MANILA, Philippines --- At Google I/O 2012, Google announced another consumer product aimed at your living room. Named the Google Nexus Q, the duckpin bowling ball-sized sphere is a device that connects to your Google multimedia assets residing on Google Play, namely music and videos.
The Nexus Q’s design looks like it was plucked from one of the sci-fi movies with its pulsating ring that indicates activity and the mechanism that allows the upper half of the sphere to turn to adjust the volume of the media. Tapping the same upper half of the sphere toggles audio on and off. Pretty slick, I must say, even though it is a finger print magnet.
Connecting the Q to your TV via either the RCA cables or HDMI with stereo cable connections (and optical audio) is straightforward. Once the power cable is connected, the Q instantly turns on and displays a welcome screen on your TV. That is basically it - there is no interface, no menu, nothing. Just plain welcome screen.
One needs to download the Nexus Q android application to configure it. Unfortunately, there is no iOS or Windows Phone or even a web-based interface alternative.
Once you have the Nexus Q app running (you need NFC and Bluetooth enabled), simply follow the simple steps and the app will prompt you to select your home WiFi (and enter the password, if any) and give the Q a name, normally a location, such as bedroom or living room. Unfortunately, browser-based authentication system simply wouldn’t work. Your home WiFi network must allow multicasting, too.
After connecting the Q to your wifi network, you can now use the android device with the Nexus Q app to control it.
As demonstrated in the Google I/O 2012 keynote, you can select music or videos from your android phone or tablet and it starts streaming from Google Play to your Nexus Q and displayed on TV. Unfortunately, I have only one Google Play account that I wasn’t able to test the “social” feature of the Nexus Q.
What is my take? Whilst this is similar to Google TV in a way, the Q is rather limited. First, it requires an Android phone or tablet to configure and control it -- alienating those without. At the very least, Google should provide a web-based app so you can also use a Chromebook to manage it.
Second, at its current form (an Android device running ICS), it does not have support for displaying music or video from a local storage. Although there is a microUSB port, it is there to encourage hacking. As a consequence, you need the Q connected to the Internet to work. If you have a slow Internet connection, good luck!
Lastly, at USD299, you might be better off getting a Google TV instead. The device boasts of being designed and made in the USA, and that should justify the price. I don’t know, but I’d take lower price instead.
I have yet to test it in the Philippines - using local broadband speeds - but here, with the Nexus 7 serving as controller and the Nexus Q connected to a Galaxy Nexus acting as portable hotspot connected via T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, music streamed pretty quickly. Video, otoh, took quite awhile to buffer and play. Once paired, controlling the Q is pretty straightforward - no complex geek ninja skills needed.
As Google attempts to have presence in the living room, the Q shows promise but kinda falls short. I expect the Q2 to have a more powerful processor (as opposed to the Galaxy Nexus processor that powers the Q now) to allow transcoding and support for local storage -- to have full operability even without Internet connection.
article source: mb.com.ph
