The Logitech Revue which is the new Google TV gadget must carry a label along with it that states “Only for Geeks”. It is really admirable that Google TV tries to a lot of stuffs, but it really doesn`t fulfill all its promises.
Actually, this is not a device; it’s a software that supports DLNA and many popular video and audio formats, but it does have some hardware (A set-top box and a remote). Google TV can be brought to your home in three ways.
- Buy a set-top box called Logitech Revue that costs $300
- Buy a special Sony Blu-ray player which costs $400
- Buy a Sony TV with a built-in internet which starts from the price range of $600
Hardship In Installing Google TV
Connecting the 1GB/Sec wired Ethernet port is very easy, but the next 12 steps to configure the Revue makes ones nerves go high as missing a step would make you to lose some of the functions.
For instance, there was a user who stumbled when he missed the step to connect wifi. And when he thought of going back to the step to connect wifi, he couldn’t do it as he was not connected to the internet.
Also, the need of using a virtual or a physical keyboard still makes the browsing through Google a difficult task. Moreover, the search results are very much disappointing. It’s like searching on your computer. When you start searching for a particular video, all the irrelevant videos pop-up in the results page.
Logitech’s keyboard is more complex than the normal keyboard and using it as a remote to control TV makes it even worse. Even Sony’s box has a complex controller. Based on Android’s operating system with a chrome browser, Google TV is not promising when it comes to quality.
Complicated Interface
I found a user commenting, “Usability sucks on Google TV. I opened the chrome on it and there was no search bar to type website. It took me about 10 min and clicking through all buttons on keyboard to figure out how to get textbox to type website address. Not a user friendly device for a regular user.”
The price is also high when compared to other devices that have Internet TV capability. It’s more difficult to find your regular TV shows. The interface on the TV is more complicated and it is indeed a difficult task when it comes to customizing the home page.
For instance, the home screen has a queue which holds some of your favorite podcasts, sites and a bookmark for others. The application menu will take you to the specially designed apps while there is also a spotlight category where you can just find the name of the app but not the content.
Google TV Is Not Yet Ready
Almost every major network has blocked has blocked Google TV from showing its free-to-the-web content. Though it has Netflix and Amazon, which works great, you still can’t record your content.
And finally we can say that it’s not ready yet. The idea seems to be very good, but the time has not come yet for regular people to use it.
I think we are looking at a particular phase of media convergence where several ideas will spring up before they fade out. It is perhaps too early to say whether Google TV will be one of them. The online media consumer profile is one which is fickle and restless, with poor attention span and perhaps very quick to get bored with sameness. This is sure to reflect on the existing social media applications. TV might not be too far behind.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article. It helped me gain a lot of info.
You’re very welcome Suraj.
I appreciate the review Jane because Google TV is something I’ve thought about as we make some changes. We just dropped our satellite and DSL for cable. I want an internet capable smart TV and Google TV was one of the reasons. It sounds like I’d be pretty disappointed spending that kind of money if everything is going to be user unfriendly and lacking content. I need to look into other internet TV programming to see if I wouldn’t be better off waiting until the TVs drop in price and we get better choices.
Google TV looks very promising. But yeah, since it’s really complicated to set it up, only the techie ones could really take advantage of it. I’m ondering if they have good customer supprot though.
Google should be easy to reach regarding help. May be it will take some time!
Hi Jane, thanks for this info. I think this is very promising, because Google is always evolving, and they like to work. Maybe I’m wrong, however this Google TV could be a great thing near future.
It sounds like you might still be on the first version of googletv. You should get the update and try again, it’s much better
Hiya. Is this an old article? The data seems dated. At my local best buy. Logitech’s devices are now $99. Sony blu-ray with google tv is about $160 or so and, maybe, has one or two setup screens.
It was my first time to learn about Google tv. This looks very promising because this could cater another need of Google users. I bet many people would truly enjoy its service.
Honestly, I wasn’t aware that there is already Google TV. Nice honest review though. 🙂
I never knew that there was something like Google TV before, learnt lots of new stuffs. Thanks for sharing.
This post is very informative and with the things you’ve experienced with the use of GoogleTV I do agree that it is the gadgets for geeks. But I still believe that if there is a great chance to restore and made it as a user friendly surely that there are a lot of people who will be satisfy on its service.
This is a new one. 🙂 Google is really making things possible. I guess I can conclude that google is the best search engine ever.
Really informative post. This speaks how tough Google is going to build the latest versions of the TV. Anyways, I am expecting a lot from Google, this time and I really hope, it is just NOT only for geeks.
Thank You