It probably has Cinavia pre-installed. Sony can suck it.

So, when it loses power, and power is restored are all your settings still intact? I.E. if it loses power during the night, is it going to power back on and alarm in the morning?

bkd69 wrote:Is it just me or does the bowdlerized "Flesh drive" sound even dirtier than F.l.a.s.h. drive?

There is an adult product that ends in "light" that Woot totally changes the meaning. Amazon sells them.

In for one. If I dont like it, it'll become a mother's day present for one of my friends. Heh-heh

mdeluisi wrote:So, when it loses power, and power is restored are all your settings still intact? I.E. if it loses power during the night, is it going to power back on and alarm in the morning?

I have not field tested that exact case, but it does remember all your settings if you unplug it and then plug it back in again. As long as the power goes back on in time and your wifi network is still up, you should be fine. (I suspect your settings are actually stored on Sony's servers, but I can't swear to that.)

That said, if you lose power and it doesn't come back up in time, it obviously won't go off.

I got one when sellout.woot had the refurb. So far, a pretty-OK internet radio alarm clock with an OK Youtube app that I use to catch up on my subscriptions while I'm waking up. I also have the MyEbay Watch List app and Woot! apps loaded. The Woot! app isn't Woot-off aware, but each time it cycles to that app it will show the current item, so you do get some hint one is going on when it changes at times other than midnight. A lot times I used to have to fire off my netbook late nights are taken care of with those two apps plus the built-in weather and Youtube apps. The 'night mode' clock is pretty nice, and I like being able to hit a button to blank the screen entirely with the power save if the extra light bugs me, and can bring it back by touching anywhere on the screen for quick checks of the time.

Built-in Youtube app wise, you can search, see what's popular, view your subscriptions, etc. Better than most Youtube apps I've seen, though, there's no master list of new videos from subscriptions, so I have to go to each user, then sort by date posted to get the new videos from them. Youtube is unfortunately limited to 480P max(no selection on quality) from what I've seen, even though Youtube HD rips play fine from USB sticks. Other streaming video apps don't seem to be limited to 480P, as watching (and pausing to get closer look at details) HD trailers on Flixster look amazing.

Alarm wise, it's decent. A bit disappointing that I can't seem to get it start a Pandora station as the alarm, something that I'd hoped it could do. It'll play from a small selection of included alarm sounds, as well as stuff like streaming music videos in a very limited genre selection seeming chosen at random, Dr. Dobbs Journal, and regular .m3u or streaming audio, but not Pandora or Slacker.

USB support is kinda tacked on, as it didn't even any way to be used for quite a while after this was released from what I've seen. Don't expect it do much more than play MPEG 4 videos and MP3 audio off USB mass-storage right now. It's still being updated with new firmware, so maybe that will change in the future.

The video playback off USB, when MPEG 4 and in the proper container -- .MP4, .mov (including H.264) or WMV 9 -- is pretty good. It can handle up to 1080p and scale it down to it's screen res very well from what I've seen. I mostly save stuff in 720P, so most of my testing was with that, which all looked awesome except an older WMV codec file.

The photo viewing app is very limited, only really useful to make it a digital photo frame. No controls beyond flicking the photos left or right for previous/next, and continues on to the next photo after a pre-set period of time (when you select all photos). No zoom or rotation capabilities.

In theory it should be hackable, the source code to the OS is here: http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_dash.shtml It seems to respond to Chumby scripts placed on a Flesh drive, but I haven't played with it much.

mdeluisi wrote:So, when it loses power, and power is restored are all your settings still intact? I.E. if it loses power during the night, is it going to power back on and alarm in the morning?

Yes, your settings remain intact. If your power is restored before your alarm time, your alarm will sound. Also, if you set an internet radio alarm and your network goes down and the app doesn't run, there's a backup alarm that will sound in its place.

Re: Youtube built-in vs. downloaded app... that one confused me at first too since I couldn't watch any of my Favs in the downloaded app.

Also, for those of you buying this thing for Netflix, use the built-in app vs. the downloadable app from the Dash website. The one there only allows you to view your Queue while the built-in app allows you to actually watch the movies.

Bought the refurbished one last month. It worked for 3 days and is now useless. I get to spend money to return it to Sony, who, after 5 calls and more emails cannot give me an address to send it to.
Maybe I should return it to WOOT and get the new one. I did like it for the three days that it worked.

tom61 wrote:Alarm wise, it's decent. A bit disappointing that I can't seem to get it start a Pandora station as the alarm, something that I'd hoped it could do. It'll play from a small selection of included alarm sounds, as well as stuff like streaming music videos in a very limited genre selection seeming chosen at random, Dr. Dobbs Journal, and regular .m3u or streaming audio, but not Pandora or Slacker.

It will play a Pandora station as an alarm. From the main My Stations page in Pandora select your station, then hit Options, then Save To Alarms (and then instructions will pop up on-screen). Then over on the Alarms setup menu hit Advanced, Add Alarm, {set your time}, then Music & Video, and select your station you saved.

Voila! Your Pandora or Slacker station will then sound as your alarm.

Tom84 wrote:It is indeed a sony Chumby, but it has more horsepower and a higher resolution screen and really good sound (it gets loud!). It also has the ability to play Netflix and Hulu, which are not chumby apps but special for the Dash.

Also, it doesn't automatically turn off the screen, and there's no way to set that up. But you can set it up to only alarm on certain days of the week.

Full disclosure: I returned it to best buy for a full refund, and it was only $120 then.

Actually, you can program it to switch to "clock" display and to turn off the screen at the time that you set.
e.g. My screen turns on and displays the clock at 6 am, then screen turns to viewer at 7 am, the alarms goes of at 7:15, then screen turns off at 10 am, then screen turns on at 8:30 pm, then goes to clock mode at 10 am and turns off at 1 am.

...was hoping the copy would mention Justin Bieber.

propenguin wrote:I really want to buy one of these, but how do you justify buying it when you have an iPhone?

I M THINKING THE SAME THING! I love gadgets, it would look cool on the night stand, but, I have an I-Phone that is attached to my hand 24-7, wondering if i would use it or if I just want to buy a new toy?

If you think of a practical reason to buy this, let me know !
R

NickRyder wrote:I M THINKING THE SAME THING! I love gadgets, it would look cool on the night stand, but, I have an I-Phone that is attached to my hand 24-7, wondering if i would use it or if I just want to buy a new toy?

If you think of a practical reason to buy this, let me know !
R

If you're talking just your iPhone, then this gives you a bigger screen, a hardware snooze button, and something closer resembling an alarm clock form factor, all of which can be had with an alarm clock dock.

The only other unique thing is the streaming Netflix, and the bigger screen. There are the Chumby apps, and the various other media services, but I'm sure there are plenty of options in the app store.

So it's really only a decision if you want the alarm clockiness of it, and then you get to decide whether you want an alarm clock dock instead. Unless you really want Netflix streaming.

I use it, and I like the bigger screen, and the hardware snooze button, as opposed to trying to squint my way to the right software button as I did when I was using my phone. I still keep my phone plugged in next to it, though.

You CAN set it up to turn off the screen on a schedule. It is NOT just a snooze button...that darned button fires up everything!! I bought one last time around. I absolutely LOVE this Dash!!

I own 2 laptops, an ipad, and a sick desktop pc.

Bought a refurb dash in the march wootoff

After it sat a week displaying only the time, I played with it.... Here's how it's come in handy so far, and why I'm in for 2 more

- Family went into hospital, We leave dash there, and upload images to the photobucket from home, giving them a fully customizable photo album

- hulu

- nephew is a 15 month old on dialysis, needs a LOT everyday, this allows alarms to be set for each thing that can't be missed


Cons: Hard to find cord to hook directly to pc, must use jump drive, no external battery

http://www.Newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=82-105-439

Some more.helpful reviews above, obviously cheaper here on woot
Don't get me wrong, I like woot,but sometimes the writeups for products is like walking in while two people laugh about inside jokes.

Apparently not portable, more like replacement fancy clock, an appliance if you will and was referenced to a toaster.

Totally thought it was more of tablet at first...

zeroelement wrote:MY question is what good are internet viewers? I got a Droid and an Laptop what use would this be?

I have an iPhone and a laptop and really this thing doesn't replace either...it more adds to them than anything else. I don't like using my laptop in bed - too much of a hassel plus it's cumbersome and isn't easy to place at the perfect angle when laying on my side. And the iPhone's screen is too small to watch Netflix movies on. With a seven inch screen (or something like that,) the Dash is ideal for watching movies in bed. We don't have a TV in our room, so this takes the place perfectly.

As far as the apps, I really only use them to glance at the weather and headlines in the morning. I suppose you could use the thing much more than I do, but I bought it on Woot a few months ago simply as a Netflix viewer - and it has performed wonderfully.

To be honest with you, I don't even use it as an alarm clock because I really like the one I've had for years. I keep this on the other side of the bed and the nightime clock feature is beautiful and easy to read without being bright or bothersome in the slightest. I watch my movies, start to fall asleep, and leave it be. With a laptop, I have to power it down and usually plug it in to charge it by morning.

I would say that if you're thrilled watching movies on your phone or laptop, or if you already have a Netflix-enabled TV in your room then you probably don't need this. But if you've got eighty bucks to spare and want a nice solution to a small problem of watching Netflix movies in the bedroom or kitchen, you could do worse than this machine. I love ours and couldn't be happier with it.

NickRyder wrote:I M THINKING THE SAME THING! I love gadgets, it would look cool on the night stand, but, I have an I-Phone that is attached to my hand 24-7, wondering if i would use it or if I just want to buy a new toy?

If you think of a practical reason to buy this, let me know !
R

The following are all woot purchases:
First I bought the chumby referb, loved it. Didn't think I would use it and it would be overkill sitting right next to my computer. Then I saw the Dash on sellout, again referb at about 10 buck cheaper than this. Got that and loved it even more. More real estate on the screen made a big difference. So I moved the chumby to my 4 year olds room as his first alarm clock. I had bought an extra battery for the chumby, so now it is kind moble for a short while.
I liked this so much, I am buying 2 more now, was going to buy three, but figured 2 would be good.
One for me in the bedroom to replace our old alarm, and one for the inlaws.

The benefit is that the wigdets just feed, and it is nice just to glance on the screen and see what you have configured. The widgets are programed for how much time you want them up before the next one comes up.
For the inlaws it will be nice to have the facebook pictures show up, that way they can see new pictures of the boys, without having to send them.

The other part I like about this clock is the night feature. The time is very easy to read in the dark, and not overly bright.

Thanks woot!

Craig234 wrote:Is it just me or do some people not read the thread before repeating a question?

Many people are interested in sharing their thoughts but are not at all interested in the thoughts of others.

Here is the most helpful review at Amazon

The guy gives it 4 stars, but if I wrote the same review I would have given it 3 stars, based upon the experience detailed. And with 150 reviews in, a decidedly 3 1/2 star item.

Very interesting is that the review on Amazon are almost equally spread out in 1 thru 5 stars.

All in all, "Meh."

Technology has it's place. There are questions about technology being viewed right before bed disturbing sleep. And then, the question, got nothing better to do in the bedroom?

Got one the last time these were on Woot. It makes a nice clock/radio, you can wake up to headlines and weather. The NYT app is good because it gives you snippets of an article and if you tap it will email you the full article for later.

It is a little cumbersome to set up, and the screen is way to bright at night (even on the lowest setting), but overall it is nice item.

Anything that acts as an alarm clock needs battery backup. The Chumby has it, but this does not. Not for me...

jsduncan wrote:This dude doing the video review has got a bottle of hand lotion on his night stand!!! Think he has plenty of alone time?

too funny

I guess you missed the bottle of fleshlube and the diaper bag right there as well. PLENTY OF ALONE TIME. Creeper.

EDIT: Just noticed someone beat me to it. Sry ignore my useless post.

I bought this from sellout.woot last time around. It's okay, I guess.

The display is nice, and the overall build quality is solid - doesn't look or feel like a cheap device. Speakers are pretty decent. My main gripe is that it's not all that responsive; it definitely feels a bit underpowered. If you're okay with a bit of lag when switching screens or apps, this may not be an issue.

I'm not thrilled with the Netflix app, which is mainly what I got it for. As someone else mentioned, it only seems to display your Instant Queue, and then only in a "Cover Flow" sort of format where it'll load the DVD cover for each movie. This is nice in theory but it can get sort of slow, and the icons are small so sometimes it's not immediately apparent what a certain movie is unless you know what the cover looks like. I'd much rather have had a list format. Also, you're limited to just scrolling slowly down through your instant queue hunting for whatever you want. If you've got a ton of movies in there like I do, this can be tedious. Also, scrolling through the instant queue seems to be ALL you can do...you cannot resume last movie played, search for a movie, play something that is avail. for streaming but outside your queue, etc. Once you do get something loaded up, it works fine though. Nice quality video and audio.

The lack of a "resume last played" button is especially annoying since that's one of the great things about Netflix - being able to immediately pick up where you left off, even on a different device. If I'm watching something in the living room and would like to finish it in bed, I need to hunt for it in the queue instead of pushing one button.

So, this thing isn't hackable like the Chumby One.

It does run Chumby's OS and will run "most" of the Chumby apps (which are really just F.lash apps). The 'plus' is that the screen is bigger than the little 4" one attached to the Chumby One.

If you wanted a 'big' screen hackable device, you could get the new Chumby 8, but it's $200. Or, you could try and find an Insignia Infocast 8 that Best (Worst) Buy used to sell, but has since discontinued.

I have a Chumby One, that I bought from Woot a few weeks ago, and really like it for getting brief snippets of Internet goodness. I have mine setup to show me some flickr streams, headline news, twitter feeds, facebook update, and wake me up in the morning with my Pandora random mix. The only thing I wish I had on the little Chumby is, wait for it...a bigger screen.

So, I'm in for one of these suckers just to get the bigger display for all that stuff.

got one last time it was up, great for the kitchen when I cook....very EASY to use and set up - Netflix compatible!

Have one in my bathroom and love it. My kids watch YouTube videos while taking baths!

jdorritie wrote:So does this thing have a hard drive or what? Its not listed anywhere in the tech specs on this website. How does it stream all of this info without filling up?

It STREAMS it. That's how it doesn't fill up! Streaming means it PLAYS content without storing it.

mdeluisi wrote:So, when it loses power, and power is restored are all your settings still intact? I.E. if it loses power during the night, is it going to power back on and alarm in the morning?

Yes, but I don't understand everyone calling it a glorified alarm clock. We use mine so my 5 year old can watch Netflix, which is LOT more useful than an alarm clock. Since every cell phone in existence has an alarm feature, if you think this is nothing but an alarm clock, you don't need it.

I got one to be a clock radio by the bed but it is -really- buggy. The "thousands of apps" are mostly horoscopes and clocks, the 'night mode' (just show a clock and alarm status) shows the wrong date after 10pm (shows the next day), the alarm repeat-on-x-days (eg weekdays only) just flat doesn't work, and most of the apps are a mess. (All the "headlines and summaries" (rss) apps, for example, only show headlines at best and most often nothing at all.)

I'm going to move it down to the bar and use it as a fancy electronic photo frame, where it should do ok, but I definitely wouldn't buy it if I had the chance to do it again..

(Oh, and if you missed it in the description/etc, it has no actual radio, just internet streaming - so basically all the local radio streams are out unless they offer a nice mp3 stream.. That would be ok if the rest of it worked.)

Got mine earlier on Woot. Love everything but the speakers. I had to hook it up to external speakers because the on-board ones we so bad.

Now THIS is the kind of stuff I WOOT for!!!

mvsopen wrote:This is a Chumby, with Sony's name on it, correct?

Is it as hackable as a Chumby?

Bueller?

Frye?

Anyone?

This is Sony's version of the Chumby. Not all Chumby apps work on this, but with the Dash you get Netflix, which is not available on Chumby.

wizzdingo wrote:For anyone that has one...

I have an idea to mount/attach this to a treadmill and watch netflix while running in place, but would it be hypothetically doable?

Hypothetically, yes.

I got a Dash open-box at a Sam's Club recently. It would not activate for days because Sony had a push update glitch and these were commonly getting stuck in a reboot loop. I think they may have suffered a lot of returns during that time, but they resolved the issue. See Sony's Dash support forums for history on the issue.
I like mine for the ability to wake up to streaming talk radio (Bill Bennett's program is my favorite!), run 7-day alarm schedules, stream Netflix, and get weather forecasts. It's an alarm clock for this age, not an iPad beater.

It doesn't have a web browser.
It makes a realllly awesome alarm clock.
Able to stream pandora, netflix, and hulu.
Have one on each side of my bed and debating another for the kitchen. The speaker can get pretty loud compared to most other tablets/phones.

black wrote:I was wondering this same thing.

I have one. I like it. It is a gadget/toy. I have it in the kitchen. It is nice to see the weather, news headlines,useless funny apps in the morning. I like watching netflix or streaming radio stations when I am cooking or cleaning. I wish they would add the squeezebox app to the dash like the chumby has.
Differs from a laptop in that you really don't do any web surfing and it is not portable in the same sense. But it is nice that it lives in one spot .It powers on and off or sleeps from a setting. At this price offered I think it would be a good deal.

Looks like the Dash 2 will be available in May?

I got one as a gift for Christmas and we keep it on the kitchen counter. Primarily using it as a photo viewer, but the kids enjoy the Art Of War quotes, cam views and other apps that rotate.