are offering streaming services these days. Peacock, Disney+, HBO Max, YouTube TV and Hulu Live TV have exploded over the last couple years, and they’re not bad options. But after trying sports-first streaming service fuboTV for the last few months, I think it’s the only streaming service anyone is going to need.
FuboTV
Pros
- Live channels
- Sports programming
- User interface is easy to use
- Not expensive
Cons
- Another streaming service
fuboTV football and sports is another level
We’ll come back to why fuboTV is “sports-first” in a sec, but for now, just know this: it has every single mainstream channel you probably want to watch, in addition to sports and that makes fuboTV football coverage incredible. The base package, which is $35 a month, includes 64 channels.
You get news mainstays like MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox right now, and CBS is signed on and should be live in the near future. Entertainment includes stuff like FX, HGTV, Viceland, A&E, and Nat Geo.
It’s most of the same stuff you get from a basic cable package. Sadly, there’s no option right now to add HBO, but a Showtime add-on is available, and there’s so many ways to subscribe to HBO already that it’s not really an issue. Plus, remember, there’s a fuboTV free trial available too!
You also get comprehensive sports coverage through the basic plan. You can look at the channel list to work out if your local team and sport is covered, but I’ve been able to watch everything I can think of this summer, including more obscure cycling and tennis events.
User Interface & Experience with fuboTV
Ultimately, the channel selection is going to be personal, and only you can work out if it’s going to be adequate. I’d say that most people who use cable for news, sports, and the occasional Flip or Flop binge will be happy, but Netflix will likely remain your primary way to watch sitcoms or drama.
It’s the unique interface that makes me prefer fuboTV to YouTube TV, though. fuboTV has a web interface for browsers, and apps for iOS and Android. The apps are way less buggy than the competition, and look consistently good no matter whether you’re using a phone or tablet on iOS or Android.
It even runs smoothly on an old Nexus 4, which is saying something.
FuboTV apps
More importantly, there’s broad compatibility with all the popular set-top boxes. fuboTV has apps for Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Fire sticks, Apple TV and Android TV, which means you’re not missing much. Playstation compatibility would be nice, but given the low cost of a Chromecast — $35 is the same as renting a cable box for four months! — you can’t really complain.
What devices are supported with fuboTV?
Compatible Devices
fuboTV can be streamed on the following devices:
- Apple TV
- Amazon Fire TV/Fire Stick
- Google Chromecast
- Roku
- Mac
- Windows
- Android TV
- iPhone and iPad
- Android phones and tablets
- Xbox
- Sony TVs
- LG TVs
- Samsung TVs
- VIZIO TVs
The streams don’t take long to cast from your phone to the set-top box, and the image quality is fantastic. On a 30Mbps Wi-Fi connection, you get a 1080p picture at high bitrate with no buffering, so really, there’s no difference in image quality versus a traditional cable package.
What to watch, and how to find it?
Where fuboTV stands out from everyone else, though, is how you find content. There’s a traditional TV guide that works perfectly fine, but there’s also tabs for sports and entertainment. Rather than scrolling through to work out which channel the baseball is on, you can sort by sports and then see what games are on right now, and what’s coming up.
Entertainment is just as good: you get a tab with TV series currently airing, those that have aired in the last couple days, and the same thing for movies. fuboTV lets you stream most any program that’s aired on a channel within the past couple days, which is particularly great for giving you more of a variety of movies.
I’m not normally one for watching movies off TV, but the choices that fuboTV gives — plus the Netflix-style browsing — makes it far more useful.
The weakest link is the DVR system. It’s easy to DVR any program from within the app, and it’s saved in the cloud, so you can access it from anywhere.
But there’s no way (that I’ve found, at least) to set a recurring recording, and you can only DVR 10 shows at a time. Compared to YouTube’s unlimited cloud DVR, it’s limiting.
Overall, fuboTV feels like the kind of cable alternative I’ve been waiting years for. The interface is modern, intuitive, and fast to use on every device you own. The content is heavily focused towards the kind of thing that Netflix isn’t good for — sports and live shows — and it makes use of all the entertainment that does air on cable to give you more choice.
The price is as low as any skinny cable bundle, but with no extra fees or equipment rental. As long as you’re not too dependent on saving things for months on your DVR, it’s the perfect setup.
fuboTV Free Trial details
fuboTV’s free trial is a week, absolutely enough of a chance to get to know the service and all that it offers. Remember, these are some of the highlights of the service:
- Best option for hard-core sports fans with fuboTV football. There’s local, regional sports networks and New York City’s MSG network, MSG+, ROOT Sports Northwest, and others.
- You get 3 simultenous streams. That means 3 different devices can be watching content at the same time.
- The base plan offers 27 of the full 35 top channels fuboTV offers. This can be upgraded for $5/more a month with extra Cloud DVR recording space.
- In addition to the free trial, new subscribers are granted access to the fuboTV Extra add-on feature. This is normally $8/mo but it’s being offered with the free trial.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
fuboTV starts at $64.99/month and offers a seven day free trial.
Yes, you can sign up for a seven day fuboTV free trial.
fuboTV says that they support 3 devices simultaneously.
fuboTV’s channel lineup includes popular networks like Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, The CW, Univision, Telemundo and more.
Almost 100 channels are offered in the channel lineup on fuboTV.
fuboTV offers live sports games from ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports 1 and 2, the NFL Network, and USA Network.
fuboTV supports 250 hours of Cloud DVR storage for your recordings. The streaming service also offers an upgrade to 1000 hours of Cloud DVR storage for an additional $5/mo.
fuboTV currently offers premium channels such as Showtime, Starz, and more. This is an additional subscripton.
fuboTV does support 4K streaming with 4K content, as long as your device is compatible.
