(Edited and updated 10/24/2010)
I’ll jump to the punch line.
It sucks.
Now that I’ve ruined your day, I guess some folks don’t even know what this thing is supposed to be. Honestly, I’m not sure either.
According to Logitech and Google, it’s the future of the television “experience,” melding television with the Internet. The device connects between your existing television source device (cable box, TIVO, satellite receiver, U-verse miracle device, etc.) and takes your couch time to a whole new level.
Using only the controller for the Revue (a nearly full-sized keyboard comes standard) you can operate your new television viewing life. Search for programs (rather than using your old and boring onscreen guide, or perhaps your “TV Guide” (do those still come in the Sunday paper?), set them to record (if you have DVR functionality somewhere in your stack), and then watch your programming.
You can also, of course, watch much Internet content. Supposedly… Much of it isn’t (yet?) compatible with the device, and what does show up is pretty ugly to look at. What looks pretty good in a 4 or 6” wide window on your computer monitor doesn’t look so nice on your 40+” HDTV. The resolution and data streams simply aren’t there. I’m sure there are some streams that work, but they seem to be primarily the streaming movie services, and even those aren’t very slick on the Revue.
Before going farther, I’ll point out that I’m a Logitech fan. This here is a logitech keyboard. We have several Logitech Squeeze Players in the house. Their Harmony remotes are what we use, too. So when I saw this was coming I actually factored the Logitech connection more strongly than the Google connection. I figured their integration skills would make this a strong performer.
So, like I was saying, this thing sucks.
Pretty much totally. Sure, it’s brand new on the market, but it’s locked up a few times on me in the first hour. The first time during the setup (just shut down completely, and I had to unplug it,) then subsequently with a couple of these:
And, most importantly, it …. I think it really doesn’t DO anything.
I take that back. It is another way to watch pixelated YouTube videos on my HDTV. That’s totally killer. If I do that, what the hell am I supposed to do at work all day?! Here’s the one use for that. Find something hilarious on YouTube, like this:
and you can share it with folks on the big screen for chuckles. It still looks bad, but at least you can all watch it without hunching over a desk.
Oh, and Netflix streaming. Big whoop. I can also do that via my TIVO, Blu-ray Player, the TV itself, and probably directly from my shoes, if I could get them on the LAN.
Specific to Netflix, the interface on the Revue is ok, and having the keyboard makes it easy to get set up, but after all that, you still get directed to "go to your computer to add to your instant queue." Well that’s great. Which I guess means switch over to the browser, and navigate to Netflix.com, and log in, and search for their lame-ass thin content, and add it to the instant queue, and switch back and…
Oh, that’s right, you savvy technology buyer, you picked up on that… You early GOOGLE TV adopter… now that you have the revue, you can SURF THE WEB! On yer damned TeeVee BOX!!! Incredible. Imagine, surfing the web, except giant. Everything is… BIG! CNN is extra large! I just don’t get surfing the web on TV, I guess. Stupid me.
Supposedly, when you’re watching TV (which comes from your existing cable box, remember) you can bring up a browser window in the screen (your TEEVEE! You’re browsing on the TEEVEE!) and surf the web. I guess you can search for a less lame digital video device whilst watching CHiPs.
And yes, Alan, it shares the screen, so you can do both at once. So you can search for suitable new safari hats whilst watching a show about the veld.
Amazon video on demand is supported. And it’s also already covered by every other device I own, including the collar we have on our dog.
Ok, interesting, there’s an "app" on there to watch HBO. OK, that might be good. HBO on demand, since I never think to actually watch HBO shows. You have to authenticate, to show you subscribe to HBO already, which makes some sense.
Of course, to do this, it then kicks you over to the Comcast site in my case, where it tells you to watch the video there. Which doesn’t work.
A nice "Windows XP or Vista, or Mac OS 10.3 or greater" message. Hilarious. Of course, we can absolutely blame Comcast for this, but come on Google; nice launch app, ya nitwits.
It also does BLIP. And Vevo, which I assume are both totally pornographic, or something. Didn’t look. There’s a CNBC thing. Which I guess is interesting, if you give a crap about that, and want to watch it on your TV. I did note that it has a window of video, and some scrolling tickers and all kinds of fixed-screen stuff that I’d be paranoid about causing burn on my display if I had a plasma set.
And Twitter! You betcha it tweets. Tweets like a sonofagun, I guess? 140 characters in HD. That’s clever. Oh, and Pandora, so you can watch music on TV. I loves to watch me some music on my TV. Same with Napster. That’s super cool. Blech. Why would people watch (err… listen) to Pandora on the TV? Either you’re listening via the TV speakers (shudder) or you’re… Ok, so if you don’t have any other way to listen to streaming music via your home theater setup, I guess this can work. But please, remember to set your processor back to 2 channel for this. And then switch back when you go watch actual video content.
Still, looking at the interface, here’s a snappy little icon! Something called Logitech Vid HD, for HD video conferencing to another one of these things, assuming you have the appropriate devices, and required camera. Whoopty doo.
What else.. what else… I guess if you choose during setup to loop your cable box through the device, it controls that for you.
With a keyboard!
Yeah, rather than via your totally inconvenient existing remote control, you can change the channels and stuff with this baby.
And it may do some DVR type crap, I guess, but it sure is hard to believe anyone buying this thing doesn’t already have a DVR.
Have I mentioned the keyboard has a sweet SEARCH key on it?
Well it does:
Behold the majesty, press that sucker, type some crap and find… The Internet. Which is full of words and pictures and 45 second clips of crap I could watch on my computer or iPhone or iPad, or better yet, not at all.
Speaking of SEARCHING, my big experiment here was a search for Andy Griffith. There’s something that I can watch! Clicked a thing then clicked a thing and got to watch a long ass commercial for ANDROID on whatever site was hosting the show (Nick at nite?)
Oh, I accidentally clicked on that commercial. It popped out of the browser interface, took over my entire screen and LOUDLY proclaimed awesomeness for Android. Well, that was super annoying.
Finally got to watch the show. Saw the first half, and the screen went black. Commercial? Dunno, it was the right time for it, but the video never came back. Oh, and yes, it looked like crap when it was playing. It was the episode where the stranger comes to town and knows everybody. One of my favorites, if for no other reason that it’s the one with the “other” Floyd.
Limited support for DLNA. It found my media server downstairs, but would only play a little of the content. Boo-hiss. Claims future intent to add more content types, but there’s nothing particularly new about my content, frankly.
To be fair, it is a pretty nice way to view your online Picasa picture albums.
So, there’s that. Pictures. On your TV.
The included keyboard is nice, and the RF works well. But it’s really too big… It’s a keyboard, after all.
All manner of indications of an iPhone app to control it, but that doesn’t actually seem to exist yet. Logitech site talks all about it in the present tense, but it’s nowhere to be found.
Supposedly it’s "compatible" with an existing Logitech Harmony remote. So, I figured I’d try that out with our Harmony 900 RF remote.
Or not.
Sure, sure, the Logitech Harmony programming interface is currently "Down for routine maintenance.’ Of course it is! I do all my routine maintenance on Friday afternoons. It’s the coolest time to do it.
Update, Sunday, October 24 2010. Logitech Harmony interface is still down.
So, the net is that I unplugged it all, and I’ll send it back. Unless someone else wants to try it, and convince me it doesn’t suck.
Love and Kisses, Evil Jim