The 2nd Gen Apple TV 2010 Edition

This 2010 Apple TV is one of those little stuff I
bought during my trip to Japan last month (took me about a month to
finally unbox it). Since iTunes Music (and Movie) Store are not
available in the Philippines, Apple did not put this in their Philippine
Online Store.



The 2nd generation Apple TV is definitely smaller and sleeker with
that black matte finish. I also owned a 1st generation Apple TV which
has a built-in 40GB HDD. The new model does not have any built-in
storage and will rely on your home network (Home Sharing) for storage
(it’s got an 8GB NAND Flash for caching).



They’ve also redesigned the Apple Remote — this time, it’s bigger,
longer and made up of aluminum. Much easier to find if you drop it under
the sofa unlike the smaller, older one.



With the small form factor, the ports at the back of the device have
been reduced to the bare necessities with the micro-USB and HDMI port
being the most important of them. The LAN port and WiFi 802.11b/g/n are
still there.



The interface of the new generation is still similar to the old one
with some minor revisions for AirPlay and internal playback of videos (a
phased out feature). What’s still underwhelming is that the device
still cannot play 1080p videos (just 720p or lower).



Apple also reduced the price of the Apple TV down to $99 (got it for
8800 yen or about Php4,600). If you own the old Apple TV, there’s not
much reason to upgrade to the new one. It’s cheaper (bought the old
model for like Php12,500) but the removal of the internal HDD was the
main reason for that.