Getting to know Google TV involves familiarisation with 80 buttons on Sony’s remote control, compared to just three on the recently launched Apple TV.
The extra 77 buttons, plus function-key combinations, sum up how, in trying to combine a full web experience with regular television, Google and its partners have added a complexity that may intimidate many consumers.
I reviewed Sony and Logitech’s Google TV units in the Personal Technology column in Friday’s FT Business Life section and compared them with rival systems. An extended breakdown of how Google TV shapes up against the competition is after the jump.
Google TV software – The Google TV interface is simple to navigate but is not without its quirks. For example, I could not find any address bar in the Chrome browser to type in a web site address – navigating to web sites seems dependent on typing their address in a search box.
The top menus are Bookmarks, Applications, Spotlight, Most Visited , Queue and What’s On. Bookmarks can be added by hitting a Star button when on a web page or using a service and they appear as clickable thumbnails when the menu item is highlighted.
Spotlight highlights services and web sites that have been specially designed for the big screen, Most Visited has thumbnails of most frequently used services, sites and channels. Queue listed programmes recorded on my Dish Network DVR. What’s On allowed me to see what programmes were currently showing by genre.
This latter feature seemed under-developed – looking for a movie to watch later, all I could view was a list of movies currently in progress.
The menus had led me to scantier offerings before I linked my units to Dish for its enhanced functionality.
Non-Dish set-top boxes can be connected but Google TV cannot pull programming information from other DVRs and their TV Guides.
The Applications menu lists apps such as the Chrome browser, a Media Player that can pull content from PCs on the local network and services such as Napster, Pandora, Netflix and specially designed apps like CNBC Real Time financial news.
Applications specific to the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray player and Logitech Revue are the Blu-ray disc player and the Logitech Vid video conferencing service respectively.
Sony has also added its Qriocity video-on-demand service to the menu and a Sony Recommends section that promotes services including its own Crackle.
There is no Android Market to download more apps but this feature is promised for the New Year. Until then the offering is a little bare and users will have to settle in most cases for browsing standard web pages, which is not the greatest experience from the distance of the couch.
A magnifying-glass icon brings up a search box that allows universal search across Web content, DVR and TV Guide programming for Dish users and is perhaps Google TV’s most useful feature currently. TV can be watched in a small window while Google TV is being accessed, but there is no option to reposition or resize this.
Overall, the Google TV interface still seems a little barebones and there are too few examples of websites and apps being designed for the bigger screen. Search should be a powerful feature, but it will only be fully appreciated by Dish Network subscribers. Google software for smartphones that will allow users to “fling” content on their phone screens onto the TV is not yet available.
Logitech Revue
Logitech’s $300 Google TV box is accompanied by a well designed keyboard controller that is about two- thirds the size of a regular computer keyboard. Logitech has many years’ experience of producing keyboards and this one is clear in its layout and can rest comfortably on your lap. A trackpad and mouse button are included, as well as some extra keys that help control a TV, DVR and the Google TV experience.
However, the keyboard is still on the large side and I might have preferred the Revue to be shipped with a mini-controller with a palm-sized keyboard that Logitech has chosen to sell instead as a $130 accessory. Another option is a free Logitech Harmony app for Android devices and the iPhone, which enables touch-control from the cell phone screen.
One application exclusive to Logitech is videoconferencing from its TV Cam, a $150 accessory that can be plugged into a USB port on the Revue and adds high-definition video. The camera offered a very wide-angle view of the living room, good sound from dual microphones and the ability to zoom in with the keyboard. Callers were impressed with the picture quality, but I had some problems seeing them. Even though they had installed the necessary Logitech Vid software, the connections did not match up and we were confined to jerky pictures or audio-only calls from their end that often dropped.
Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Player
I loved having this $400 unit in the bedroom where it combined a DVD player with Google TV and my satellite box all on the same TV HDMI input. But Sony’s remote, which is common to both this player and the four integrated Google TV sets being introduced, may well be too complex for mainstream consumers.
Gamers and geeks, like myself, may enjoy and soon master the multitude of buttons, Fn combinations, the dual pads and rear scroll and zoom controls, but others will be completely turned off by this. The player and controller is only available in off-white at present, which may upset some colour schemes. Bewildering keyboard layout apart, this unit is well designed and solidly constructed in the best Sony traditions.
The alternatives
The most direct rivals to Google TV are the Tivo Premiere DVR and Yahoo Connected TV sets, such as Vizio’s lineup of Internet App TVs. Both mix TV pictures with Web content in a more limited but less intrusive way than Google TV. They are also much more consumer-friendly in their ease of use. Yahoo’s web widget carousels are available on TVs by a wide range of manufacturers in many parts of the world.
Set-top boxes such as Apple TV require that users switch to a different TV input and they focus on entertainment and tailored web services on demand rather than a full web experience mixed with live television. Nonetheless, this is an option that might be preferred by those wanting to confine web surfing and searching to their computers
A further option for this group is laptops, tablets and smartphones that can transfer what is on their screens to the TV. My family usually watches TV with a couple of laptops turned on and a smartphone at hand. Being able to switch screen content such as a web page or a video playing to the bigger screen using built-in technology such as Intel’s WiDi could prove to be a more compelling web+TV use case than Google TV.
