CG and I were discussing it this evening over dinner and he feels that since we use the TV more than we use the computer (well…maybe HE watches more TV but I don’t!) that we should just combine the two and get MSN TV which I am not too thrilled about other than the cost is about $15/ mos less than our current internet dialup service.
So give me convincing arguments FOR or AGAINST MSN TV. I’m curious to see what the Dopers come up with. Most likely we’ll end up getting it anyway because it’s cheaper per mos than dialup but I want to have some convincing arguments why a regular old compy with a real hard drive is better than something hooked to my TV.
How much are you paying for dialup? I’ve never heard of MSN TV, I assume it’s something like WebTV used to be (still is), where you can surf the Net from your TeeVee? Why not try some of the cheaper ISPs, like NetZero or Juno (Is Juno still around?)? Or see if a local ISP is cheaper?
How are you going to handle the inevitable conflict when he (say) wants to watch a football game, while you’re Jonesing for the Dope?
Don’t. I use msn for my internet access, and I can’t wait to get rid of it (contract is up May 22…I’ll have to give it an extra month so I can get my school account set up - I have to pay for that a semester at a time, so I’ll have to wait unti excess financial aid comes in.
I really don’t like dealing with msn. I just find it an awkward system to use, and I think that you’d be better off doing something else. What other options are available to you?
Nonsense. I’ve read the SDMB on my TV/WebTv for the past 6 years. From 10 - 15 feet away.
Good: You can pick up a reconditioned WebTv unit on Yahoo for $28 + $11 for the keyboard. The keyboard and handheld remote are both wireless. Load times are generally quick. Websurfing is more fun on a 36 inch screen. You can lie on the couch and surf the web. (I had to sit up to type this, though.)
Tech support is helpful and generally reachable, but they assume you are a complete idiot.
Bad: WebTv is NOT A COMPUTER. You can read email and surf about 90% of the web. But you can’t open Word or PDF files. You can’t do certain applications. Some web pages are inaccessible, particularly “secure” pages for paying credit cards, etc. Cutting and pasting text is theorectically possible, but I’ve never been able to make it work.
WebTv is an “internet appliance”. Viewed as such, it’s useful. But you can’t expect anything more from it.
He’s thinking of buying an MSN TV unit from his place of work (Best Buy),which is fairly cheap. I asked him why we didn’t just switch to Juno, Netzero, etc which ARE cheaper than our current dialup (MSN–about $30/mos I believe) and he said that he’d talked to cow-workers about it. They told him there are way too many drop-offs, which he and I both hate. It would also be damned near impossible to maintain my website through MSN TV since I cannot download images to save to my own harddrive and then upload to my site. I also couldn’t use Microsoft FrontPage (which I dearly love) to update my site any more. My site would become old and stale rather quickly. Bleh.
We’ve been using MSN diallup for a while now…at least a year and it’s been ok but CG says it’s still too expensive so why pay $30/mos when you can pay 9.95/mos and still get the same svc he says?
Also…any real techie geeks out there wanna tell me what the internet might possibly look like on my 48 in big screen TV( which is the TV it’ll be hooked to)? I don’t quite know what it’ll look like but I do remember one time when we first got married they let him ‘borrow’ a WEBTv unit from work and it was on a regular 28inch TV and it SUCKED SUCKED SUCKED.
Sooo…how do I convince my husband that diallup is better than this crap he’s going to attempt to foist on me?
I’m still at a loss. I know you’re arguments are good, I’m just no good at arguing or presenting a case.
