Google TV Suffers Setback 202
An anonymous reader writes "Google TV has now been around long enough for the geeks to play around with it. And they have come back with disappointing reviews. While most were excited at the concept of wedlock between the TV and Internet, the marriage itself looks destined to be challenging."
too little for too much (Score:4, Interesting)
I had looked at various "media" devices such as the Roku, but all came up way short. I was shocked to find that, apparently because of their business model, the Roku will not play the free Hulu content, even if you buy a Hulu Plus subscription (and there is a lot on regular Hulu that is unavailable on Hulu Plus). Google TV was about the only consumer oriented appliance that I found that gave me everything that a browser would have access to. But at the $300 price of the Logitech version it is way too much for too little. For that kind of money I might as well build a PC that I can dedicate to the living room. I could not only browse everything on the web, but I could also install and play web oriented games on the big screen, and run other applications that Web TV can't such as Skype, TeamSpeak, Google Earth and so on. And I've also found myself wanting a DVR that isn't dependent on my having a cable or satellite provider, and it looks like to get that done right I'll have to base it on a PC anyway. So it was obvious that Web TV as it is currently offered is too little for too high of a price. A cute toy, but only for those who have too much money and not enough imagination to see what they can do with a real computer instead.
One big downside is that somehow turning a case from the typical vertical design into a horizontal case that would better fit in a media center seems to be very expensive. In my shopping I've found horizontal form factor cases for as much as $200, and that is without a power supply. Obviously I can get much nicer vertical cases a lot cheaper. I'm still hoping to find a case maker that is making a decent case at a reasonable price (responses welcome).