Lauren 10PIB2 Fieldtrip (Assignment)

Tonight, at a New York City launch event, Sony unveiled their Internet TV products. They are powered by Google TV, just like Logitech’s Revue, and come in two different versions. There are four televisions ranging from $599 to $1399 and in 24-, 32-, 40-, and 46-inch sizes. The other option is a Blu-ray player that will sell for $399.

The Sony Internet TV will be the first television with integrated Google TV. In this respect it’s like a connected television but Sony made it clear that this is different from the competition. First of all, both Sony products are powered by Intel Atom processors. Second, they allow for a “full internet experience”, which is to say that the OS uses Google Chrome and offers the same browsing that you’d get on a computer. The TVs and Blu-ray player each have 8GB of storage.

The controller that we saw last week ended up being the same device we saw tonight. It has a keyboard built into it and is a reasonable size, almost like a flatter version of the PS3 controller with a QWERTY keyboard built into the face. Sony mentioned that the design took cues from the PS3’s controller, so this wasn’t any secret. The controller has a built-in mouse and will act a universal remote.

I got to use the televisions at the events and initially everything looks good. The hardware is nice, the televisions are slim with attractive white cabinets, and the stands have a clean design. Sony was certainly going for a premium vibe here and they pulled it off. The larger three come with LED backlighting which accounts for part of the $200-300 dollar premium. It’s too early to speak to the image quality but superficially everything looked fine. The Blu-ray player was present but I didn’t try it out.

Google TV isn’t going to be for everyone, so integrating it into a television isn’t going to make it a product people are going to rush out to buy, but it’s a slick implementation. The downside of the set-top-boxless approach is that you pay a hefty premium for the television–the 40-inch model sells for $999. Some good news is that the products are Atom-powered so they should have power to spare and be good for at least a few revisions of Google TV. All the products have built in WiFi.

I like the controller more than I expected, but I also use a video game controller for watching movies and Netflix, so I might be in the minority with this one. It’s thinner and lighter than I anticipated, and it doesn’t look as clunky as it seemed in last week’s image. You don’t need to type that much on Google TV (at least right now) so I don’t think it’s worth it to have a full keyboard (I’m looking at you, Logitech). Using the multitude of buttons is a strange experience though, so it will take some getting used to.

Google TV’s OS is enjoyable to use and the picture-in-picture (picture-in-internet?) feature will be a popular one for anyone who tends to use their laptop while watching TV. The OS seems well designed and as if won’t be too technical for casual users. That said, we won’t be able to see what Google TV can really do until the Android Market place is available in 2011. Google TV doesn’t seem to be able to justify its 2-3x price relative to the competition, so the app store might very well be a make-or-break feature.

Both the televisions and the Blu-ray player can be seen on SonyStyle.com tonight. They will be available at Best Buy on October 24th.

By: Sal Cangeloso

source : geek.com