Google TV Is For Geeks

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.