» Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive

Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Stunning Simplicity
Comment: Simplicity at its best. This little box is simple to connect and get up and running over a wireless network and sync up with iTunes. Once connected this amazing device delivers in a stunning fashion. Most of the media content I "consume" comes from the internet (podcasts, YouTube, Flickr, etc). so imagine the feeling of being able to enjoy this from the living room rather than being tethered to a computer.

Of course you have access to your iTunes library (music, movies, video, podcasts, etc.) and the sweet thing is that you're not limited to the content of a single computer. You can access the content of multiple computers - how cool is that!

A nice feature is being able to get media without having to have a computer on, such as Flickr, YouTube, and Podcasts. Nice!

I've already decided to get a 2nd Apple TV, this time the 160gb model.

My world changed when I hooked this device up and I'm not going back.

P.S.

You can buy and rent movies from the iTune store. I'd do this through the computer and port over what I wanted to watch on the Apple TV.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Definitely the wave of the future
Comment: I've owned Apple TV for several months. For the most part, I absolutely love it.

Upside:
Great quality, especially HD
No more discs
HDMI
Digital Copy now appears on a lot of DVD's and Blu Ray
Endless entertainment through the Apple Store
With a fast connection, even HD video is near instant-on

Downside:
Like most of the cutting-edge technology, there are glitches.
It sometimes crashes.
Sometimes its a little slow.
A real pain to bring in DVD's due to copy protection
Pricey movies and television.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I like it!
Comment: This product works well. Some synchronization issues, but overall very good. One major problem is the Hard Drive is too small and I don't see a process to upgrade to a larger drive...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: IPOD for your TV. But Better!!
Comment: Ran into this by accident when shopping for a new TV. I was looking for one of those TV's with built in Photo and Home Video capabilities like the new DLNA features of the SAMSUNG and Sonys. The samsung with this feature was a couple hundred bucks more and the sales guy told me to save the couple hundred bucks and pick up one of these.
It is an IPOD for you TV with better video capabilities. It wirelessly sync with itunes via a wifi network, and operates just like an IPOD and then some.
The music features are identical to any ipods. You can create playlists on itunes and send it over. The latest update even has the Genius feature of itune 8 where you select one song and it will build a playlist for you base on the genre of the song. Works great when you have thousands of sound to choose from.
The photo feature is cool too. You can sync you favorite photos to the APPLE TV and it will play it like a slide show. The photo also becomes a screen saver, much like the photo screen saver option on you PC.
But this is not why you bought it for. The video portion is pretty sweet. You can buy or rent videos straight from the AppleTV. You can do it from itunes (on the computer) and sync it over as well. I have the 40 gb version. I prefer to save the movies on an external hard drive and sync it over as needed rather than leaving it only on the Apple TV. Save the couple hundred dollars from the 160 gb version and get a 1 external TB drive. You just need to do the one extra step to transfer the files via itunes first. I believe you can not transfer the files from APPLE TV to the computer similar to the ipods but for sure there are hacks out there that probably took care of this already. I think the only difference is that you can only get HD format materials from the APPLE TV. Cost an extra dollar. I tried both and the standard format, I would say is as good as an old school DVD. THe HD is pretty good. Not sure it is as good as blu ray but pretty close. Video selection is limited right now, but Itunes was started pretty thin when it first started and look at it now.
The movie trailers are pretty sweet. It is prety much up to date with trailers that you would see in the movie theatres.
IT does run hot as many reviews had mention and it is a bit tricky to put on stand by.
The remote is tiny. I thing it will get lost among the cushions in no time. Check out the Harmony remotes. They are compatible.
Glad i got this instead of an Blu Ray. You can get You Tube as well. Straight from the box.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great at what it does!
Comment: I had been holding off purchasing the Apple TV, wanted it do do more, but ended up diving in. Thinking it would be at least a year before a major update and I really didn't want to wait that long to experience the product.

Hooked it up to my TV using a HDMI connection, looks great and sounds great. For purchases or ripped DVD's it is the way to go. And now there are 3rd party apps that can be loaded that give the unit streaming ability outside of iTunes.

Only 1 minor grip, no volume control from the unit, so I still have to use the TV remote.

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