Yes – there’s still a market for standalone Internet appliances such as the MSN TV 2 Internet & Media Player. What are they you might ask? Well these are Internet connected devices that connect to your television set and provide an easy user interface to the Internet. It’s designed for individuals who don’t really want to deal with the complexities of using a PC or a Mac but want to still experience the net via online content, email, and multimedia content. The MSN TV 2 comes in a small set top box configured with a 733 MHz Celeron processor running a Windows CE variant. You can connect the box to the net via a phone connection, a wired Ethernet connection or via a wireless adapter.  The Gadgeteer reviews the device and finds:

The MSN TV 2 set top box is an easy way to bring the web into your living room. With rebates, it’s also pretty inexpensive. The only annoying part is the monthly subscription fee. That said, I would feel safe recommending this to someone that is afraid of, or has never used a real computer before. It’s easy to setup, easy to navigate and you don’t have to worry about viruses and other annoyances that desktop PC users do. Also, a first time user would not know that a dial up account is slow as they would have nothing to compare it to. MSN TV 2 would give users like these an easy way to get onto the web with as little frustration as possible.

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