Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have had good luck with SONY products in the past. Not with this one though. It took several days to get it to work because it is designed by SONY to work in a network environment that possesses no security protection. This device needs access to any IP address and any port at any IP address. This would be acceptable if: 1. SONY properly documented its use of ports and address space 2. Error messages actually were meaningful when the device was incapable of reaching some obscure address/port combination, and, 3. The device didn't act like an undocumented home for spyware. Basically SONY bugs a customer's entire use of this device. It reports usage back to SONY and its partners IP addresses using undocumented ports. It maintains essentially adware cookies that track a user's history with the device. None of this behavior is documented by SONY. However, when you install this device behind a hardware firewall that tracks such things, it is immediately evident. If you attempt to block the various reporting addresses, the device then fails telling you that the "Network is Unavailable" - the universal message SONY appears to deliver for any failed access to a remote Internet address. This makes installation very confusing: you can see the directories for services out there but cannot access anything - including firmware updates - unless the unit can report your access to a SONY, or partner, site that records your activity and interests. In addition to this upfront misbehavior, the device is also highly unstable. It is not at all reliable even with the latest firmware (finally) downloaded and installed. If there were a way to give this device a negative rating, I would do so. I played with it so long in the hopes that I could make it reliable that it went past Amazon's return window - or it would not be here any longer. As it is, it has decided to no longer recognize its remote control and thus has become my latest door stop. If anyone from SONY reads this: shame on you and your company. This device is so far from the excellent devices you have made in the past that it should never have been allowed to ship ...