14 DAY TRIAL // The BRAVIA brand is known as Sony's moniker for its high-end smart television sets, but it has been used for other things as well, and is being used for an HDMI smart dongle now.
What's more, the new device maintains the spirit of the BRAVIA brand, the one that seeks to provide customers with enjoyable, high-quality TV broadcasts.
Long story short, Sony has launched the BRAVIA Smart Stick, an HDMI dongle that goes into your TV's HDMI dongle and gives you access to Google TV.
Sadly, the specifications of the BRAVIA Smart Stick have not been disclosed, so we can't really say how well Sony's new invention will do, especially knowing that Google TV has gone off to a rather slow start itself.
All we know of the assets is that the stick will have PiP (picture-in-picture, for TV programs and Internet in different windows) and support for Android apps.
Sadly, there are points against the newcomer. According to word in the web-based instruction manual, Hulu Plus isn't among the pre-installed apps, and the dongle doesn't work anything other than Sony HDTVs from 2013.
Maybe this will change, but we'll err on the side of pessimism for now. That way, if we're surprised, it will be in a pleasant fashion.
Opening BRAVIA Smart Stick to all HDMI-enabled TVs would even be the smart thing to do, since it would enlarge the prospective customer base from its own, closed one to the entire world.
Two weeks ago, while at IFA 2013, Sony presented a smart lens that connected to smartphones via NFC and could be used to take camera-quality photos.
Now, since that accessory works with any NFC phone, we don't see any reason why Sony should be too much against the idea of making the BRAVIA Smart Stick universally compatible as well. Maybe the manual says it only works with Sony HDTVs because the company hasn't finished testing the device with others yet.
