The time has come for me to get a new TV. I’ve been dreading this because I keep hearing how shit modern smart TV’s are with the ad situation.
Anyone got any recommendations? Even the best of the bad would be a step up from nothing.
I should also note: I’m not looking for any kind of complicated self hosted thing. This needs to be usable by your grandma. 😄
Anecdote:
Our Sony OLED is Google TV based (aka Android), so it works with every app out there.
It’s default homescreen is awful and ad ridden, but it recently got an ‘app only mode’ that gets rid of EVERYTHING. I kid you not, the home screen is utterly barren except for a grid of the apps you installed; it’s glorious. It’s even cleaner than a relative’s old Nvidia Shield, or old ‘dumb’ TVs.
…No idea how such reverse enshittification happened. My only guess is that Sony put a gun to their head and made Google do it, though the option is well hidden.
Looks great. You can look up Rtings for specs.
But that aside, it’s internal ASIC is excellent. It decodes ridiculously high bitrate BD rips with zero stutters. The upscaling is good, the motion smoothing is legit good; the best I’ve seen. It has stutter compensation by default, and BFI if your eyes can take it. Both of ours were decently calibrated out of the box.
…And none of them have busted, not even the old one.
I swear, I am not a bot or shill. And this is a sample size of one family…
…But yeah. Having experience them with friends/family, I would not touch Samsung TV with a ten foot pole. LG would be my second choice, but I’d still assume I’m going to hook it up to a streaming box.
If getting a Sony Bravia, check carefully that it actually has the Apps Only option. My 4yr old one doesn’t and it’s horrendously laggy, gets easily confused or locked up if you push remote buttons too fast, has to be power cycled several time per week, and takes a crazy amount of time after tirning it on before it will respond to the remote. An absolute POS. Removed all excess apps, went through the settings, turned off anything fancy, to very little improvement. Never again.
This sounds very promising. Do you have a model number?
It’s a k-65Xr80c. Can’t remember what the much older one is.
https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/bravia-8-oled
RTings is right, it’s not super bright. If you watch HDR stuff, it’s better for rooms that at least block some sun (though lit SDR is fine).
As of 30 seconds ago, this is the screen when you press the power button:
But let me emphasize, this is not default. If you’re setting it up for a grandma, you or they will have to find the toggle.
I’ll find it 🙂
I’m setting it up, I just won’t be the primary user, and I don’t want to be running tech support. Appreciate the suggestion! I also didnt know about that review site.
You’re welcome! Yeah, RTings is incredible. While I’m here, I’d also recommend notebookcheck.net for anything they happen to review (which is more than laptops these days).
One caveat: like another user said, I don’t know which TVs have this option, and there is no guarantee it will stay, unless you turn auto updates off somehow. YMMV.
I believe Sony OLEDs also use LG panels, so I would suggest one from either brand - on the caveat that if you value privacy, and not being inundated with ads, you do not directly connect it to the internet - but instead use something like an Apple TV for your media playback.
Cannot agree more. Even without the ads, the Sony and LG smart interfaces on my TVs are absolute garbage. Glitchy, slow, needing constant updates that it won’t do in the background, and then, of course fucking ads. Get an Apple TV or Google TV for media aps. It’s a far better experience.
How finicky is that apple TV setup?
Pretty straight forward, honestly - if you’re already in the ecosystem.
Just sign in with your account, and download whatever apps you want for native viewing or just AirPlay content from an iPhone/iPad/Macbook.
What if you own 0 apple products? 😄
That’d be fine also, you can just create an iTunes account wherever, you just won’t get the interconnectivity of the Apple ecosystem (AirPlay, AirDrop, handover etc.).
If you’re in the Android ecosystem a Google TV might be a better option, as it’d allow you to Cast media from your phone.
Either option is honestly fine, and significantly better than the slow, spyware-riddled garbage that gets packaged with the TVs themselves!
Appreciate that info, thank you
Idk know about apple tv, but a Google Chrome with Google TV is just a dongle. Plug power cord into it and plug it into an hdmi port, simple as that. I imagine Apple TV is similar.
Gotcha. I’ve never tried either so that’s good to know, thanks!
I’d also recommend checking out RTINGS. They have a pretty comprehensive testing methodology that they apply to all models they review, and they also pay for all review models themselves to avoid any potential conflict of interest. They score on a 100 point scale for lots of different things (brightness, black level, colour, suitability for gaming, suitability for sport, etc) so if there are specific things you’re interested in you can quickly compare different models and get a good idea of their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Thanks for the recommendation!
We love our sony. Samsung will be $100 cheaper but it’s not worth it! Their user experience is TERRIBLE! If you need something quick and easy, grab a projector for ~$200. We used one for the first 3-4 months after moving because we didn’t know where the TVs would go and it was easy to carry room to room while packing/unpacking. We had a TCL roku tv- not fancy but cheap and fine.
second vote for Sony! I’ve got an ~8 year old tcl roku myself. It’s not too bad but I wish it had less ads on it.
Sony if you want a decently priced lcd, the android tv built in also allows for native smartube and vlc, lg if you want oled and plan to plug in a media stick.
I have an LG OLED B2 for a couple of reasons that remain true of LG OLEDs and new TVs:
- LG has the best OLED longevity results on Rtings tests
- supports Dolby Vision (Samsung pushes some „standards” nobody is using)
- VRR / FreeSync (if you play video games this is a must have on a modern TV)
- jailbroke mine to add ambient lighting via HyperHDR, ESP controller and a LED strip (total cost of something like $40)
My one other observation is that new TVs are marketed on how bright they get. It’s like Gillette razors with 20 blades but replace that with 3000 nits. I don’t have my B2 nowhere near max brightness because it’s eye-searing and reduces OLED lifespan. Brightness this high only makes sense if you’re going to watch your TV in the middle of an electronics store showroom.
As to UI, ads and spyware. Every vendor UI is horrible and will push ads on you eventually - don’t connect it to network, get an Apple TV set top box, set TV to use that input at start and never worry about that. I’m still using my 2017 one and while showing age it’s still faster than every TV I’ve seen.
Thanks for the recommendation!
I’ve been happy after moving from Sony/Samsung to Hisense.
I haven’t heard of this one before. What makes you like it so much?
If I could go back I’d probably get a projector for around a hundred, some half decent speakers, and some heavy curtains. No TV to move, LED lights last way longer than the old bulbs and brighter, and way cheaper.
- get whatever TV you want
- never connect it to your network
- go through its settings to opt out of all the bullshit like data collection, tracking, ads etc. google directions for your model if you can’t find it.
- only watch media through connected devices
- if roku has too many ads for you, try an Apple TV which is pretty much ad free.
2. never ever connect it to your network. EVER. Use an external device.
If you use a roku, roku can still track your roku stuff. But it can’t also see anything you do that’s not using the roku. Like track and report to roku what steam games you play on your steam machine.
If you put your tv online, it has access to all of that, and can inject content if it wants.
That’s good to know about apple TV. It’s probably a bit spendy though I imagine. I’ll keep it in mind, thanks!
I recently purchased a 65" Vizio from Walmart for pretty cheap and paired it with their Onn 4K Android TV box. Kept the TV disconnected from WiFi. It works pretty good but the TV liked to nag about not being connected so I created a hidden guest SSID that had no internet access and connected the TV to it to make it shut up. All in all it’s not a perfect solution but it works and no ads like Samsung TVs.
Good to know! That sounds like it might be setup than I’m looking for, but no ads sounds nice.
Samsung is full of ads and SamsungTV.
Grandma-usable is RokuTV.
That’s what I have now, so not opposed to this. The one I have is like 8 years old and they have continued to add new ad spots to it over time. That shit should be illegal, I swear…
We tried to get our grandma on Roku, and she just couldn’t figure it out. And she isn’t stupid, she’s sharp. It’s got too much spam now (even compared to DirecTV).
My TCL Roku was great, but updates made it work very poorly the last few years. Has gotten better recently though.
What I would do if I had 300 bucks to burn is buy an NVIDIA Shield to plug into the HDMI and basically turn the Roku into a monitor with the software being on the Shield. I’m told you can install the apps that let you watch YouTube without ads on it too.
That’s good to know. That might be more setup than I want, but I’ll keep it in mind. I also have an old tcl and I’ve had the same issues with updates. 🫤
