I’ve been playing with the Chumby Internode sent me to review for about an hour now and despite some early reservations, I’m now completely head over heels in love with the plush Wi-Fi widget.
It’s like some kind of high-tech cake, with layer upon layer of fantastic widgets and clever implementations of simple Web 2.0 things like RSS feeds and social networking. After working through the simple setup process and waiting for a relatively quick firmware update, it was a process of discovering just what the Chumby can do. And while I’ve only scratched the surface in the short time I’ve been playing with it, my Chumby (affectionately named Chunk) has already become my new alarm clock, internet radio device and de facto Twitter feed reader.
There is a lack of local widgets at the moment – Internode’s own offering is a bit disappointing, showcasing only Internode-specific news and their internet radio channels (but you can use Pandora, which is much more comprehensive in its versatility). I’m desperately hoping we can get a Giz AU widget available soon, although at the moment I’m just using the Chumby feed reader to do the job for me.
I’ll have a more comprehensive review next week, but as it stands, I’m loving every inch of the Chumby so far…