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Thoughts on the MSN Web TV Device?
elmore asks: "I was watching television tonight and saw a commercial for the new MSN web TV device. Normally I completely dismiss anything Microsoft comes up with but this seems pretty nifty. I like this device because my grandparents and my mother are fairly...'challenged'...when it comes to the internet. Sticking with my gut, I'd like to ask the Slashdot community what web TV devices you've seen and/or given to your internet 'challenged' family or friends."
I found it here the other day, but I haven't seen any real advertising push for it yet...
...if you want to keep them permanently challenged.
You may initially not have to provide tech support, but you will eventually. Grandma will want to know how to do all the things her friends can with their PCs, and you'll not only have to teach her how to use a computer, you'll have to un-teach her WebTV.
...
I bought a WebTV for my grandmother. Its great, she can get on and send email around, surf the web, shop for her antiques on ebay and do cool stuff.
The downsides : No local storage for images or emails. She has to re-download stuff every time. And her email gets purged after a while, so she can't save that new grandchild picture forever
No games (not a big deal for my grandmother, but dont buy it for your 15 year old cousin!)
No wordproccessing/excel/etc. My grandmother would have some use for Word, so she could write letters to her lawyer, or to different companies/groups, but she doesnt have this.
The deal with WebTV, is know what you are buying, and what you need. If its just for email, and surfing, its great. If you want more than that, go buy them a 300$ computer at best buy, or (shudder) a mac!
Oh, and make sure you buy the keyboard, it makes everything MUCH easier than typing with a remote control
you can get them for about $45 now. they have built in 56k and availabale brodband support. There is an available mouse and keyboard that can be had for about $30 together, otherwise i think theres a ps2 to dc converter. your local funcoland will most liokely be willing to give you the web browser disk, otherwise its like 79cents.
so for about $70 your up and running.
also you can play games that are still awesome, of which many will appeal to the older audience, my grandpa loves chu chu rocket! plus if they dont like it you can keep it and run a whole crap load of homebrew software, and emulators.
I want 2D games back.
(Before we start, let me mention I used to work for them, so this isn't just mad bashing, this was the policy I observed)
These will only get support using M$ as the ISP, if you try to go with another, you're going to have an uphill battle.
We were directly told to keep tech information about the web tv from the customer, like how to get it to work with other password formats than MSN's, and how to reset the firmware (even their embedded systems needed reboots?!).
Again, this was back when WebTv was another corp that had been recently been eaten by M$, I don't know if the design changed to be friendlier to other ISPs, but (ahem) I don't imagine that they went out of their way to have some competition.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
We got a Phillips WebTV unit for my husband's parents about 3+ years ago. (If my understanding is correct the new MSN ones are just the latest incarnation of the same machine). It works great for email and simple web surfing, which is about all they need it for. I don't like using it because its frustrating as hell not to have control of what's going on and to be able to multi-task, but for people who've never used computers and have no desire to, it's great.
:-) I guess they think going off to use the computer by yourself in some small room isn't as desirable as doing it socially and both getting to read the messages together. (That social aspect, and everyone seeing what you're looking at, could be very undesirable for some people).
The thing they most like about it, is that it appears on the TV. Since they have a very large TV, its very easy to read. Also, they said if they had a computer they'd have to go off into another room or office to use it, rather than doing it from the comfy chairs in the living room.
As another person has said, definitely get the keyboard. Using the remote is a pain. The only major thing we've had a problem with is that the keywords seem to be somewhat fragile or break easily. We've already had to order them a replacment once, and it looks like we might have to again.
My biggest frustration is the page size limit. When visiting a page such as E-Bay that has dozens of listings, the page cuts off and displays a warning about the page being too large. You can't get to the end of it then! I don't know if this problem is caused by the physical viewing size of the page (since webtv resizes things and makes pages much longer), or the time it takes to download. Same problem with Hotmail, but there at least I could limit the messages per page for them so they could see them all.
All in all IMO the device has its uses, but isn't for everyone.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.