The TiVo Premiere will be here real soon so it isn’t much of a surprise to see a Series 3 on Woot. You might want to consider it, too. The Series 3 might be old, but it’s still a great DVR. It even has a few advantages over the TiVoHD line and upcoming Series4.
The big downside to the deal is that this Woot model only comes with a 250GB hard drive. But it’s also the only TiVo model features an open eSATA port that doesn’t require a special TiVo-approved drive or hacking. You can plug any ol’ eSATA hard drive into this model to instantly add storage. Note: eSATA RAID enclosures do not work as it’s not a eSATA port multiplier.
The Series 3 also ships with the fancy backlit remote and sports a nice OLED screen on the front panel. You’ll still need to pay for the TiVo service charge and two CableCARDS as this model doesn’t support the multistream M-Cards.
Keep in mind though, that while the Series 3 can still stream movies from Netflix, BlockBuster, Amazon, YouTube, and other random video podcasts, it will not get the fancy new menu system found on the Premiere. Sorry. TiVo doesn’t love you that much.