Google TV Made Me Sell My Laptop
It all began on a Friday night, a delicious dinner topped off with a bottle of Pinot at Bertucci’s with my family. After a wonderful meal, I (for whatever reason) began to have a sudden urge to splurge. No, not on kicks (sneakers), gear (clothes) or jewelry but on electronics of all things.
You would think as a “tech person,” my place should be littered with the latest gadgetry, but sadly, that is far from the truth. For almost six years I’ve tortured myself watching a 20 inch TV, a TV as of today’s standards –would be considered fossil like.
So, with a spontaneous urge of leaving the times of Stone Henge, I decided to buy a flat screen TV. With success, I was able to buy the TV I wanted at a reasonably great price.
A 5000 series Samsung 1080p (full HD), ultra slim, LED TV is what I ended up with. Weird thing is, I thought that would be the end but the very next day I found myself looking for anything having to do with HD.
I didn’t realize till yesterday, how much of a strangle hold Comcast or any cable provider for that matter had on the whole HD market. Basically, it’s pointless to buy these types of TVs if you don’t use them at their full potential. Sadly, putting money into an HD provider such as Comcast is the only way to do so.
In an attempt to buck Comcast’s mini monopoly in providing HD quality, I stumbled across Google TV. Being a Google user of smartphones and such (for years now), I was very familiar and already interested in purchasing the set-top-box prior.
But before a decision was made I had to decide what set-top-box was better for me far as convenience. There was Logitech’s version which for the price of $299 provided only a box. Then there was Sony’s offering (for $399), which was a box that included a Blue-Ray disc player along with a cool universal remote.
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Sony’s remote is nicely compact and looks like something that should be playing video games or texting mobile handsets.
Hopefully, to none of your surprise, I chose Sony’s box. Known to be cheap (most tech people would agree) for not including certain accessories; Sony did manage to include an HDMI cable, which is huge, because a cable will run you 50 bucks on average (especially in a retail spot like Best Buy).
Well, to make a long story short, I ended up leaving Best Buy with more than an HDMI cable. Once Google TV was bought, I then said (to self), “Why not get an Xfinity HD box from Comcast?”
At the end of the day, I decided to go with a FULL HD experience with both Google TV and Xfinity from Comcast.
When I got home and hooked both together, using the words of John Mayor, “It was like sexual napalm.” Well, not quite but nevertheless it was exciting. Google TV essentially turns your HD TV into a HUGE computer, leaving your desk or laptop pointless to have (in my opinion).
Streaming everything on the Web is at your disposal, not to mention your Neflix subscription which is an added bonus. Amazon on Demand is another option offered through Google TV I do plan to try out.
With everything Google TV offers far as Web capabilities are concerned, it left me no choice but to part ways with my 5 year old MacBook (I did love dearly).
I’ve been on a technology bender for the last 48 hours and believe it or not, I’m still actually considering an Apple TV set-top-box.
People please tell me, is my splurging going over board? Would purchasing an Apple TV be excessive? Or should I not worry and just purchase?
And oh… this blog post was created and published using, yes, Google TV.
