So, I’ve had my first round of gadgets from the Sony Dads project for a few weeks now and figured it was time to share some first impressions around the television and the DVD player they sent. As I talked about last time, they’ve sent me these to play with for a few weeks in return for sharing my thoughts on them.

The exact equipment they have sent me so far includes:

• 46″ BRAVIA Z Series LCD HDTV
• BDP-S560 Hi-Def Bluray DVD player
• VAIO VGN-FW465J laptop
• A330 Digital SLR Camera

A little less then a year ago I was in the market for my first big screen television. I did a lot of shopping, asking friends and doing research before making a purchase like this. What I got asked by every sales person was, “what are you going to be watching mostly on it?” My answer was regular television, sports and movies. Whenever I gave this answer I was pointed away from Sony because “they are too dark.” I took this advice and went with another brand.

Since I’ve got a full surround sound system set up in my living room this means that the Sony got set up in my office. While it may not be Max’s man cave, it is pretty close with a great big leather chair and the world famous bean. I already had a television in here, but it was smaller so it was a welcomed addition to the room.

My schedule didn’t allow to have friends over for the night to play with it as we had hoped for, but I did plenty of playing with all the features. I had to go out and buy an extra long Ethernet chord to test out the Internet features and my television didn’t come with any form of manual so I was flying solo from the beginning. But, then again what guy is going to read the menu right?

My thoughts:

• I love that the TV has the same interface as the Playstation 3 which I have always thought was extremely intuitive. (still don’t get why they didn’t send us one of these, but not my call)
• The pre-selected options for Internet content are great and I was psyched to see my buddies Blip.TV front and center when I first launched the options. I wasn’t so impressed to see that there was only a few podcasts available and that I couldn’t add more like I can on my Apple TV.
• The DVD player has built in WiFi which is SO smart and I wish my personal player had this option, but as Sass pointed out in his post the fact that you have to plug in a USB thumb drive to give enough memory to use BD-Live content doesn’t make any sense to me.
• Having a widgets button on the remote makes passing the time during commercials fun, but they take quite a while to load.
• It was cool to quickly check my @ messages on Twitter which I found very useful, but when I tried typing one to send it took me too long as I’m use to a full keyboard, but it was fun just the same. I’m curious to see what other widgets people are going to develop.
• While Sony may not want to hear this, I will say when using my Xbox 360 with the television the games look amazing. Madden 10 arrived the same day as the television and WOW is all I can say. This TV has certainly raised the amount of time I spend gaming.
• And what about being too dark? It is darker then any other TV in my house, but I watched Football on it the other night without any concerns. It did look different, but not in a bad way at all.

Overall I’m really digging the television. The Internet options are nice and we all know they are going to get better. I really wish that the TV had wireless access as well since I wonder how many people have an Ethernet drop in their living room. I had to run a 25′ cable just to hook this up across the office to my router.

The DVD player worked as advertised and my personal copy of The Dark Night looked awesome on it, but then again I don’t believe any Blu Ray player actually plays a movie different then another one. But, I could be wrong.

I’m very impressed with the equipment the kids are loving having a bigger television in the office (when I let them watch it). I might have to end up buying a new one when I have to return this one. Still not sure what brand though. More playing left to do.

This post is part of series called the “Sony DigiDads Project” by Sony Electronics where a group of dads, including C.C. Chapman, Jeffrey Sass, Max Kalehoff, Michael Sheehan, and Brad Powell, have been given the opportunity to test and review Sony gear. If you want to know more about this project, head on over to the Sony Electronics Community.