It plays nice with other recent airplay capable Apple hardware, but works great on its own as well.
My 42in Sharp Aquos (09) is only 720p so the Apple TV resolution limit is fine for me. I mainly use this to watch Ted video podcasts and infrequently rent movies this way. I also use it to stream music from my apple devices into the home theater 5.1 setup occasionally. AirPlay mirroring is slick but I prefer to surf in the pad with the power hungry CCFL Aquos on standbye.
My only complaint is that software updates wipes the wifi password: and must be reset with the slow method (included remote with on screen keyboard) otherwise I would have raterd this 10 as well. Nice clean simple UI.
The remote is an example of minimalism gone too far: but it works fine. Button cell lithium makes replacing the battery kinda silly but not for a long time!
The hardware is sleak and incredibly small for a home theater setup: the hdmi dongle looks massive on the tiny device. Power consumption is awesomely small whilst the visual and audio performance is massively awesome.!
What a great price/ value as well. Even for a frugal shopped this is butter in Apple hardware prices.
In terms of performance it boots instantly and is snappy in general. Lots of content but nothing to rival the web yet! It also lags behind Comcast in so many critical content ways.
ITunes prices are stiff for movie rentals: if you are going to watch more than 2 per month go with a Netflix account to save $ !
Not perfect but it gives roku a run for the money, especially if you are invested in Apple hardware that can AirPlay to this magic black puck of av goodness.
Very well done!
The Breakdown
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Design
9
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Software
9
-
Content selection
7
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Performance
9
-
Accessories, remote
6
Show the rest of this review and the breakdown
