Those eagerly waiting for Sony to launch the Hi-Def Google TV, your wait is over – atleast if you could compromise a bit! The “People of Lava” – Sweden is ready with the world’s first Android powered TV. It includes a lot that would keep you busy 24×7- besides getting a regular TV, you get integrated web-browser, e-mail, youtube, facebook, google-maps, weather, calendar and a custom applications market. The range of TVs is called Scandinavia, and is available in variants of 42″, 47″ and 55″. The TVs are really slim but heavy, are good looking and have LED based screens. Flash support is currently not fully available, but the manufacturers do say that you will be able to upgrade to later versions of software online and that flash support will be made fully available then. The TV comes with a remote-cum-mini keyboard.
No, it’s not a Google TV killer. Following are the reasons I think are strong enough to support this stand:-
First of all, Google TV is set for launch everywhere (starting it launch in US), but the Scandinavia range of televisions would be available primarily in European markets.
Currently, these TVs run Andorid 1.5 on a powerful 833 MHz Cortex-A8 based processor – the way Google is pushing out major releases of Android (probably atleast thrice a year), it would be hard for manufacturers to customize the latest Android build and push it out to be used on TVs. We can experience this with many of our mobile handsets which are still alive for a drop of Android Froyo only when its time for Gingerbread launch party! With Google TV, you probably would get automatic updates that would be pushed via Google servers, so you would not have to worry about the delays.
The Scandinavia range of televisions come with a custom application market – not the android market place. I wonder how developers would be pushing their apps into this market
Pricing: The Scandinavia range of televisions start at 2500 euros!! What?? You can get a Google set top box for a much lower price (my guess would be $99-$149)
You can simply plug in Google’s set top box to your existing TV rather than pushing in an additional 52″ giant into your already space-squeezed apartment
