Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I spent a long time shopping for a new TV and turned down a bunch because I wanted something cheaper. Once I saw everything Google TV had to offer, I ended up deciding to spend more. Picture: I have seen some complaints about the picture quality but have not had the same feelings myself. I am in love with audio and good sound, an audiophile, but not a big "Nice picture" kinda guy. That being said the picture quality seems awesome. Watching Planet Earth in 1080 was amazing and Disney animated movies (Like Toy Story, Shrek) look fantastic. My daughter is mesmerized with the picture on these movies. As I am sure a lot of you are aware of, the picture quality of a Blu-ray depends a lot on the movie itself so there are some movies (Like Napoleon Dynamite) that do not look the best and leave you feeling ripped off if you paid too much. I like to use Toy Story 2 as a good test of picture quality because it is not made to have that "fuzzy" theater look and is very colorful. Toy Story 2 looks AMAZING! The one complaint that I think has a little merit is the depth of the blacks in films. But it is such a minor problem that I have to point it out to people to make them notice. Maybe "problem" wouldn't even be the right word, it just could be better. Its not like this TV is made with an AMOLED screen, the blacks are back-lit and therefore not perfectly dark. Hardware: The TV itself seems built pretty well. Along with the HDMI jacks there is an optical audio out that makes me very happy. Unlike my last Sony TV, this set turns the built in speakers off when external audio is connected. On top of that the software allows you to disable the TV sound altogether (When you press volume on the TV it says its disabled) and that is perfect for me because I have a great home theater setup and feel the TV speakers are useless (For me, an amateur audiophile) The included stand on the TV could be better, but its nice and sturdy and gets the job done. Software and Google TV: This was the strong point and weak point for me. First of all having Google TV built in is a very useful and impressive feature. The other options for Google TV require external devices that just can't do what a built in version can. My wife and I love being able to access our TV applications and channel line-up and still have the show we were watching in the corner. The applications allow you to watch Netflix and more and includes Google Chrome for web browsing. The web browsing is just about as good and fast as my home PC. The people that complained about the speed must have been using wireless. Since I stream a lot of movies it is important for me to be able to connect my Ethernet cable right to the TV. The built in processor (1.6 GHz Atom) seems to be able to handle web browsing without breaking a sweat. The downside for the Google TV is the lack of an Android market (For those of you that don't know, Google TV runs on Android). It seems there is so much more that this TV is capable of that it doesn't do. For this reason and this reason alone I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars. Google makes the promise that the Android market will be available for this TV this year (2011) and if it was any company other than Google, I would have waited. But Google is usually pretty good about following through with their plans so I took the leap and purchased this TV even with this problem. Once they open the Android market I foresee a lot of possibilities opening up. Don't let me down Google! ***Update6.13*** I don't play much video games and don't own any consoles but found that after connecting my computer to the TV there was an input lag (Also a lag with Wii, PS3, XBOX360, Etc). I wanted to play one of my first person shooters on the TV instead of my monitor. I found there was enough of an input lag to get in the way. I contacted Sony about this and got this response: Spencer_ > Users may experience a slight lag or delay in response time when connecting the Internet TV device to a game console. Spencer_ > This is a natural result of the advanced processing circuitry in the Internet TV device. Spencer_ > This is normal operation. Advanced processing makes my TV have a lag? More like poor design. They could have at least apologized and said they were working to fix it. This TV has been great otherwise, but this is a joke and their poor response, unwillingness to try to fix it, and lack of information about the input lag before buying this TV makes them go from 4 stars to 1. Shame on Sony.