Engadget just got their Boxee Box review up. And, much like my feelings on Google TV, it seems there’s a ton of potential… but prospective and current owners better be prepared to wait out the content deals. Should the studios decide to play ball.
the Boxee Box just isn’t polished enough to be worth the hassle right now. The ideas are all there, and our experience with the Boxee team has us confident in their vision and ability to execute, but the Box as shipped feels like less of a finished product than an excellent rough draft of the future.
As with Google TV, many studio websites currently block video streaming from Boxee. Adding insult to injury, as I blogged last week, the new Boxee Box software (v1.0) actually offers less functionality than the computer-based software (v.90) we’ve been running for some time. No Netflix (yet) and no Hulu.com.
Nilay does a nice job positioning the Boxee Box ($200) between a Roku or AppleTV and nettop HTPC in terms of expense and functionality. Yet I’d like to have also seen a comparison against the WDTV Live line — which boasts solid local media playback capabilities. I suspect WDTV is mostly sufficient, plus it ships with a variety of apps that Boxee currently lacks. Although the UI is not as pleasing and that bundled Boxee QWERTY remote is hot… even if you can’t quickly determine top from bottom via touch.