Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION] by Apple Computer
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Our Price: $349.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $85.95 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
Digital camera Review: Apple Simplicity, Functionality, and Style at its best
Summary: 5 Stars
The Apple TV is price really well in a market where the only other real competition comes from the major gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle 2008 Includes 60GB Hard Drive and PlayStation 3 80GB. Both of them cost more, granted they do have slightly more functionality since they are gaming consoles, but for the purpose of having your media on your HDTV this is by far the best. The User interface couldn't be easier to navigate and is much easier to use for the average person compared to the others which are primarily aimed and much younger users who might be more tech savvy.
My favorite part about the Apple TV might just be the ability to rent movies. I love not having to brave the Michigan winter just to rent a movie. I can sit right on my couch and browse new movie trailers, buy music, explore YouTube, view my pictures, purchase my favorite TV shows, rent or buy movies, or just stream videos from iTunes on one of the computer in my house.
For the power users, the Apple TV can seem like its really limited, but the fact that you can install 3rd party software like Boxee (not supported by Apple) and play basically and file format you like is a definite plus.
The Apple TV really wins over the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 as a media device because of iTunes and the thousands of movies it has to offer. There is sooo much content available that you can rent/buy at a more than reasonable price (in my opinion). You can purchase movies for like $10 at DVD quality or rent them for no more than $5 for High-Definition quality that you can keep for 30 days, but once you start watching you only have 24 Hours to finish.
I really like the Genius music playback feature that lets you choose a song you like and the Apple TV will, based on your selection, create a playlist of similar music that you will like. It works very well actually.
The only downsides to the Apple TV right now that I can think of is the tiny little remote, the fact that it doesn't have support for more type of video out of the box, and that it has no Netflix streaming support (though I assume it's because that would be their competition). The remote I can deal with as far as using it goes because anyone will quickly become familiar with its very simplistic design and five button does it all interface. The problem with it is that it's so small it is easy to use. Fortunately you can get replacements at most electronic store for less than $20 Apple Remote Control for iPod (White) since all Apple products use the same remote.
Digital camera Review: Apple TV
Summary: 5 Stars
The Apple TV is a great product. I am not a tech person but with a little bit of help from customer service I had the item up and running in a few minutes. We don't have cable or satellite, but to watch the down loaded programs on a big screen is terriffic! Just a note, be certain you have the right ports on your TV to connect the product. It's well worth the $299.99Digital camera Review: Apple TV
Summary: 5 Stars
I love this addition to my Apple Product line - computers, iphone, etc. Only regret is I didn't buy it sooner.Digital camera Review: Apple TV - A Great Media Storage and Instant Gratification Device
Summary: 5 Stars
Apple TV is a happy invention and I'll try to explain why: in an era when a great number of people have access to broadband Internet and consequently to digital entertainment instantly delivered to computers, a set top box which is sleek and that can store one's favorite video library, eliminating the necessity for extra space to store DVDs and other types of media just bring us more convenience than we have ever had.
In terms of ease of use, I really have nothing to complain of. As just any product we plug in for the first time, it takes some time and patience to figure out the way it works. I took a little more than one hour to have everything on and functioning.
Basically video is not yet of a hi-def quality because files that are downloadable via iTunes Store are relatively small in size, since they were first conceived to work with the iPod small-sized and computer screens only. But still they are clear enough for a pleasant watching.
One small technical point that must be addressed: some air openings in order to avoid excessive heat would be more than welcome. I must admit that I become a little scared every time I put my hands on it.
The WiFi feature which is intended to allow content synchronization and video streaming from a computer to the television (including YouTube content) is a great advantage. I hope that soon new features will be made available so we can enjoy Live TV and On Demand streamings from the Internet directly sent to our TV sets.
Apple, as usual, did an excellent job with Apple TV. Five Stars!!!
Digital camera Review: Apple TV 2.0
Summary: 5 Stars
just upgraded my Apple TV to 2.0 and am pretty happy. I connected into my home network with a wired connection - I expected trouble but there were no problems. The menus are easy to navigate, but some things are a bit cryptic (I had to look up "Ken Burns Effect" in the options for displaying photos). It was very simple to link in photos from my two PCs to display on screen or as screen savers on my flatpanel TV. The movie rental feature (which was why I bought it) works well. I have 1.5Mb DSL so downloads do take some time. With this rate movies are typically ready to watch in 20 minutes. Download rates from Apple were running at max DSL rates so at least they seem to have the bandwith to deliver content as fast as my DSL link will provide it. I connected to the TV through HDMI and I've had no technical issues. One aggravation is that the movie thumbnails on the selection screens are showing up as generic gray blocks. It can take up to several minutes for them to update to something useful - this seems to have gotten worse in the last week. Picture quality for the films I've rented is very good. Selection at the moment (late Feb 08) is still quite limited but some unusual and off the wall selections make for interesting viewing.