Give me a HD LCD projector and a small single board PC over a SmartTV anyday.
(something like the lattepanda or similar is good, chromcast is also ok for most things)
................. and text input is a pain.
But for that I use my tablet, smartphone or PC.
Cheers,
Vitor
When we got our 40" Sumsung we could redeem our receipt to get a free wireless MS mouse and keyboard and a week or so later it arrived in the mail. Connected to our LAN we can see it from other devices and the reverse. Can access .avi files on PC or NAS box and play them no problem. We got ours to clean up our entertainment center, ditched a VCR, STB and DVD player now with only a cheap surround sound left to keep the smart TV company plus a USB portable drive to record any TV programs on that we don't want to miss. All works pretty well with only 2 remotes, a keyboard and a mouse except for our POS internet connection that hopefully will be upgraded this year.
Minor audio latency when it's played through the cheap surround sound being the only real PITA.
At the time we got it IIRC the smart version was ~25% more but the additional functionality was worth it IMO.
................. and text input is a pain.
But for that I use my tablet, smartphone or PC.
Cheers,
Vitor
When we got our 40" Sumsung we could redeem our receipt to get a free wireless MS mouse and keyboard and a week or so later it arrived in the mail. Connected to our LAN we can see it from other devices and the reverse. Can access .avi files on PC or NAS box and play them no problem. We got ours to clean up our entertainment center, ditched a VCR, STB and DVD player now with only a cheap surround sound left to keep the smart TV company plus a USB portable drive to record any TV programs on that we don't want to miss. All works pretty well with only 2 remotes, a keyboard and a mouse except for our POS internet connection that hopefully will be upgraded this year.
Minor audio latency when it's played through the cheap surround sound being the only real PITA.
At the time we got it IIRC the smart version was ~25% more but the additional functionality was worth it IMO.
That is one thing I've always liked about the AppleTV: You can use your iPhone/iPad as a remote/keyboard, which is very handy. (I have an older ATV model without Siri.)
................. and text input is a pain.
But for that I use my tablet, smartphone or PC.
Cheers,
Vitor
When we got our 40" Sumsung we could redeem our receipt to get a free wireless MS mouse and keyboard and a week or so later it arrived in the mail. Connected to our LAN we can see it from other devices and the reverse. Can access .avi files on PC or NAS box and play them no problem. We got ours to clean up our entertainment center, ditched a VCR, STB and DVD player now with only a cheap surround sound left to keep the smart TV company plus a USB portable drive to record any TV programs on that we don't want to miss. All works pretty well with only 2 remotes, a keyboard and a mouse except for our POS internet connection that hopefully will be upgraded this year.
Minor audio latency when it's played through the cheap surround sound being the only real PITA.
At the time we got it IIRC the smart version was ~25% more but the additional functionality was worth it IMO.
That is one thing I've always liked about the AppleTV: You can use your iPhone/iPad as a remote/keyboard, which is very handy. (I have an older ATV model without Siri.)
Got one of those too now, the wife won it in a daily draw at our local supermarket a year or so back.
At least it's tiny and in no way intrusive to our now tidy setup.
Still we need faster internet
..........
The curse of living in a rural location.
................. and text input is a pain.
But for that I use my tablet, smartphone or PC.
Cheers,
Vitor
When we got our 40" Sumsung we could redeem our receipt to get a free wireless MS mouse and keyboard and a week or so later it arrived in the mail. Connected to our LAN we can see it from other devices and the reverse. Can access .avi files on PC or NAS box and play them no problem. We got ours to clean up our entertainment center, ditched a VCR, STB and DVD player now with only a cheap surround sound left to keep the smart TV company plus a USB portable drive to record any TV programs on that we don't want to miss. All works pretty well with only 2 remotes, a keyboard and a mouse except for our POS internet connection that hopefully will be upgraded this year.
Minor audio latency when it's played through the cheap surround sound being the only real PITA.
At the time we got it IIRC the smart version was ~25% more but the additional functionality was worth it IMO.
That is one thing I've always liked about the AppleTV: You can use your iPhone/iPad as a remote/keyboard, which is very handy. (I have an older ATV model without Siri.)
Got one of those too now, the wife won it in a daily draw at our local supermarket a year or so back.
At least it's tiny and in no way intrusive to our now tidy setup.
Still we need faster internet ..........
The curse of living in a rural location.
Yeah, someone even makes a tiny little mount that lets you attach the ATV to the back of a TV. I made my own by attaching it directly to the TV with some of those heavy duty interlock Velcro strips. Works great! (If you use an older model with an IR remote, it still works so long as you mount the unit at the top of the TV and pointing up; it also helps if your wall is a light color, to bounce the IR.)
I feel you on slow internet. I've got 1.5Mbit DSL here, which I'm lucky to have, as the neighbor across the street is officially too far from the CO to get (and he's less than 100ft away from us). They have to deal with satellite. Ugh...
I really miss the internet I had at my old place... 50Mbit up/down, unlimited! I'm looking forward to moving back into a more populated area just for the internet.
Our LG in the bedroom has an option to add a web camera and probably spits out whatever it can see out over the internet without consent, I would expect to be paid should one of our special moments be broadcast and then later discovered on a porno site somewhere. The same web camera also permits hand gesture recognition so I thought about learning sign language as my vocabulary in this field is rather limited.
................. and text input is a pain.
But for that I use my tablet, smartphone or PC.
Cheers,
Vitor
When we got our 40" Sumsung we could redeem our receipt to get a free wireless MS mouse and keyboard and a week or so later it arrived in the mail. Connected to our LAN we can see it from other devices and the reverse. Can access .avi files on PC or NAS box and play them no problem. We got ours to clean up our entertainment center, ditched a VCR, STB and DVD player now with only a cheap surround sound left to keep the smart TV company plus a USB portable drive to record any TV programs on that we don't want to miss. All works pretty well with only 2 remotes, a keyboard and a mouse except for our POS internet connection that hopefully will be upgraded this year.
Minor audio latency when it's played through the cheap surround sound being the only real PITA.
At the time we got it IIRC the smart version was ~25% more but the additional functionality was worth it IMO.
That is one thing I've always liked about the AppleTV: You can use your iPhone/iPad as a remote/keyboard, which is very handy. (I have an older ATV model without Siri.)
Got one of those too now, the wife won it in a daily draw at our local supermarket a year or so back.
At least it's tiny and in no way intrusive to our now tidy setup.
Still we need faster internet ..........
The curse of living in a rural location.
Yeah, someone even makes a tiny little mount that lets you attach the ATV to the back of a TV. I made my own by attaching it directly to the TV with some of those heavy duty interlock Velcro strips. Works great! (If you use an older model with an IR remote, it still works so long as you mount the unit at the top of the TV and pointing up; it also helps if your wall is a light color, to bounce the IR.)
I feel you on slow internet. I've got 1.5Mbit DSL here, which I'm lucky to have, as the neighbor across the street is officially too far from the CO to get (and he's less than 100ft away from us). They have to deal with satellite. Ugh...
I really miss the internet I had at my old place... 50Mbit up/down, unlimited! I'm looking forward to moving back into a more populated area just for the internet.
1.7 Mb/s here but only in the middle of the night and hope that it's not when others don't have their Win xx auto loading updates. Generally we can get full speed for a couple of hours before 5am.
Here it's called ADSL1, and comes via outdated Conklin DSLAM's in our local Telco box with 4km of copper to provide the data backhaul. When there's very light loadings unbuffered streaming to a PC is not a problem but the smart TV isn't happy with such a slow connection.
Our LG in the bedroom has an option to add a web camera and probably spits out whatever it can see out over the internet without consent, I would expect to be paid should one of our special moments be broadcast and then later discovered on a porno site somewhere. The same web camera also permits hand gesture recognition so I thought about learning sign language as my vocabulary in this field is rather limited.
There's the 2 finger salute too Muttley.....who said your vocabulary was limited ?
Jeez!?! 1.5Mbit ADSL??? I have 2 x 100Mbit Unlimited LTE with unlimited SMS and calls (actually 5000 SMS and 5000min) + 100Mbit VDSL2 and next month it will be replaced by 350Mbit ethernet(fiber optics). Already looking forward to up my LTE speeds to 300Mbit (might have to wait a bit still though)
Jeez!?! 1.5Mbit ADSL??? I have 2 x 100Mbit Unlimited LTE with unlimited SMS and calls (actually 5000 SMS and 5000min) + 100Mbit VDSL2 and next month it will be replaced by 350Mbit ethernet(fiber optics). Already looking forward to up my LTE speeds to 300Mbit (might have to wait a bit still though)
Mind sharing how much ($$$) that is every month?
Costs me a total of 69.70€ and don't have to worry about any data limits.
Jeez!?! 1.5Mbit ADSL??? I have 2 x 100Mbit Unlimited LTE with unlimited SMS and calls (actually 5000 SMS and 5000min) + 100Mbit VDSL2 and next month it will be replaced by 350Mbit ethernet(fiber optics). Already looking forward to up my LTE speeds to 300Mbit (might have to wait a bit still though)
I do have LTE on my phone, which I can tether to if I need something *right now* or the DSL goes down. I generally get around 50Mbit on it. Unfortunately there's a shared data cap of 10GB/mo... (Three phones on the plan, which costs $120/mo. Fuck Verizon.)
From time to time I've been following Verizon pricing policy and am really happy I don't live in the US. :-)
Did not read thread.
OP: It's ignorance.
My biggest gripe? When the fuck are these cheap ass panels going to float down to computer monitors? You know? Where you sit right there and the resolution actually matters. DECADES we've been waiting for panel pixel quantity to even come close to our fav old CRTs. And back then, I could actually read the fine print.
For years I've been thinking I'm wasting my time with real-lifeTM; I should be selling herbal remedies to fools, hippies and all the other proponents of magic. Same thing.
/rant (probably)
Just like Bicurico, I was a bit surprised by this question; you can't buy name-brand TVs here without smart TV functionality. Same with 3D: nobody wants it but every TV has it now.
As for why someone might do it in a country where "dumb" TVs are still available: Maybe they want the better picture quality of a higher-end TV, and that's gonna come with smart TV whether you want it or not.
Woot??? Sony Z9D 4K HDR WITH ANDROID TV does NOT have PVR nor CI+. One would think that a TV with all other possible features a TV could possibly have and the price range starting from $5499.99 (65") to $59999.99 (100") would have those 2 features crammed in too. How hard can it be?
I hate the concept of smart TVs, whatever stuff they have such as Youtube, Netflix etc is embedded, what if those services change? You now have outdated functions that don't work anymore. Rather the TV only be a screen. For those functions I can use a computer.
And yeah I hate the fact that we see all these 4k TVs and yet barely see 4k monitors for computers, where pixel density matters more.
I hate the concept of smart TVs, whatever stuff they have such as Youtube, Netflix etc is embedded, what if those services change? You now have outdated functions that don't work anymore. Rather the TV only be a screen. For those functions I can use a computer.
And yeah I hate the fact that we see all these 4k TVs and yet barely see 4k monitors for computers, where pixel density matters more.
Hahhah, today smart TVs are smart enough so you can update them, including the software. If the service stops working on the TV it most likely stop working on your computer too.
For a 100" 4k is important and 8k would be even better. That combined with proper picture processing engine, and your cat sized pixels are gone for broadcasts that are only 576i or even 1080p.
There are a lot of 4k computer displays today, and now when there is support for 8k in some top range graphics cards, we will start to see more and more 8k displays. The lack of 4k and 8k displays for computers has everything to do with the fact that there did not exist devices to drive those displays.
I hate the concept of smart TVs, whatever stuff they have such as Youtube, Netflix etc is embedded, what if those services change? You now have outdated functions that don't work anymore. Rather the TV only be a screen. For those functions I can use a computer.
And yeah I hate the fact that we see all these 4k TVs and yet barely see 4k monitors for computers, where pixel density matters more.
My Sony smart TV is based on android, so I can update all the apps by visiting the Play Store. With my previous TV, I had used a separate box. Now I use Kodi on the TV and it does everything better than that box did it - it even plays 4k video, HEVC codecs, etc. The selection of apps is fantastic and not in any way limited to Sony.
If the day comes when I can no longer update the apps, I can always buy a cheap current set top box and plug it in, and use the TV as a display only. Some people seem to forget (or omit) that this is possible, and imply that the TV is useless junk at that point, which is ridiculous.
Its hard to find TVs that aren't smart, and I don't really see the point to limiting your choices to non-smart anyway. And we all know from how cheap Raspberry Pis are that it doesn't add that much cost to the TV.
I have a smart TV because that's the only way the OLEDs come. When the software on it gets obsolete I'll pull the ethernet cable out of it. Problem solved.
One thing I've noticed is that Youtube apps on TVs seem to limit themselves in terms of resolution. You can check by turning on "Stats for Nerds" on any Youtube app. My 1080p OLED won't play Youtube videos at a resolution higher than 720p30. Same with a Friend's samsung 4K, but a coworker's brand new 4K OLED will do 1080p60 but not 4k.
I know my TV's SoC will do 1080p because the Amazon Video app will do it.
So I do most of my Youtube via PC. The whole Smart TV thing is marginal. I have zero complaints about the Amazon app, though- its pretty much perfect.
That Youtube does not play 4k is just a software thing. If the TV is capable of decoding 4k video, then there will come an update soon for that particular TV (maybe).
I got a smart TV from LG for my wife a couple of years ago. The idea was that she could watch browser based TV streams but she is still using her laptop for that. Also the lack of updates is problematic. IMHO the TV as a platform is dead. All you need is a big monitor and let a computer or setop box do the smart part.
Costs me a total of 69.70€ and don't have to worry about any data limits.
Costs me nothing, and don't have to worry about TVs at all. My wife "own" our TVs and uses them, she also is the one worrying about upgrades when a bigger or smarter screen is needed. I only use computers for everything. Don't have time for Soap Opera like The Bold and The Beautiful, or stalk people on FaceBook.
I only have time to stalk people here, as there's a slight chance I might learn something in the process.
No seriously, Smart TVs are great, for some it's very useful for others it's total crap. If I ever decide to glue my ass on the sofa for a longer period of time (getting lazy), I will def. buy a smart TV. For now I will stick to my computers.