The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV is an external hard drive geared for online-streaming / downloading, then viewable on your TV. What Seagate did to this media playerto make it special is give it an ethernet port for direct file streaming / downloading. Instead of the traditional computer acting as the brains and processing for downloading, this external hard drive has a direct link for processing all by itself. This is great since it allows you to work on other things on your computer without it bogging down from a big file download. All you have to do afterwards is sit back, relax, and watch your downloaded movie or other file from your TV. Cool stuff!
Netflix streaming and other online content access is supported. That means you can download your favorite movie, songs, and pics directly onto your GoFlex TV. The cool factor here is that you can connect 2 other USB components to this external drive, such as another external hard drive for additional storage or a camera, thumbdrive, iPod, Flip camcorder and more. You may also connect HDMI and component video equipment.
With all of this connectivity, this device acts as your media control center. Essentially, you can easily copy over your media from all of your USB components over to your GoFlex external hard drive. Also, you can use it as a USB hub to play all of your gadgets through your computer or TV.
The downfall is that this device is a bare-bones “bring your own drive” version. So, you’ll need to buy your own
internal hard drive or external hard drive for the standard storage. Also, you’ll need to pay an extra $50 to set up wireless. Overall, at about $100 from J&R and B&H Photo (or $130 direct from Seagate), this is still very reasonably priced to allow you to watch Internet downloads from your TV, but then you’ll need to pay for a base $100 hard drive + $50 wireless. The price quickly becomes $250-$300. Based on that pricing, I’d recommend to just buy a $229 Apple TV. The Apple TV only comes with 160GB storage, but you can plug in an external hard drive to expand it. Plus, the Apple TV comes with wireless and overall just looks prettier! There are many other TV media players to compare to, but I’m using the Apple TV to compare with here since its an existing, stable player within the industry. Bottom line: don’t be fooled by the initial low price tag for the FreeAgent GoFlex TV. Go flex your TV media player muscles elsewhere!