Guest PaulOBrien Posted May 19, 2012 Report Posted May 19, 2012 There's no denying that the success of Google TV to date has been, well, non existent. But a new wave of improved, ARM equipped devices is coming... including the LG 'G2' enabled TVs. Recently demonstrated to VentureBeat, the new LG TVs include a number of features to set them out from last year's failures. First of all, the hardware. The original Google TV boxes (like the Logitech Revue that I owned) were based on Intel Atom hardware... something that was certainly a mistake, a mistake that Google have effectively acknowledged by re-aligning Google TV with most of the rest of the Android universe on ARM chips. The G2 range feature a dual core CPU, which should elevate performance to more acceptable levels together with the added benefit of eliminating the fan noise from earlier models. Hopefully the move to ARM will make life easier for Android developers, and help fill out the Google TV Play Store, which was sorely lacking in earlier releases. Many apps were automatically excluded due to reliance on ARM, but of course the biggest problem is the same one that Tablet devices also experience - it's hard to encourage developers to develop for a platform when the potential revenue from that platform is very low due to few sales. The G2 range use a custom 3D skin on top of the base Google TV build, as demonstrated in the video at VentureBeat, and it looks nice! Of course, we know from the phone world that such customisations are a double edged sword, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out! Finally, LG have implemented a 'motion remote' for the G2 range. This allows you to control the Google TV system via gestures, while still giving you a conventional remote with a QWERTY keyboard when required. It looks to work great. :) I hope that Google TV will start to take off and there's no question great hardware like LG are demonstrating will help and with rumours of Google TV hitting the UK officially during 2012... maybe it's time for me to give it another go! The LG G2 Series Google TVs will be shipping in the US next week in 47" and 55" models priced at $1,699 and $2,299 respectively. [Via: VentureBeat] Click here to view the item
Guest Chewy11 Posted May 19, 2012 Report Posted May 19, 2012 WANT ONE! My Revue is great tho. Turned my years old Sony into a smart ass TV.
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