Sony Dash Personal Internet Viewer Review

The Sony Dash brings the web right to your fingertips with a 7" touch screen, wireless connectivity and over a thousand free apps like Netflix, Pandora and Facebook. Morgan Webb and Kevin Pereira find out how much entertainment, social networking and information the Dash can bring you for $200.

What You Need to Know

• At first glance, this feels like a larger Chumby, or a smaller, stationary iPad
• The 7” touch screen is double the size of the Chumby's screen
• It has 800 x 480 resolution
• There’s a built-in accelerometer so you can turn it over
• There’s also a menu/ snooze button and a volume rocker on the top
• The screen is not as responsive as an iPad, but it gets the job done
• Scrolling and typing is a bit slow
• There is no multi-touch
• At least the screen doesn't feel cheap like the Chumby
• The Dash is able to use all the free Chumby widgets that already exist, and they have improved the interface so you get more info at a glance
• You can change the theme so you can see your widgets, weather, media, and the clock
• It also works just like a Chumby where you use the Dash website to add almost 1,500 interactive apps that have news, sports, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, practically anything in bite-sized format
• You can also add or remove widgets directly on the Dash
• The interface is kind of laggy when switching between screens
• Overall, though, this is worlds better than the Chumby
• The thing that really makes the Dash powerful is its access to Sony's Bravia internet video which gives you Netflix, Amazon Video, and a ton of other searchable content
• Netflix works just like it should, and it looks better than we thought it would; it's perfect for killing time in the kitchen or bathroom
• YouTube also delivers. It's kind of slow loading and searching, but all the content is here and looks great
• This is only just scratching the surface. The amount of video that Sony provides is staggering, and since you can do a universal search, you'll never run out of things to watch
• This is by far the best implementation of the Chumby interface, and the addition of Sony's content makes it a lot of fun to have around

Price

• It's $200, which is only $80 more than the Chumby
• It's not as powerful as an iPad, but it is $300 cheaper

Overall Rating

• 4 Seals of Approval Out of 5 (How do we rate gadgets?)

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