Hasta La Gadget!

Anyone looking to fill half of their lounge with Samsung LCD just got a new size to choose. The 75-inch ES9000 is the bigger brother of the ES8000 that we saw earlier this year and ahead of the official launch in Korea, we managed to get an early eyes-on at a Samsung event held yesterday in London. In short, if you loved the LED-backlit display of the 55-inch model, you’re going to adore the ES9000, which features the same smart TV brains alongside a retractable webcam unit housed on the top edge. The picture was pleasingly rich and sharp — presumably due to the aforementioned backlighting and the ES series’ edge-to-edge design. The bezel is a mere 7.9mm and Samsung has decided to coat the frame in a gentle Rose Gold coating which, due to the TV’s slightly shady location, was a little trickier to pick out. That premium finish is matched by a premium price tag, however, and will hit checkbooks for 19.8 million won (around $17,450). Despite the UK appearance, retailer John Lewis (which hosted the event) couldn’t confirm whether retail models would be coming to its stores in the future. But if you can afford 75 inches of TV, you can also afford a quick flight to Seoul to pick one up.

Samsung announces 75-inch ES9000 smart TV for Korea, with similarly gigantic price tag (eyes-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung‘s ES9000 LED HDTVs were overshadowed by the company’s 55-inch OLED announcements, but the flagship LCDs are taking their turn in the spotlight now with the vast 75-inch model leading the way. SlashGear caught up with Samsung in London today, along with a hastily-freighted-in first 75ES9000 unit that had been brought specially from Korea this week.

Even if you have a sizable LCD or plasma strung up on your living room wall, it’s hard not to be impressed by the scale of the 75ES9000. 75-inches of 1080p Full HD resolution makes for a set that’s bigger than some peoples’ actual windows – then again, who needs natural daylight and a view when you can call upon live, on-demand and internet content through Samsung’s Smart TV system.

The ES9000 series has the same Smart TV functionality as we played with on the D8000, with the latest apps for the UK market including Netflix, BBC Sport – just in time for Wimbledon and the 2012 Olympics – and BBC iPlayer. There’s also a pop-up webcam that appears from above the top edge of the bezel, used for video calls, gesture control and face-recognition. This particular unit was running Korean software, though, as its literally just dropped in from Samsung HQ.

With WiFi onboard, among other things, the 75ES9000 can hook up wirelessly to speaker systems and your home network, and stream video, photos and music from your phone – that’s a Galaxy S III looking dwarfed in the photo below – and picture quality is incredible. Viewing angles are practically 180-degrees, and the color saturation rivals some OLEDs we’ve seen.

So how much will this slab of 75-inch visual goodness set you back when it launches in time for the holiday 2012 shopping season? Unfortunately Samsung isn’t saying, though it’s not a hard guess to predict this won’t be anywhere near a cheap TV.

Samsung 75-inch ES9000 HDTV hands-on is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While it didn’t merit a spot in either keynote, the Google TV platform is also getting an updated version of the Google Play store. Along with a new UI that looks a lot like the one on other Android devices it will have support for purchasing movies, music and TV shows as mentioned yesterday, and also subscription billing. The “Bring Your App to the Big Screen” presentation is still going on, we’ll let you know if any other new elements are revealed. There’s a new post on the Google TV blog mentioning apps like the one announced by Sirius XM, and the new hardware from partners LG, Sony and Vizio. Finally, the team is also focusing on its updated APIs for developers building not only apps for the TV (like the Google I/O app itself, which has been working smoothly this week streaming video), but also second screen applications just as we pointed out earlier. The last update and potentially most curious? Mentioned during the presentation, later this year Google TV will no longer require hardware manufacturers to provide a physical keyboard on their input device.

Google TV will get subscription billing, support for movie and TV purchases in Google Play originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google I/O 2012 is almost upon us, and already Google TV is rallying for its second charge at the smart TV segment. Sony and Vizio have each revealed their Google TV set-top boxes, throwing hardware up for pre-order, and while Android tablets are expected to dominate the search giant’s keynotes this week, there’s likely to be at least a little time spared for the company’s TV strategy. It’s vital it does, too; sparse updates to the Apple TV in its third-generation has given Google a window in which to act, but it’s an opportunity that’s rapidly expiring.

Google TV has already addressed what was perhaps its biggest flaw: using Intel processors initially, rather than ARM chipsets. Those x86 chips were more power hungry, less high-def media capable, and – crucially – more expensive than the sort of CPUs running most smart TVs and set-top boxes, meaning first-gen Google TV hardware was hot, over-priced and underwhelming in performance in comparison.

Now, with ARM at its core, Google TV has sidestepped the performance and price conundrum. What’s left is a legitimate play for an holistic ecosystem within which it can slot: not just “here’s the internet overlaid onto your TV” but a compelling portfolio of interactivity features that combine with Google’s other strengths in phones, tablets, Chrome OS and the cloud.

So far, you see, companies still aren’t convinced that Google TV is the way to go. Only last week we saw LG announce a smart TV proposal of its own, diluting its own Google TV commitment from CES back in January with an alternative strategy it’s shopping around competitors. Google TV’s lack of existing traction in the segment means there’s little motivation to adopt it; if it also had the combined heft of Android on mobile devices at its back, however, that would be a far more alluring proposition for OEMs.

“Is a Nexus Google TV the way forward?”

Is a Nexus Google TV the way forward? It’s still probably too early for that; Google has previously saved its “reference designs” for when products are midway into market penetration, and when manufacturers are beginning to stray from the company line. If there’s any new Nexus at Google I/O this week it’s most likely to be a tablet.

Nonetheless, with third-party application support now onboard, and ARM at its core, Google TV is likely to be more of a platform play than a standalone revolution in the living room. Tablets and phones are already finding themselves in regular circulation among sofa-surfers as second screens, something Apple is yet to join the dots on with the iPad and Apple TV. If Google can not only announce its own portfolio of connected services, but push them to the new hardware with alacrity, then it stands a chance of giving Google TV the reboot it deserves.

SlashGear is at Google I/O 2012 this week, so stand-by for all the news worth reading!

I/O 2012 is Google TV’s last chance for a reboot is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.