NOW TV Stick and NOW TV Box: Are They Worth Buying?

A compact HDMI stick, sold by NOW, sometimes bundled with a Membership. It runs a customised platform with NOW front and centre and a curated selection of other apps alongside.

It is not a bad device. It boots reasonably quickly, the interface is clean, NOW itself runs well on it, and the remote is straightforward. As a way of getting a NOW Membership onto an old television it does the job.

The problem is not what it does. It is what it does not do, and what similar money buys elsewhere.

No, unless someone gives you one. The NOW stick only really does NOW, while a Fire TV Stick at a similar price runs NOW equally well alongside every other major app, with more storage and room for a wired connection. Pay for the Firestick.

Read across and the case is fairly clear. For roughly the same money, a Fire TV Stick HD runs NOW just as well and adds a vastly larger app selection, more storage and the option of a wired connection. For a bit more, the 4K Max adds 4K for everything else you watch.

The full field is covered in our streaming device comparison, including Roku and Apple TV, both of which also run NOW.

It was superseded, and then abandoned. The small white and black set-top units sold from the mid-2010s still power on, but app developers stopped supporting the operating system version they run. Apps stopped updating, then stopped working, then left the store. That is not a fault and there is no fix.

A significant number of British homes still have an older NOW TV Box — the small white or black set-top units sold from the mid-2010s onwards, many given away with Memberships. Most have since been superseded by the apps built into the television itself, which smart TV platforms explained covers. They are worth addressing because their situation has changed. If the old box is genuinely dead, which streaming device to buy is worth a look only where recording matters; otherwise NOW’s own trial position is the cheaper place to start.

As the platform aged, app developers stopped supporting the operating system version those boxes run. The pattern is the familiar one for abandoned hardware: apps stop updating, then stop working, then disappear from the store. Several major services are no longer available on the older units at all.

This is not a fault and there is no fix. It is what happens when a platform stops receiving updates, and it affects every abandoned streaming device eventually — as covered in our device guide.

• If NOW still works on yours and that is all you use it for, keep it. There is no reason to spend money.
• If apps have started disappearing, that is support ending. Replace it.
• If it has become slow and unresponsive, try a power cycle first, but do not expect much — these units have very little storage.
• Do not buy one second-hand. You would be buying into a platform already past end of support.

Worth stating clearly, because the bundling implies otherwise. NOW has among the broadest device coverage of any UK service, and the app is identical wherever it runs. That is the whole NOW TV Box vs Firestick argument in a sentence: the app is the product, and the hardware is interchangeable.

• Streaming devices — Fire TV, Roku, Chromecast with Google TV, Apple TV.
• Smart televisions — LG, Samsung, Sony, Hisense, Panasonic and most others from the last several years.
• Games consoles — PlayStation and Xbox.
• Computers — any modern browser on Windows, macOS or Linux.
• Mobile — iOS and Android phones and tablets, with downloads if you have Boost.

If you already own any of these, you already have everything you need. The correct order is to check what is in the house before buying anything at all.

One quality note that applies regardless of hardware: NOW streams at 720p with adverts unless you pay for the Boost add-on, which lifts it to 1080p with 5.1 audio. No device makes that better — it is a service limitation, explained in our NOW review. Buying better hardware to fix a soft picture on NOW will not work.

There are genuine cases, and it would be unfair not to name them. Usually when it arrives bundled — what NOW currently offers new customers is where those bundles show up.

The second row deserves emphasis. A simple, curated interface with fewer things to press wrong is a real feature for some households, and Amazon’s advertising-heavy home screen is genuinely confusing for people who are not confident with technology. That is a legitimate reason to choose it.

Four things improve it measurably. Power it from the mains adapter rather than a USB port on the television, because underpowering causes random reboots and Wi-Fi dropping mid-stream. Use the HDMI extender, which moves the stick clear of the television’s metal chassis. Then use 5 GHz Wi-Fi, and clear caches periodically.

If you do have one, four things improve it measurably.

If it still stutters after all four, the constraint is the hardware rather than the configuration. The general maintenance principles are the same across devices and are covered in our guide to clearing caches and speeding up a streaming stick.

The NOW Smart Stick is one instance of a pattern that runs through the whole UK market, and the general principle is worth setting out because it applies to more than one purchase. The same logic applies to Sky: the Sky Stream puck is excellent but useless without the subscription, and Sky Glass takes it further by selling you the television too.

Provider hardware falls into two quite different categories, and they deserve opposite verdicts.

The Sky Stream puck is the clearest example of the first category and a genuinely excellent device — but it is not sold as a standalone product, so there is no purchasing decision to get wrong. The NOW Smart Stick is the clearest example of the second, and it is the one where people spend money unnecessarily.

The test to apply

1. 1Does the service run on hardware I already own? Check the television, the games console, the tablet. NOW runs on essentially all of them.
2. 2Is the provider hardware the only route? For Sky Stream, EE TV and Virgin Stream, yes. For NOW, no.
3. 3What does similar money buy elsewhere? A Fire TV Stick HD is around £40 and frequently £25 in a sale, and runs everything.
4. 4Is it being given away? Free hardware that works is worth having regardless of the analysis.

Answering those four honestly resolves the question in most cases. The full comparison of general-purpose devices is in our streaming device guide, and the services themselves are covered in our round-up of every legal UK option.

Check the television first — a set that already has the NOW app needs nothing extra. Otherwise a Fire TV Stick is the default at £25 to £40, and a Freely box is the pick only if what you really want is live British channels for free.

If the analysis above has persuaded you to look elsewhere, these are the alternatives that run NOW just as well and do considerably more besides. On a set that already carries the apps, the honest answer may be no new hardware at all — what a smart TV already includes covers that, and which Firestick model to buy is the fallback where it does not. For live British channels with no subscription, a Freely box is a different route again.

Or spend nothing at all

Worth checking before buying anything. NOW runs on most smart televisions sold in the last several years, on PlayStation and Xbox, on any modern web browser, and on phones and tablets. If any of those is already in the house, the correct purchase is none.

The one caveat is age. Television manufacturers stop updating built-in software years before the panel wears out, so a set older than about four or five years may have a NOW app that is slow, out of date, or gone entirely. That is the point at which a stick genuinely earns its money — and even then, a £40 general-purpose device beats a £30 single-purpose one.

The full comparison, including what each device does badly, is in our streaming device guide.