Sharp isn’t offering a major UX overhaul on its 2013 Smart TVs, but one notable addition is split-screen web browsing. While they’re watching TV, users can just hit the remote’s View Mode button to split the screen vertically — TV program on one side, and web page on the other, the image shrunken to a quarter of its original size.
Sharp throws split-screen web browsing on its Smart TVs (hands-on)
Sharp says that all of their TVs will feature dual-core processors this year for just this kind of application, and that the web browser is now going to be included on all of the company’s TVs — 6, 7, and 8 Series — although there’s no word if the recently-announced Ultra HD 4K TVs will feature the same. The browser seems to perform well; it loaded The Verge respectably, although the fonts didn’t render quite properly. We can’t say we see miuch of a need for the addition, since it’s a million times easier to just grab a nearby device if you feel the urge to do some browsing, but we’re no UI designers.
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