We have V+ and two normal Virgin TV subscriptions in our house, the V+ box being downstairs in the living room, and the normal ones in both mine and my sisters' bedroom. I was out when they were installed, so I didn't see the boxes and didn't have a clue what they would be like. When I got in, I went in to the living room to find the V+ box was huge, and not the nicest looking thing I've ever seen. I went upstairs, expecting mine and my sisters' boxes to be something similar. To my surprise it was a smart little Samsung box, which I quite liked the look of!

It's a pretty small box, silver in colour. It's pretty standard to any other digital TV box really, all the connections you need in the back, a slow in the bottom right hand corner on the front of the box for your subscription card, a little screen that shows what channel you're watching and some buttons.

The power button is on the left hand side, it's a little square button. It's silver in colour and matches the rest of the box, to make it stand out it has a thing black trimming which does look pretty smart. The standby symbol in the middle glows red when the box is switched off and green when the box is switched on. The screen is a few inches to the right of this, and only shows information (the TV channel number) when the box is turned on - this is shown in green digits. A few millimetres to the right of this are the rest of the buttons, including the four arrows, a 'TV' button and an 'OK' button. These are well designed and form the same sized shape of the screen. In the top right of the box, the Samsung logo is displayed, and in the bottom right just below where the card slot is, is the model number of the box.

The control, on the other hand, is the disappointment for me. You can tell this hasn't been manufactured by Samsung. It's the same size and shape as the old NTL control which I have never been very keen on. It has a ridge in the centre of the control on the back so that you can easily hold it, but if you hold it like this, I find that you can only reach the bottom buttons on the control rather than the top, meaning you can to hold the control in a rather uncomfortable way in order to reach all of the buttons. This control was either designed for people with extraordinary long fingers, or just didn't have the time and effort put in to it. The signal with the control isn't very good either. I quite often find myself repeatedly pressing the on button, and sometimes other buttons, because it isn't doing what I'm asking. Sometimes I'm tapping the on button over and over again just trying to get it to work, then all of a sudden the box will decide to turn on, and off, and on, and off, over and over again. Just seems there's a bit of a delay!

Other than the control, I think it's a really nice box and the only thing I think can be improved is to release a new control and maybe send new ones to every household who has Virgin Media TV! Maybe they should have Samsung design and manufacture it!