Today Samsung announced a brand new line-up of HDTV’s in Australia. Branded as SMART TV’s, this generation come equipped with what Samsung say is the worlds-first HDTV app store. Obviously it’s completely unlike an electronics manufacturer to get a little creative with the truth to sell products, but the reality is widgets (also known as apps), have been available on TVs for a couple of years now. The most successful being Yahoo’s widget platform which made its way to TV’s by Samsung, Visio, Sony and a number of others.
In November last year, Yahoo announced that developers could charge between $0.99 and $99.00 for a widget or application. So with that small detail aside lets take a look at what on offer with the latest generation of Sammys.
Samsung’s SMART TV will feature a connected TV experience with links to social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Skype that can be used concurrently next to your favourite show. Some of the applications to be released ‘soon’ include BigPond AFL Game Analyser, BigPond Movies, NineMSN and ABC iVew.
Also built right in is a Web Browser which runs a full version of flash (version not detailed). Along with Skype support, there’s also Google Talk support to really get those discussions cranking with friends and family (assuming they also have a Samsung SMART TV).
There’s also built-in WiFi with DLNA support, so streaming content from your home network to the big screen is a cinch. The Smart Hub also allows users to get personalised movie recommendations based on the content you watch.. awesome.
Taking a leaf from Boxee’s remote control, Samsung’s SMART TV comes with a traditional remote on one side, but flip it over and you’ll have a full QWERTY keyboard to input text.
While Samsung announced SMART TVs in January at CES2011, today’s announcement confirms Australian availability. Its actually great to see the headline for a TV release not be 3D related, instead being a line-item feature.
For more information about Samsung SMART TVs, visit http://samsung.com/au/tv.