Very underrated (Apple TV 40 GB)

Member Name: jacksurvey

Product:	Apple TV 40 GB
Date:	20/05/08 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks great, HD, just works

Disadvantages: None in my opinion, but many in others

The apple TV is a very clever product, but a much misunderstood one. It contains the ability to play any file from a synced itunes library, connect to a dvd player, and play youtube. I recently purchased one for £180, in this review I will voice my opinion for it.

Like practically all other apple products, this one looks very modern. It looks in my opinion like a slimmer mac mini, with a metal top. I like the smooth metal finish and the signature apple logo on the top is a very nice touch. The absence of any buttons on the front is a great minimalist design, making it look very unclustered. This looks a bit out of place compared to some of my other stuff - a very messy dvd player, freeview box, wii and xbox 360.

When I say anything from your Itunes library can be synced with this, many people have taken that to mean that this can only play music, they are wrong. The Itunes store can download movies and TV shows now, all of which can be played on the Apple TV. The new Itunes movie rental service works very well with the Apple TV, they do not take long to download and work smoothly, without the hassle of having to go out to a local blockblusters.

One other key feature to the Apple TV is its ability to play videos in HD. Yet again this works well with Itunes because many of the rentable movies are in HD. All the HD content is output through a HDMI cable, which most HD TVs will have a port for.

DVD players can be hooked up to the Apple TV, saving hassle to switch between them on your TV. It cleverly converts all the DVD player content into a very viewable HD picture, this in effect saves you £100 not having to buy a DVD upscaled player.

Youtube works well on the Apple TV. Any Youtube video can be found and they all work flawlessly, it is great being able to watch them on a big screen converted to HD quality. It connects fine to my wifi router and downloads t a speedy and flawless speed.

The hard drive, 40GB, is plenty enough to store stuff on. It can have up to 10,000 songs or 125 hours of video. I think that this is big enough, but if you really do need more room, there is also a 160GB version for an extra £50.

Supplied with the Apple TV is one of Apple's mini remotes. It is used to control everything and works well, most of the time. I say this because it struggles with Youtube, in which it has to be used to type in on the keyboard. It looks fine and is very light, but I have misplaced it more than once.

Overall I believe that this is much underrated piece of technology from Apple. It combines HD quality with a large amount of playable file types. It looks very sleek, as does the supplied remote. If you are looking for a media player to go with your TV, especially an HD one, this would be a great choice, there I hear there is a new one that will be coming out soon, so it might be worth waiting.

Summary: A great piece of kit from Apple that I have come to enjoy regularly.

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