SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
So one of my three year old kids smashed my 65" LED flatscreen with a die-cast model of the Atlantis shuttle. I was fine with this and was not planning on buying a replacement in any haste but my wife keeps complaining. Would prefer at least 65"+ and absolutely not a smart tv. What suggestions do you have, companies to avoid, etc. Help me SN, you are probably my only hope of not just buying another spysung.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Ask Soylent: Best Bang for Buck Television Purchase
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 99 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Grelb's Reminder:
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
average drivers.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 20 2018, @06:16PM (15 children)
What's wrong with a "smart TV"? It's just a UI. It can't spy on you unless you connect it to a Wi-Fi/Ethernet network. It should be usable without doing so, and could probably do useful stuff like play files on USB storage.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @06:29PM (8 children)
TV boot times are the bufferbloat of the consumer world.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday January 20 2018, @06:49PM (7 children)
If you get a slow smart TV, and not all of them are, you can just pretend you're living in a time with CRTs and no remotes.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:15PM
We don't watch television anymore, just netflix/hulu/youtube. Would rather do a google spystick instead of samsungs built in system. The smart tv we had is two years old and was in the ~1500 range, crashes constantly.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:27PM (3 children)
What nonsense are you talking? We had a remote even when we only had a tiny black and white CRT. Unfortunately it was me until my younger brothers learned to work the channel changing knob.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:01PM
SneakerRemote! So _that's_ what kids are for!
I'm an old enough fart to remember a TV my parents had, probably from early 1960s. It had a rubber bulb, long plastic tube, and a piston and ratchet mechanism on the channel changer. You could only advance the channels, 2-13, UHF (whatever it happened to be tuned to), and one position was OFF. There was a jack for a speaker (with long wire) you could put at your location which had a volume knob.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:51PM
And the difference in technology aptitude between the older generations and the younger was summed up as "Don't turn the knob so fast! You'll break the thing."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:55PM
Our first color TV in the 50s had a remote. It was a little box attached to the TV with wires. When you pressed a button, the rotary controls on the TV turned because of motors somewhere in there. I still remember how impressive the NBC peacock was in color the first time I saw it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:30PM
*citation needed*
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday January 20 2018, @08:51PM
Not all of us can just pretend [geekculture.com], you insensitive clod!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)
Stability (dumb TVs *never* crash), boot speed (often), and ease of control. It's really annoying to have to find the remote and navigate a UI just to do something simple like change sources.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:59PM
dumb TVs *never* crash
My old LG dumb TV used to crash - at least until I disabled the reverse control signals coming from the bluray player.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 20 2018, @07:50PM (2 children)
Sony 930D TVs keep turning the wifi connection on and setting up its own multicast network even if you turn it off. Also, it can't even adjust the audio volume without problems - it's too slow to keep up with button presses on the remote so you'll always overshoot. Finally, it is only recently that a firmware upgrade has fixed the problem of it not showing videos in the correct aspect. Oh, and my expensive 930D, brand new in 2016, has hardware dated 2015. Weak CPU and limited RAM memory means really crappy performance. Don't buy a Sony.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:38PM
Never ever buy anything Sony - I learned it 30+ years ago and still stands.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Saturday January 20 2018, @11:06PM
Sony: Our so-called smart TV has what is about the worst software that I've seen in the last decade. Aside a good picture and decent sound it does NOTHING well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:00AM
Yes, you'd think they should be usable without connecting the things up to the interwibblez, but as others have pointed out some of them require network connection for things like the EPG and some even require it for the damn remote controls to operate.
My dumb (probably Linux based) TV currently plays most media content I throw at it on USB devices without having a network connection, for the stuff it can't handle, I've an Android based 'Kodi box' connected to it.
Even ignoring the 'Big Brother' aspects of the technology, sad to say there's money to be made from monitoring your viewing habits...and corporations are greedy, if nothing else. Being a cynical bastard, I'm of the opinion that's the way the people who want the 'Big Brother' facilities that smart TVs offer installed on every device without having to pass any legislation (which would give the game away) sold the idea to the manufacturers and the marketing wankers, greed, and they're happy as they get their 30 pieces...