Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Verizon FiOS and received a free trial of the products and services necessary to facilitate my review.
We’ve had Verizon FiOS in our home for nearly two months now and my family and I are extremely happy about the switch we made from Time Warner. We’re so satisfied with the service that we have compiled a list of what we think is the top ten features we love.
1) Widgets: It’s one of my most favorite features from Verizon FIOS. Why? Because while I’m watching a show or a movie, I can tweet right from the screen and the widget will add the hashtag for me and possible tweets to send. How cool is that? Not only can I go on Twitter right from the screen, I can even go on Facebook too AND check the weather. And let’s not forget viewing YouTube videos too. Talk about Social Media savvy!
2) Speed: Before we had Verizon FiOS installed in our home, we were stuck with Time Warner for years and the internet speed was SLOW! So slow it took over an hour to upload a 1-minute video. Now it takes me approximately 5-minutes to upload a 1 minute video. How’s that for speed? Another feature in the speed category is rewinding/fast-forwarding. You can fast-forward commercials on a recorded show in about 4 seconds by pressing one button about 4-times. The same goes for rewinding too.
3) Channels: There’s an abundance of channels and the best thing is that the channels are color-coded so it’s easy to distinguish between the channels. Movies are red, sports are green, prime-time shows are blue, instructional TV shows are yellow and so on.
4) On-Demand: With Verizon FiOS, you’ve got plenty of channels to choose so you’re never behind on your favorite shows. There’s CBS, ABC, Bravo (for the Housewives series we all love! LOL), my favorite – The Food Network, Disney, HGTV and so much more.
5) High-Definition: Compared to Time Warner, Verizon FIOS has tons more HD channels.
6) Storage: The capacity of our DVR is humongous! At the moment, our DVR is holding over 29 hours of HD video. In other words, that’s A LOT of shows and movies! And we still have lots of room to record whatever our heart desires.
7) Parental Controls: If you’ve got little ones at home like us, you’ll love the parental controls Verizon FiOS features. You have the ability to have all those inappropriate titles hidden from your innocent children’s eyes and block out ratings you don’t them to watch.
8) Mobile: It’s nice to know I’ve got the power to record, view TV listings and more right on my iPod Touch (and on virtually any smart phone). It’s free from the iTunes stores under Verizon FiOS Mobile Remote. It makes this forgetful mom happy knowing I can record a show from just about anywhere.
9) Multi-Room DVR: This feature is perfect for those with big families. We all have our favorite shows that we like to watch but once Dad is home, it’s hard to watch them when he’s watching his shows. We no longer have disagreements about sharing the living room TV. I can just go into my bedroom and watch any recorded show I want. The beauty of having a multi-room DVR is that you can watch any recorded show on any TV in the house. Please note: you must have a cable box.
10) Flex View: With Flex View, you’re able to view videos on multiple devices. Let’s say you buy or rent Rio or Moms Needs Moms, you can watch it on any screen: Television, Mobile Phone (or in my case the iPod Touch) or on your home computer.
What service do you have? Are you happy with the service you’re with now? Are you willing to make the switch to Verizon FIOS?
Comment below and let me know! If you go with Verizon FIOS, you won’t be disappointed. Trust me!
**If you missed the first post of the Verizon FiOS Series, click on this link.
That sounds awesome! I think anything is better than time warner.Grrrrrr….
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Yes it is!! Thanks for stopping by!
Verizon has way fewer HD channels than my old provider, RCN. I can’t even get OWN in HD. It all depends on where you live. I live in New York City. You’d think they’d have more HD channels in that market, but they don’t. It’s very frustrating. Also, I have a Tivo and the screen displays are less user friendly than on the cable hookup. I used to be able to watch a program and browse at the same time, because I could still see my program in the upper right corner. That option is now gone. I also cannot go back past the current time when using the guide. I used to be able to check back on something that was maybe two hours earlier, but you can’t do that with Fios. I am thinking about going back to RCN.
We have FIOS – still learning about all the different features they have to offer.
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I’m very tech savvy and I’m soon to get Fios after many many years with Time Warner. I’m not totally dissatisfied with Time Warner other than a few pricing issues. Fios will be installed at my home on the 12th, and I am very excited to try out a few of these features you listed. Namely the ability to access social networking on the television. Thanks for the information!
See I switched from Verizon FiOS to DISH Network and saved $60 a year and $5 month just on programming by switching. Plus they offered me Blockbuster movies pass with free streaming for 12 months and 3 months free disc rentals on games, DVD’s and blu-rays. DISH Network’s DVR fee is only $6/mo and I save $10/mo right there. DISH Network also carries duel tuner receivers so you don’t get charge for every room for TV service and working for DISH Network I can tell you our TV everywhere is the only one to works on live TV and DVR content. DISH Network gives there customers access to a free app called Dish Remote Access and allows you to use you mobile device as a remote. DISH Network still carries the most HD channels and we have award winning DVR’s with a 1 terabyte hard drive (922).