I was not prepared for the size difference compared to the two newer systems. The Home system packs down to about the size of two medium pizza boxes. It’ s larger in area than the Gen 2’ s box but it’ s only one fifth of the height, meaning you can store it on any flat surface or vertically between other items.
What shocked me a little was just how small a size the Mini packs down to. It’ s about half the size of the Home and slightly thinner. You could store this anywhere in your car or caravan without issue. It’ s also very light, coming in at just 2kg compared to the Home system’ s 6kg. Our original Gen 2 weighs around 7kg all packed up.
If you have issues with the Mini’ s wi-fi performance, you can use the internal RJ45 outlet to connect to a seperate wi-fi router.
EFFORT TO SET-UP
When it came to setting up our original system, it did take a bit of time, around 10 minutes. This is due to the numerous components that require assembly. There’ s a cable to go into the dish. The dish needs to be mounted to a small tripod. The other end of the cable plugs into the bottom of the router, alongside the power cord, which then needs a 240V outlet. Once the power was switched on, the dish aligned itself with the internal motors. It was a bit of a process but well worth the effort, I thought.
I was a bit surprised to see that setting up the Home system was almost as time-consuming as my old dish. This is because there are three separate components to the Home system: the dish itself, a wifi router and a power supply. It wouldn’ t be so bad if it wasn’ t for the rather thick and unnecessarily stiff cable going between the dish and the router. It is a nuisance, to be honest, and it makes the set-up time similar to the old system.
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