By WILSON ROTHMAN
In an episode of the short-lived sitcom Andy Richter Controls the Universe, the former sidekick of Conan O'Brien muses on having two TVs in his bedroom, so that when he rolled over in bed, he'd still be watching. Sharp's Wireless Aquos is the first untethered TV — at least, the first one that can wirelessly receive video from your DVD player, TiVo, VCR or cable box. It's easy to see how a TV junkie like Andy could grow emotionally attached to such a device; for the rest of us, it's a compelling new convenience.
The Wireless Aquos is a lithium-ion battery-powered flat-panel TV, weighing just under 14 lbs. including battery pack and pedestal. There's a separate base station, a little silver box where you plug in your equipment. Between the TV and base station is a radio connection, one that works more like a cordless phone than the Wi-Fi network it's closely related to. You don't have to configure it — it just works. The range it's supposed to provide is 15 meters (about 50 feet); when I tested it, I could only get about 30 feet from the base station before the video stream began to freeze up. Still, my apartment building is a harsh environment for wireless technologies, and there's a range extension feature you can use (with lower-quality video) if all you need is just a few more feet.
It's not an HDTV, but then no 15-in. set needs to be. (The pixels are already so close together, you wouldn't notice more from five or ten feet away.) It was designed mainly for watching regular broadcast television, but it's okay at displaying letterboxed DVD movies, provided you're close enough to see what's happening.
The nicest convenience is the, uh, extra-remote remote control. You run a wire from the base station to the infrared remote-control sensors on your DVD player and cable box (or any one or two of your video sources), and control them by pointing a remote at the TV — even if the TV is in another room.
Battery life is perhaps the biggest issue with the Wireless Aquos. Set to "normal" brightness (there's also a "low" and a "high"), it's supposed to run for two hours. I had it powered up and un-wired for two and a half, though to qualify that, I wasn't playing movies the entire time. On one hand, it's nice to beat the expectations; on the other hand, even that doesn't seem like a very long time when you're immersed in TV land...
...Which brings me to the real question. Or questions. First, will I ever need a wireless TV? Perhaps, if it means I can keep my clutter of gear in the living room, and have a streamlined flat-panel-TV-on-dresser experience in my bedroom, with full access to DVDs and TiVo. Second, will there ever be in a situation where I need a TV so wireless that it can't even be plugged into the wall? Probably not, although I'm sure if we asked Andy Richter, he could think of some examples.
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