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We’ve spent some time with Google’s new media Orb, and put our eye-orbs all over it. It’s a funky little device, but is it funky in the right ways?
The little ball is actually very good looking, with it’s undulating disco lights. It looks futuristic, and it’s a nice change of pace from the rectangles we’re so used to, though, perhaps it’ll be tougher to fit on a shelf. Picking it up, it feels dense, like there is a lot packed in there.
The demo room Google had set up had the Q linked to the company’s own Triad Bookshelf Speakers. The few songs in the test—including Coldplay, of course—sounded really good. Clean, but full. Good dynamic range. The trippy visualisation on the TV pumped in time with the beat, and there didn’t seem to be any latency. To quickly adjust the volume, you can rotate the top half of the sphere. Smooth. When people added to the queue or skipped songs, the device reflected the change almost instantly. The band name, song name, album name and artwork would pop up in the bottom corner—a nice touch.
Inside, it’s an Android device. It uses the same OMAP processor as the Galaxy Nexus, it has 16GB of storage and half a gig of RAM. If you’re hoping it’ll be a gaming beast in the future, the RAM might be a red flag. Google’s Chris McKillop, in a conversation at the demo, said that currently the Nexus Q is a means to stream movies, music, and TV from the Play Store, but gaming could be on the horizon. Over the last few weeks, Google Play has been upgrading its library to 1080p (it was limited to 720p before), so the movies that come through should look great.
We’ll be doing a full-review soon, so keep an eye out. On first impression, it’s unusual—from the round shape to the high $300 (£200ish) price tag. Time will tell if it finds its own niche or just struggles to catch on.
The absolute best way to sell this would be to sell it to phone carriers at a subsidy. I’m not sure I could stomach the up front price for -just- this, but imagine if all the top Android 4+ smart phones came with one of these devices for an extra £2 per month or something?
Mobile networks would be happy, physical stores would be happy, customers would be happy and Google would be happy – and these would actually end up becoming extremely pervasive devices.
Short of something like that, however, I don’t see a big market for this, and I can’t imagine it selling much at that price point, either.
I’d also assume that the lack of a global rollout is down to the lack of a global rollout for Google Music. Another significant issue that needs addressed sooner rather than later if they ever want this to actually sell.
More Nexus devices is a good thing, and I’d really love to see what other kind of hardware choices Google can come up with for Android – but, at this price especially, this seems like a good product that no-one would buy.
The first thing I thought when I saw the photo above is that Agent Smith captured Morpheus and really went to town on him…
It’s a sphere, which is a shape – and don’t Apple have the patent on shapes?
no but they have a patent on the word ‘the’ … oh crap i said it :/
Rather buy an Xbox or even Apple TV.
submitted by mistake…. Not even that, but the shape is annoying, i don’t know about you lot, but i have say my sky box, on top of that my Bluray player, and on top of that a PS3 and an Xbox.
They all stack nicely, because some muppet didnt make them round….
they were never meant to stack, if you notice like xbox has vents at the top, a ps3 is curved at the top possibly to prevent stacking could cause overheating.
i like the shape it just sits anywhere hiding & out of the way
vents on top means xbox can be stacked on side with my PS3 on top, nice setup all out the way in a cupboard with cables out a whole in the back
Assuming all those cables mean it supports 5.1 surround sound, that might actually sell this to me. If we ever get it.
I’ve considered a few streaming gadgets, but since I watch everything on a projector with no sound out jacks, and most streaming devices transmit sound over HDMI, none of them work for me
I have a WDTV Live (latest generation) which comes with TOSLink (Optical) and can output whatever is encoded in to the file you’re streaming and leave it up to your receiver. Sound is also sent via the HDMI but you can, if you so wish, turn that off on the device.
Cool, thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out
its gunna cost more than an Xbox but do less.. HAHAHA! I dont really understand the point of this product, it does nothing new and is limited to streaming from the play-store? Ok i may have missed the bit that says it will stream stuff from your handset or even a tablet etc.. but then again my Xbox does all of this already. all the videos and music on my phone are already on my laptop and by proxy my NHDD and thus can stream to my TV via the Xbox or PS3.. so why would i pay £200 for it? if it came free with a phone, Chances are i would sell it, buy an Xbox (or some games) and have a lunch out..