COMCAST Xfinity Interface

1bigfan13

Your favorite player's favorite player
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I decided to go with Comcast Xfinity down here in Florida and ditched DirecTV. I mainly did it to reduce my bill because previously I was paying well over $100 for DirecTV satellite service and over $100 a month for TWC internet and phone service. So instead of paying two different bills I went with one of Comcast's bundles which saves me approx. $60.

Problem is I'm not a fans of the Xfinity dashboard and interface. Apparently this X1 interface is supposed to be the latest and greatest thing from Xfinity but it's not very user friendly, IMO.

Say you want to browse the channel directory and watch TV simultaneously, with DirecTV that was no problem. Your program would play on the screen while you flipped through the minimized channel guide which was located on the bottom of the screen. With Xfinity I have yet to find a way to do anything remotely close to this, which you'd think is simple feature that every cable/satellite service would incorporate into their user interface. Instead w/Xfinity if you want to scroll through your channel guide you have to sacrifice your entire screen. The program you're watching can still be heard playing in the background but you can't watch TV at all because the channel grid covers the entire friggin screen.

Also, the channel groupings are very random. With DirecTV the channels are grouped very well. For instance, with DTV your sport channels (the ESPNs, NFLN, MLB, NBA, NHL etc.) are all grouped closely together so you don't have to go hunting all over the place to go from ESPN to ESPNews to NFLN. Again, you'd assume this was simple common sense that all cable companies would adopt. Nope. With Xfinity I have my ESPN and ESPN2 together but then I have to scroll through 40 channels just to find ESPNews and ESPNU.

To mitigate some of that frustration I set up some favorites. My only issue with the favorites option is Xfinity should have added a button to the remote that allows you to quickly access your favorites. Again this is something DTV has and that I assumed would be standard across the board for any major player in the cable TV industry. Instead you have access your channel guide and scroll through the menu to find the favorites option.

It's not all bad. I actually enjoy the service and some of the apps; it's just those items that I mentioned above that really bother me. The user interface needs a lot of work because right now I'd have to grade their system as a C- in the user-friendly department.

If there are any Xfinity customers in the crowd who know a work around to some of those issues, especially the channel guide covering the entire screen thing, I'd love your input. I've only had the service for a few days and I'm still trying to figure things out.
 

boozeman

28 Years And Counting...
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That's what you get for being cheap. :unsure
 

1bigfan13

Your favorite player's favorite player
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I do like that the internet modem that Comcast provides is also a Wi-Fi router.

I don't believe TWC offered this. I had to purchase my own router with them.
 

Kbrown

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Apr 11, 2013
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I do like that the internet modem that Comcast provides is also a Wi-Fi router.

I don't believe TWC offered this. I had to purchase my own router with them.
Also kind of cool is that the wireless gateway emits two wifi signals (unless you elect to turn the second one off). One is for you, and the other is to create a hotspot for other xfinity customers. That means you can access wifi at other Comcast customers' houses without needing their wifi password and without affecting their speeds. It can be handy.
 

boozeman

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Also kind of cool is that the wireless gateway emits two wifi signals (unless you elect to turn the second one off). One is for you, and the other is to create a hotspot for other xfinity customers. That means you can access wifi at other Comcast customers' houses without needing their wifi password and without affecting their speeds. It can be handy.
Time Warner does this too.
 
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