Sony LF-X1 LocationFree 12.1" LCD TV

Rating:
Summary: OK for in-home use, BAD for out-of-home use
Review: As an in-home wireless flat-panel TV, it's a great product.

As an out-of-home "location-free" TV, it fails miserably.

The product promises to "set you free to live beyond the living room" which it does to some degree, but definitely not with the ease and simplicity I would hope for. It's very pricey, and has very limited capabilities.

For almost $1500, I think it is an absurd value proposition. If I want a mobile solution, I could buy a media center laptop, and get much more functionality and a much better GUI. If I want flat panel TVs in my home, I could buy THREE 15" displays and put them around my home.

Fundamentally, even if it was much, much cheaper, I still think it's a bizarre approach to solving the problem of portable TV access. Am I really supposed to carry this with me on business trips? It's actually heavier than my laptop, with half the resolution, and none of the functionality.

With regards to enabling remote access to content, my recommendation right now is to wait. As I've stated in previous articles, I don't think the various "portable media center" or "media to go" solutions are good ideas either, and there isn't much else on the market just yet.

The bottom line: Save your $1500 for now, and wait for some more intuitive and natural solutions to getting your TV, location-free.

This review originally came from LIVEdigitally (http://www.livedigitally.com/lftv1.html)

Rating:
Summary: The 7 Inch One Is MUCH MUCH Better.
Review: Hi, i purchased this one but wasnt happy with it, i also purchased the 7 inch one sony has, it was 1000 times much better, its like a whole different thing.

This one's battery doesnt last much, and its pretty heavy.

The 7 inch one's patter last alot longer & it comes with 2 batteries. ( 12 inch one comes with just 1 ugly battery )

7 inch one can be watched in the bed before fall a sleep, the 12 inch one would be impossible to watch in the bed, because not only is it heavy it also takes alot of place.

7 inch one sounds to small but trust me, you dont need a huge screen when you're watching tv in your hands.

I loved the 7 Inch one much better than this, infact i re-sold the 12 inch one on ebay and purchased another 7 inch one, one for my parents and 1 for me.


So as the conclusion goes... my point is.. DO NOT PURCHASE THE 12 INCH ONE, ITS HIGHLY LIKELY YOU WONT BE SATISFIED WITH IT. BUT GET THE 7 INCH ONE, ITS ONE THE BEST TV'S I HAVE EVER SEEN.

I think sony used 2 totally different groups of people when they designed the 7 inch and the 12 inch one, because the 7 inch one is nothing like the 12 inch one. & its way way way way MUCH MUCH MUCH wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better than the 12 inch one.

I hope this helps you decide if you were thinking about deciding. :)

Rating:
Summary: Very cool
Review: Nice screen, nice size, user friendly. In-home functions are fairly plug and play and I found set up to be pretty straight-forward. Capture button should be someplace else...too easy to confuse with the index button and the pointer is easy to dislodge but overall very well designed.

If you want to use the NetAV function, here are four key tips that will save you hours of set-up hassle. I'm not sure these apply universally (I have Comcast and Linksys WCG200 gateway/router) but they applied for me:
1. You CAN NOT connect NetAV to your external IP address from inside your own network. It does not work. So try it from external network.
2. You CAN try (and test) NetAV inside your home network by putting the internal IP address of the monitor in as the IP address (192.168...).
3. The Location Free base station has a Dynamic DNS updater included which can be set up to keep your IP address updated.
4. If you set up port forwarding, you don't need DMZ.