Our Reporter on the Scene tries to find out

By Livia Bergovoy

The long awaited introduction of Sony’s version of Google TV (with Intel inside) was promising at best. And, at the same time confusing at worst.

Presented by Bob Ishida, Sony’s Head of Worldwide Home Entertainment Business, Sony officially said it was going after a younger generation with this initiative, but if you’re like I am, you are watching more and more of your TV shows on line via your computer in an on-demand fashion.

Now, thanks to the collaboration among Sony, Google and Intel you can have your TV and your Computer too – all in one…

Basically the news is: You can connect the Google TV Blu-ray player to your own high definition TV to access the Internet and watch TV.

Or, you can choose any of the four Google TV models. The Blu-ray disc player is $400. The 24″, 32″, 40″, and 46″ Internet TVs are priced from $600 to $1400.

We are promised wide open, across the board, searching of the World Wide Web and all the television your cable company offers. However, according to Sony the TV channel guide is programmed explicitly for Dish Network. In other words, if your cable carrier is Fios or Time Warner Cable, the channel guide will not be available or accurate. Can’t tell which until Sony sends a demo for review.

You interact with Google TV via a remote which includes a qwerty keyboard and a trackball style mouse. Although the keyboard is larger than a Blackberry style keyboard (times about four), it is too small for a full grown grownup to 10-finger touch-type with, so you hold it and type with your thumbs and forefinger. By the way, Logitech’s keyboard and remote for Google TV are way superior in size , shape and feel. We can tell you that our first accessory will likely be a full keyboard and traditional mouse. Although even as we write this, we are remembering the user-friendly feel of the remote… Still…

So, for the Internet TVs, you plug in your electrical source (AC here in the United States), your Internet and your cable TV sources and have at it — Tweet, Email, etc., etc., etc., and watch The Good Wife all at the same time.

If you have your own HDTV with HDMI connectivity, you can go with the Sony Internet Blu-ray disc player. Just plug in your AC, Internet and cable TV sources, connect that to your TV via HDMI.

Customers who already own a Sony Bravia Internet TV can use the new device which will overlay with Bravia’s widgets or applications, as some people call them.

If you are in the market for a fine, high end TV, which is what Sony generally offers, and you already have a Blue-ray player, this is a great cutting edge choice*.  So far, it looks like Sony’s Google TV access via the Blu-ray player box described here and Logitech’s Revue box for Google TV are interchangeable. “Tune in” here and we’ll let you know as soon as both are made available for us to compare.

The four Internet TVs and the Blu-ray player have 8 gigabytes of built-in storage. (My Droid smart phone came with 16 GB micro SD card!)

The CPU is Intel. The operating system is Google’s Android. The browser is Google’s Chrome. Sony makes beautiful high end consumer electronics with 5 star customer support. Here, however, is an offering that even Google, Intel and Sony execs couldn’t quite explain without confusing us.

As indicated at the outset, Sony is marketing “ the Internet on television” to the younger generation (teens to twenties presumably). What seems to be overlooked is that this generation is already not-so-slowly but surely moving away from television and moving steadily toward “television on the Internet.”

Sony’s version of Google TV does claim to add the functionality of full browsing capability inside your TV with the thousands of apps that we’ve become accustomed to on our Android phones (and iPhones). At this writing, however, Sony advises that the apps will be available via Android Market  in “early 2011.”

It is noteworthy that the week before, accessory giant Logitech demonstrated their Google TV interface much more clearly. As we mentioned, we can’t say how well any of these entertainment products perform until we have them in hand.

*Is this the cutting edge next gen product group or another generation of “Web TV?” (Remember Web TV?).