As many of you may know, I recently purchased a Logitech Revue from Amazon.com for $99.00 ($140 w/tax and shipping). My goal was to use the Revue to watch TV shows from the internet on my TV and downgrade or cancel my Rogers digital cable package. I’d like to share my experiences with the Revue with you.
The Revue does a decent job of allowing you to watch TV shows and Youtube over the internet. I had no trouble hooking it up to my digital cable set top box, internet or TV. One thing to note is that this device isn’t supported in Canada so there are a number of things that will not work such as the built in tv guide search, apps that are specific to US services, and sites restricted to the US.
When setting up the device it asks you to enter your zip code and choose your television provider. I’m in Ontario and use Rogers cable so I followed a recommendation I found online and used the zip code 96815 and selected Time Warner cable. Time Warner has set top boxes similar to Rogers (Explorer 8300HD or Explorer 8642HD) depending on the model you have. Choosing the proper box allows you to use the Logitech Revue keyboard to control your PVR (change channels, record shows, fast forward, etc).
It can also control your TV and AV systems. I have mine hooked up to the TV so it can power up the TV and control the volume. I didn’t bother hooking it up to the AV system which only has the PS3 running through it currently.
The best part about the Revue is the keyboard. It’s quite light and not as awkward as I expected it to be. I really like using the keyboard to control everything. The keyboard doesn’t use IR signals like your normal remotes do, so you don’t actually have to point it at the box! The trackpad is very responsive and makes it easy to browse the web. I was expecting the mouse to be sluggish and difficult to use but I was mistaken.
As far as internet browsing, I find the Revue to be somewhat sluggish and underpowered. Websites do load but they are nowhere near as fast as using a computer. However, for $99 you can’t expect too much. I’ve had the box crash a few times on me when surfing the web trying to find TV shows. I suggest that you be careful not to open more than one browser tab or too many apps or the box is next to useless. To overcome these problems, I put together a list of shows that can be found on the web and bookmarked it. This makes it easy to get directly to the show I want to watch online and start playing it without slowing down the box. Find the list of shows here: http://codepath.ca/tv/. To bookmark a page on the Google TV, go to the page and hit the record button (star) on the keyboard.
The quality of the shows I’ve found online varies quite a bit. Some are pretty good quality while others are quite blurry on my 52 inch TV. I wouldn’t suggest trying to watch all your shows online (at least not on a large tv) until the quality is improved.
I haven’t tried using Netflix on the Revue yet (as I don’t have account) but I’ve read that it won’t work. Supposedly the Netflix app on the Revue will only work with US Netflix accounts. That’s not a big deal for me since I can always use the PS3 for Netflix if needed.
I’m also excited to see what the new Android Honeycomb update brings in the future. It should have the Android markeplace so you can download and install other applications. The system updates are installed over-the-air and are quite easy install. On first time initialization it automatically updated to the latest version.
In the end, we decided to downgrade our cable package from Digital VIP to Digital Basic (~$30/month savings) and watch any shows missing in the basic package using the Revue. I don’t think I could stand watching everything online due to the quality of shows online. If we tried watching everything online we’d easily run over our Rogers Internet bandwidth limit (60GB/month). I realize that I could switch to TekSavvy and have 300GB bandwidth for roughly the same price.
So there you have it. I would love to hear your feedback or answer any questions you might have!