There's little doubt that Yahoo Widgets took the HDTV market by storm at CES, in fact by the end of the first day of the show, it was news if a manufacturer didn't announce the feature. Initially we didn't understand what all the fuss was about, but after spending some time with the Widgets, we started to see the light. Unfortunately something has changed in the past five months and now that we have it in our home to play with, it just doesn't seem the same. The one word we'd use to describe the difference is "laggy" -- check out the video after the break to see for yourself. The demos at CES were down right snappy, but even in our hard wired tests connected to the internet via a 20Mbps FiOS connection, the widgets loaded so slow we're not sure we'd actually even use 'em. To make matters worse, because most people don't have internet connections behind their HDTV, they're going to need some sort of WiFi adapter to make this work. The Samsung 7000 series HDTV we tested has an optional USB dongle that sells for $80, but we couldn't even get it to work despite the hour of our life we wasted on it.
In this video we hit the record button and the TV's power button at the same time, so it's easy to see how long it takes for the TV to turn on. Then we hit the "Internet TV" button and you'll notice that it takes some time for the Widgets to load. The good news is that all the Widgets update in the background after the initial load, but we wish there was a way to set them to automatically load in the background when you turn on the TV so the delay wouldn't be as noticeable.
Mann! I'm so glad that I settled on a Kuro 151 elite for its picture quality, black levels and superb contrast than those stupid widgets. Leave the widgets for the Palm Pre!
Sigh! Just let a TV do what it's meant to do. What's the point in adding these "senseless" features? What am I going to do with widgets on the TV screen? Not a necessary feature for me really.
Right now the Sony KLV40ZX1M is looking nicer - yeah no TV tuner and only 1 HDMI, but I personally don't need more than 1 HDMI because the Yamaha receiver has more and takes care of that issue.
Approx. $1800 at Vann's (down from the $3500 current retail price). Wait a few more months before these super slim edge lit LED screens become cheaper. :)
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
posted May 21st 2009 12:44PM
Just got a LN46B750... was looking forward to the widgets.
I have mine hard wired and laggy is not the word... it is down right SLOW!!!
Sucks... I was looking forward to this feature.
Luckily the picture is amazing.
Hopefully a firmware update can help fix some of the lagginess.
Mann! I'm so glad that I settled on a Kuro 151 elite for its picture quality, black levels and superb contrast than those stupid widgets. Leave the widgets for the Palm Pre!
Sigh! Just let a TV do what it's meant to do. What's the point in adding these "senseless" features? What am I going to do with widgets on the TV screen? Not a necessary feature for me really.
Right now the Sony KLV40ZX1M is looking nicer - yeah no TV tuner and only 1 HDMI, but I personally don't need more than 1 HDMI because the Yamaha receiver has more and takes care of that issue.
Approx. $1800 at Vann's (down from the $3500 current retail price). Wait a few more months before these super slim edge lit LED screens become cheaper. :)
http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/462779825/sony-klv40zx1m?v_c=PriceGrabber&srccode=cii_5784816&cpncode=19-22868307-2
The BDP4600 was way easier to set up than the TV's are for internet. Finding a hiiden network on the tv was a nightmare.
Yup, I've got a 750 series and the widgets are more or less useless due to speed. The TV looks great, though.
In my opinion just as cool as the widgets sound, their usefulness is not quite there.