[Demo Impression] A tryst with Samsung's Smart TV Hub
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It’s been a while now since the Samsung’s line-up of ‘Smart TV’ made their debut in the market. While it would seem like Samsung is currently not considering sending out review units, they did the next best thing by setting up a demonstration at one of their more spacious and exclusive stores. Samsung’s line-up of Smart TV currently offered in the Indian market includes five LED-backlit models that measures between 32” and 60”, with price ranging between Rs. 57,900 to Rs. 4,00,000. This line-up also includes a lone plasma TV measuring in at 64” and costing Rs. 2,30,000.
While there is quite a bit to talk about Samsung’s Smart Televisions, the pick of the litter for this demonstration was the Smart TV Hub. This hub houses applications and shortcuts to online services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and GTalk. In case you are not feeling light enough after buying one of these televisions, the Smart Hub can get you access to fitness videos. More interesting was the on-demand video service; however, this one is not quite ready yet, as Samsung is still in the process of wrangling deals with movie publishers. Smart Hub also has a web browser which is not particularly impressive, but it should suffice for the most basic needs.
Things start to get a bit cumbersome when the TV wants you to get typing. The default typing experience using the bundled remote control is a notch below using a game-pad for the same purpose. The UI pops up a ‘T9’ style keypad that has to be navigated using the directional keys on the remote control. There is an Android TV remote app that is compatible with these televisions, which for some unimaginable reason does not have a virtual keyboard feature. While the web browser can handle multiple windows, the rest of the software does very little in terms of multitasking. If this is an attempt by television manufacturers to nudge computers out of the equation, then they will have to do a lot better than this. For all practical purposes, connecting a computer to a TV will give access of all the features that are currently on offer here, and helluva lot more. While the screen and picture quality of these televisions is quite impressive, the whole Smart TV bit seems a bit tacked on at the moment.