| ▲ | aydyn 3 days ago |
| Does it really matter that much? Get a $20 roku or google tv stick or whatever you're comfortable with and don't connect the TV OS. |
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| ▲ | kotaKat 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| The TV manufacturers still make it highly annoying to avoid their integrated bullshit now. The setting to launch an LG WebOS TV into its last input on power-on is buried under 'advanced settings' several menus deep. They would rather launch you into their home hub full of preinstalled apps even if it's not online... ... and the thing came with Microsoft Copilot installed, and you couldn't uninstall it, either. The future! |
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| ▲ | amarant 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The trick is to not buy a "TV". Get a really big computer monitor/screen, and put it where you'd normally put your TV. | | |
| ▲ | forbiddenlake 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This trick unfortunately falls down above a certain size, especially if you want to game at a good fps, and stay in the consumer space (price) rather than the commercial display space. That gigabyte 45 inch is too small to use above your fireplace and view across the living room. In my case I compromised on needing 4k, and got an lg 65 inch with only HDMI. | | |
| ▲ | pete5x5 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I have been doing A/V systems professionally for many years and the best system I have found recently is a Sony TV with an Apple TV. No sign-in needed for the TV for basic setup, can be easily set to come on to a particular input, works well with the Apple remote, and functions well with no internet with just a little corner pop-up saying "no internet" when you first turn it on. You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you don't like Apple TV then your streaming box of choice. | | |
| ▲ | toast0 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you don't like Apple TV then your streaming box of choice. Can you update via USB? I know my (couple years old now) Samsung TVs have firmware downloads available so you don't even need to connect the TV to anything. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes. I've owned a couple Android-based Sony TVs in the past decade and they both support updating firmware via USB thumb. They also support installing/removing packages with ADB, just like one would with an Android phone, in the case that there's some offline app you want to use on it. The newer models also do a neat thing where if you have external speakers hooked up, its internal speakers can be repurposed for center channel audio which is super cool. I'll echo the Apple TV + Sony TV combo. It's very solid. |
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| ▲ | bee_rider 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Apple + Sony sounds like a pretty nice combo, although unsurprisingly, right? It is a combination of premium brands. (Of course often premium brands are actually garbage in a nice shell, so maybe it is surprisingly not surprisingly bad, haha). | |
| ▲ | Marsymars 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. You also need to wipe the storage cache for the launcher app after disconnecting to get rid of the junky ads that get downloaded. |
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| ▲ | intrasight 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are projectors the alternative? | | |
| ▲ | zamadatix 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Projectors can be an option but the price point to get anything comparably good in terms of picture quality puts you squarely back in commercial TV pricing. |
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| ▲ | trvz 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don’t own a TV, but would’ve bought a LG just because of webOS if I finally decided to get one. But if it comes with uninstallable Microsoft apps, that changes it. | | | |
| ▲ | Mindwipe 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can literally click to boot into "dumb mode" on all modern Google TVs such as Sony once and forget about it. |
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| ▲ | ninth_ant 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| My recent-model Samsung TV repeatedly opens a pop-up info window about their AI features while my AppleTV is playing movies and shows. So I didn’t connect the TV OS and it’s still thrown in my face. It’s not the end of the world to have to find the tv remote and dismiss a popup every few days, but I sure would welcome competition who doesn’t try this sort of nonsense. |
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| ▲ | drewg123 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Thank you. I was shopping for a TV to use as a display device for an Apple TV. I was considering a Samsung, but now I no longer am. | | |
| ▲ | zamadatix 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I've found you have to stay granular, i.e. to the model level rather than the brand level, or you end up with basically no consumer focused brand to pick from (or, even more likely, a misunderstanding that a given brand had no such problems because you didn't casually run across an example). |
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| ▲ | janc_ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Popping up dialogs in the middle of watching a movie sounds like a hidden manufacturing defect. That should be enough to get your money back on returning it to the shop (assuming your country has anything resembling consumer protection laws). |
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