After several months of on and off research, this week I stumbled by accident upon my ideal product in the Android TV market. Well, almost idea.
British company Cello Electronics LTD. is now manufacturing a very broad range of Android Smart TV’s, varying in size from 16 to 75-Inch, portable and otherwise, respectively – though I hardly need point that out. ;-) These devices run 100% native Android, unlike some other models I looked at. The overlaying apps vary slightly from country to country. But that is hardly an issue. Having spoken to Cello and upon explaining my circumstances, I could not have been more satisfied by the extremely helpful pre and post-sales support they gave me. Upon my initial enquiry, the sales lady I spoke too went away and contacted their technical people, just to be utterly sure. She got back to me within the half hour, giving me the news I wanted to hear. On Wednesday of this week, I took delivery of the device I wanted. I was also assured by Cello that, should I decide within 30 days that the product wasn’t the right one for me, I would have no difficulty in obtaining a refund. I had to wait until today to get the device set up, owing to the fact that there’s no way to interact with it if you’re blind until this stage of the process is completed. Once configured for my Google account, however, it didn’t take long for me to instruct my assistant as to how to install TalkBack, and to enable it. Once enabled, the device became just as accessible as any Android device I’ve ever used. I’ll go into more technical detail in the article I’m preparing for the Techno Chat Blog. But suffice it to say that I really am most favourably impressed by not only the accessibility of the device itself, but also the remote control. For somebody like me who has used a Sky Q remote, the transition was seamless. The design and layout of the remote mimic the Sky remote. Thus, familiarity was virtually absolute right from the stat. I soon learned how to set up various parameters and how to navigate the Smart TV interface. The device is quite intuitive. It powers up in precisely the same situation that you left it in when initiating standby. For example, when viewing terrestrial digital TV, the Android interface is disabled and the native TV operating system is invoked. This behaves exactly like any TV would behave, and is just as easy to use. Pressing the “Smart” button on the remote immediately switches you back into Android, and your saved system configuration is just there, within about 5 seconds. Obviously, since the device now gives me spoken output all the way from the Android home screen, it’s possible to configure all of the streaming services I want to use without having to request assistance. For me, especially in the light of my plans for later this month, This device represents a massive game-changer. It means that I can now configure my Sky Q box directly via the TV. All I had to do was to install the Sky TV and Sky Q apps, and there we are. I can search through Sky’s online TV guide, which I can’t even do from the box itself, and I can set up recordings at my leisure. But it doesn’t stop there! Because the TV works like any other Android device, I had to simply install the Sky Go app, and hey presto! I can watch just about anything I want to watch on Sky without even having to touch my Sky box at all, or even to be in the same room as it. Soon, I’ll be able to do that from anywhere in the world. But more about that later. I’ve said enough! I’ll now go and do an indepth review on our Blog and I’ll post a link to it when done. ======================================== My compliments and kindest regards Gordon Smith: <gor...@mac-access.net> Accessibility & Information Technology Support Specialist.. This Message Was Created Using 100% Recycled Electrons. If you can avoid printing it, please do so. Think of the environment, save a tree! Contact: Twitter: @maciosaccess • UK Free Phone: 0800 8620538 • UK Geographic / Global: +44(0) 1642 688095 • UK Mobile/SMS: +44 (0)7804 983849 • Vic. Australia: +61 38 82059300 • US/Canada: +1 646 9151493 ----------------------------------------
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