- Stay updated with 1,000+ free apps (no subscription)
- Wake to internet radio, podcasts, or nature sounds
- View online photos: Flickr, Picasa and Photobucket 1
- Interact through the 7" LCD touch screen
- Get up and roam with Lithium-Ion battery
This unit needs to be plugged into an outlet and your house needs to have WI-FI set up for it to work properly. It provides 1,000+ free apps that provide just about everything you would ever want to use. FaceBook, twitter, NY Times, Netflix, Amazon on Demand, Pandora, Slacker, Flickr and several homebrewed options are provided. I love the webcams from Australia and Italy for beautiful and relaxing vistas. In order to access more apps, you need to register online. There are plenty of cool apps to browse through (humorous, entertainment news, etc.) and new ones are constantly added. I sometimes play videos and music understanding that the video source determines quality and the speakers are basic but good; remember, it's a souped up alarm clock and not a stereo system. Although, adding better speakers to the next generation wouldn't hurt (hint, hint SONY). There is no memory card slot but there is an usb port. Also, they've added a "WWW" button on the menu which allows for easy connections to yahoo.com, google.com, and sony.com for now. The features just keep getting better and better the longer I own it (I've had it just over a year).
You start out with a default channel with popular apps preloaded (Facebook, twitter, CNBC, etc.) but you can set up several different channels and add apps to provide a very customized experience. I have 5 channels (daily, entertainment, news, travel and games) that I can easily switch between through the menu. Having said that, I usually stick with my daily but like the option of different choices and change the channels ~2 times per month.
The two beefs I had with the Dash have been fixed: (1) I had trouble getting it to display the correct time zone but this was addressed by very helpful Sony customer reps.; and (2) instructions to press snooze button twice to access menu was spotty and took several attempts but was advised to use one long touch to access menu and that works every time. The only remaining issues are that the touch keyboard can be tricky (people with large fingers or long fingernails will have a problem with the small keyboard) and sometimes I have to reboot my Dash to reflect changes made online. Despite these minor irritants, I think this is the best alarm clock ever!
I use this strictly as a bedside alarm clock with super benefits. The light given off is adjustable with a nighttime mode easily reached at the press of an onscreen button (moon icon) and you can even put it into a black sleep mode for a perfect night's sleep if you require complete darkness. The unit has a 7" screen and the ability to customize it. The set background colors change throughout the day which is pretty cool. Granted, it takes a little work to set this puppy up but once it's running, it's a thing of beauty. I love being able to set several different alarms (weekday AM, bus pick-up, weekend AM, soccer practice, etc.) and be able to set them to different alarm types (regular alarm sounds, nature sounds, radio, videos, personal messages, etc.). I can program my local weather, get top news headlines, music, video or any other of the 1,000s of apps it boasts and at the touch of the screen -view them when I roll over in the morning. It's a brilliant way to start the day!
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This is NOT a useless product. People who say it is aren't paying attention to what they're buying and expect it to be something it's not and something it's not even advertised to be: a tablet. If you think you're buying a tablet, you're not reading the literature or the many reviews online. THIS IS NOT A TABLET. And it's not advertised as being a tablet. Don't review it as if it is. Let me repeat: DON'T REVIEW THIS AS IF IT IS A TABLET. If you think you bought (or were gifted) a tablet, you are mis-informed and a review treating it as such isn't relevant. It does EXACTLY what it is designed to do: provide internet content from specific addresses. Plus it delivers some custom content via apps like Pandora, Flickr, Netflix, AccuWeather and more.So how do I have it set up? Well, I have the AccuWeather app, so, when I wake up in the morning, it shows me a brief summary of the weather for my ZIP. It scrolls through internet pages, showing different websites like facebook, woot, cbs news, etc, so I can see the latest at a glance. Then maybe I'll flip over to Pandora to listen to some of my favorite music. (I believe you can have it wake you to music too, but I've not tried it.) Before I go to bed, I can set a quick one-time alarm or a more advanced custom alarm. Then maybe I'll watch something on Netflix. Or I might check my email. (No, you can't respond to emails. It's not a tablet. It's a content VIEWER. But just viewing emails is handy in some cases.) I can even flip over to a radio station if they happen to stream over the net in a specific format. Sure, a lot of the other apps are cheesy but show me a device that doesn't have a bunch of cheesy apps...
So, is it worth the $170 asking price? Probably not. But I only paid about $70 through woot. For $70 it's the coolest alarm clock ever.
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I bought my Dash from the Woot website about 18-months ago. At first it seemed to work alright. Setting it up was easy, and I liked the alarm clock feature (I set the Dash to wake me to the sound of waves on the seashore nice!) Then, things took a turn for the worse.At some point in the intervening period, Sony updated the software. After that, my Dash was (and still is) nearly useless. It constantly disconnects from my wireless network, and rebooting it is a LONG, LONG process often resulting in an endless cycling and failure to connect. An error message will appear, and I have to unplug and start over. This goes on all the time. ALL THE TIME.
When my Dash worked (ah, the good 'ole days!) I loved falling asleep to Pandora. Those days are gone forever it seems. I replaced the Dash with my old alarm clock, which is functional, reliable and dependable. I miss Pandora though. If I were brave, I'd give the Dash to some other sucker, but I wouldn't want to inflict it on someone else. Yes, it's that bad. Maddeningly bad.
Keep shopping. You'll probably find something similar that's more reliable. Oh, and don't bother contacting Sony that's also an exercise in frustration closing your fingers in a car door is less painful.
You've been warned.
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Probably the the best alarm clock ever. If your looking for more, get something else. No slacker radio, does not stream video. Don't let other reviews fool you, only the personal internet viewer(HID-C10) has the Bravia TV stuff. Internet radio is nice but can be tedious to set up your own streaming stations. Battery is only good for about an hour, according to manual, haven't tested it.
Update. Locks up daily. No longer works as alarm clock. Unit freezes and needs to be reset before operational again. Product support is disappearing. I this Sony knows this product is a dud and they are quietly walking away.
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