A decent preview of the near future
Written: Oct 25 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: more reliable net access than Mac or PC
Cons: can be as hard as a PC/Mac to initially set up
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| jr_mooneyham's Full Review: Sony INT-W100 |
Folks, although I've done my share of angry venting about WebTV on my web site, I also must admit that over the past couple years WebTV has become my first choice by far for web surfing and email client, compared to more general purpose personal computers like Macs or PCs.
WebTV crashes on average maybe three times a year or so, compared to our Macs crashing often that frequently per day.
You can also get online with WebTV typically much faster than you can on a Mac. So if you log on as often as I do, that makes for a substantial amount of time saved.
Sure, WebTV doesn't offer the vast potential of our Macs to do other
things besides surfing or email-- but that same constraint also means
WebTV isn't vulnerable to as many different ills as our Macs either--
you know, like software installs gone wrong, and hard disks getting
corrupted, etc.
Of course, like all net clients/services so far, the WebTV sometimes loses its connection to the net. A Mac using America Online seems to lose its
connection too at least as often as WebTV. But there's a couple
differences between the Mac and WebTV in this. One, the Mac often
crashes when this happens, while the WebTV doesn't. Two, the Mac can easily require several times longer to recover from the spontaneous disconnect than the WebTV--
sometimes even a day or more if disk repair work is called for.
Don't misunderstand me: I couldn't get by with only a WebTV. I fully
require a PC or a Mac too for everything beyond basic web surfing and
email-- for instance, I perform my web site editing on a Mac, and use both Macs and PCs to upload to the web. I could likely 'get by' with ONLY a PC or Mac (without any WebTV at all) for web surfing, authoring, and everything else-- but it'd be more
difficult and a much bigger hassle, and I'd surf much less often, learn
much less, and collect far fewer great links and ideas than I do now.
So yes, my WebTV is darn near indispensable to me so far, as a great
complement to my personal computing resources.
A few last comments: Do not buy a WebTV without a keyboard. The keyboard is essential. I can recommend WebTV for those with only basic web and email needs, or as a backup (secondary) net account, where such a thing is affordable for the user. I can also recommend it as the primary net device for grandparents or young schoolkids-- people who might not be able to keep a full-fledged PC running, nor justify its extra cost, if all that's required is web surfing and email access.
However, don't expect a WebTV to necessarily be easier to initially get online than a Mac or PC. The first-time set up can be a bear, and possibly require someone with geek credentials to get through (but after that first set up it typically goes into the no-brainer territory we all desire for easy net access).
Following are some notes from my own initial WebTV set up many months ago:
PROBLEM ONE: WebTV will NOT work with just any TV. It will NOT connect
to the cable TV connector virtually all new TVs and VCRs now sport. It
also will NOT directly connect to the TV antenna screws of older TVs.
No, for direct connections you require either an S-video jack on your TV
or attached VCR, or RCA video and audio jacks. Fortunately, there are
quite a few so-equipped TVs and VCRs in circulation now-- but anyone
thinking of buying a WebTV should check to make certain their own TV/VCR
has such connections first. There's also a special adapter cable for
TVs/VCRs that don't have the jacks described above, but it appears you'd
have to special order those gadgets, and they might be fairly expensive
for what they do.
For many of us wealthier folks this connection problem may seem
irrelevant. But as WebTV's prime potential customer would seem to be low
income families who can't afford a full scale computer system for web
access, and so likely have old TVs lacking the required jacks, and maybe
no VCR at all (to offer an alternate set of jacks to connect to), this
seems a significant drawback.
PROBLEM TWO: We're all rural here in Newport TN, so normally there's no
local access number for WebTV here. However, we've now reconfigured the
long distance phone accounts for several residences among the family,
which theoretically gives those homes local access to WebTV access
numbers in the "Big City", among other things (Bellsouth's "Area Plus"
program). Given that, we tried to sign
on with WebTV at one of the "Area Plus"-enabled homes.
OK, after several false starts, WebTV seemed to finally wake up and
realize that its Knoxville Tennessee access numbers were no longer long
distance from the Newport house as they'd normally be. But WebTV tried
several times to add "1-423" to the other 7 digits anyway, and for a
time worried me that it would simply keep trying various Knoxville
numbers until it found one that WAS long distance (requiring "1-423"
prefix), before it would connect (and thereby cost us a bundle in long
distance charges). But it finally seemed to catch on and drop the long
distance prefix from a number we were supposed to obtain locally now. Unlike a regular computer, there appears no way to randomly access and verify what number WebTV is using in a certain
control panel or whatever-- instead, you must closely watch WebTV's log
on procedure to see (and listen to) the number being dialed (Listening?
Am I crazy? No. In touch-tone dialing you can count the tones used in a
dial up to confirm how many numbers are being used; 7 numbers are local,
11 would be long distance).
OK, so folks living in a big city might not have the same problem above
as we did. But there's more.
PROBLEM THREE: WebTV wouldn't let us sign up like it was supposed to--
i.e., enter a credit card number, a name, address, etc. Instead, it
informed us we'd have a couple weeks or whatever grace period before
it'd cut us off the service, and that was it. Huh?
We refered to the manual, and online problem lists, etc., and just
couldn't find any indication that this was how stuff was supposed to go.
Luckily, I'm an Old Computer Geezer, so after a moderate amount of
cursing and pulling of hair I finally seemed to find a back-way into
signing up for the service, that should get the new WebTV owner past the
two week warning.
This third problem, again, may not be typical. Why? Because although the
unit we bought appeared to be brand new and all its packaging intact,
when we tried to use it to sign on it seemed SOMEONE ELSE had already
been using this box ahead of us!
Yes, so far as I can tell, someone else had already hooked this
particular WebTV up and signed on, bookmarked about a half-dozen
pornographic sites, and then decided they didn't like the unit and
returned it-- whereupon the retailer returned it to Sony, and Sony ran
the box back through the packaging process to make it appear unused, and
then re-sold it, this time through Service Merchandise, as a NEW UNUSED
WebTV box! Folks, I kid you not. This is the only thing I can figure out
from the condition of the thing once we got it, with somebody else
already signed on with it, and several porno bookmarks left on it.
If this is indeed what happened, THERE WAS NO WAY TO DETECT IT FROM THE
PACKAGING, which looked pristine.
But surely we can replace that original account ID, right? Well, we're
trying everything we can to do so. But so far that previous account's
screen name remains stubbornly burned into the WebTV's memory, no matter
what we do-- though it does seem WebTV central did accept our new credit
card info via the back door way we were forced to use to sign on.
PROBLEM FOUR: Though WebTV usually does a great job of producing legible
text onscreen, users will often run across web graphics sporting text
that WebTV can't do much with-- i.e., you'll be unable to read small
text that are part of images on web sites, rather than the plain text WebTV
zooms for you automatically. This can pose a significant problem for you
at many web sites folks.
PROBLEM FIVE: Though you have the option of adjusting the size of
displayed text on your TV screen, this may not provide the flexibility
you expect, due to the limited resolution of a TV screen. I've seen
several web pages displayed through WebTV that contained highly annoying
effects in and about the text, especially where that text was in some
color other than black on white. I think these effects may be called
"artifacts"? Anyway, it can make WebTV surfing something hard on the
eyes if you stay at it too long-- it's much easier to spend hours
viewing a computer display for this than a TV.
PROBLEM SIX: WebTV's remote must be programmed to work most TVs (unless
you just happen to be using a TV made by the WebTV maker in question,
which in this case was Sony). So here again you run into more
configuration annoyances and problems. In our case, even after we got
the WebTV remote to turn our Emerson TV on and off and change channels
and set volume, it still didn't do us any good-- because so long as the WebTV box was connected to the TV the TV would not show anything but WebTV-- i.e., no sitcoms, folks. We tried EVERYTHING. But it appears we have to entirely disconnect WebTV in order to watch TV, every time, and
then re-connect everything again to use the internet (^%$#!@!@#!).
UPDATE: We eventually found a way to use the TV/VCR's own native remote to get around connecting and disconnecting the WebTV all the time. END UPDATE.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jr_mooneyham
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Member: James Mooneyham
Location: Newport, TN
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 5 members
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