if you can’t tell the difference between a nice OLED and an average LCD then you need your eyeballs checked.
I can tell OLED and regular LED or LCD apart, but that type of improvement never seemed worth it to me. Maybe I should have checked out some specific content on it, but OLED never really blew my mind.
that’s perfectly reasonable, everyone will have a different cost/benefit calculation. But that’s a lot different than saying expensive TVs aren’t actually better.
It’s not just about oled vs lcd. There’s a huge difference between backlight arrays in cheap lcds vs expensive lcds. And there’s still benefits to choosing lcd over oled. Either way, some people just don’t care about image quality. I have a friend that claims he still can’t tell the difference between dvd and Blu-ray, or 4k Blu-ray.
sure, it was just an extreme example. the point is the article is nonsense.
It might be kind of helpful for like a portion of the population. Maybe.
maybe if they said “expensive TVs are not worth it for some people” but 1) that’s not what they said, and 2) that’s obvious and doesn’t need analysis anyway.
Fair
There’s plenty of people in this very thread who are super proud of their 7 year old $300 nameless small tvs
The people:
My girlfriend has a shit 300$ 4k tcl and fwiw the difference between my midrange Samsung and higher end Visio and her shit tcl is definitely not $1000+ in my opinion.
Happy I have the better quality for sure
Does anyone still use a tv? What do you use it for?
As we’ve built up a plethora of small screens in the house, we almost never use the big screen anymore. I wonder if this is going the way of landlines, and cable - a huge expense that is no longer relevant.
With all the choices of media and activities, it’s not like we have a family activity of sitting to watch whatever dreck, on the broadcasters schedule. We’ll still probably be in the same room relaxing at the same time, but the kids will be gaming, the wife will be cackling at Instagram, and I’ll probably be doomscrolling. We all have screens that are more suited than the big screen, and the big screen would just interfere with someone else’s enjoyment
I suppose we did watch the Super Bowl together, but that may be it for the last few years. Is a big tv worthwhile for one event? Even when I’m home alone and want to watch something, I have a better suited small screen (heck, that bedroom tv hasn’t been turned on in years)
Not to knock on you, because everyone’s got different priorities, but I think calling it a “huge expense that’s no longer relevant” is a pretty loaded framing. A decent 75-ish inch TV can be had for about the same price as a middle-road flagship phone.
Sure, I can certainly watch a movie or play a game on my little 6" phone screen, but it’s an entirely different experience–in the same way that eating a protein bar and eating your favorite meal will both technically nourish you.
Granted, I’ve spent quite a bit in excess of the cost of a decent TV on the audio system to go with it, but pretty much anything other than watching rando youtube videos or playing idle phone games, I would rather do in front of a large screen with immersive sound–gaming, shows, movies etc., even if it’s just me alone.
That’s all part of my reasoning, at least for myself.
I used to spend a lot for an excellent tv and sound system for the immersive experience. However over time I tend to choose options for convenience. The sound system stopped being used and no longer exists. I use the TV itself less and less.
This is the same pattern as for music. Over time I found connected speakers in every room more compelling than my good sound system, and stopped spending money on it.
I could argue a similar pattern for cable, for a landline, for CDs, for computer desks, for many things I’ve left behind.
Some of these similar patterns left behind are a trend, not just me
This is absurd. Not because of your personal preferences but because you are so naive and narrow minded as to be incapable of imagining another viewpoint. This thinking is why the world is falling apart.
Wow, narrow minded because I asked for other viewpoints? Narrow minded because I wondered if it there’s a trend or if it’s just me? Maybe you should revisit your definitions
Collective viewing is still best on a TV.
If you are alone there may be functionally little difference between sitting on the couch watching TV and lying in bed with a smartphone balanced on your chest, but as soon as you’re sharing the viewing experience at all there’s still value in having a big shared screen.
We use our TV extensively. I much prefer watching shows or movies on it, we watch Hockey and Football (Soccer). We play games on it.
Sure we all have tablets and it permits us to do things away from the big screen but our TV is the communal screen.
Hell, I’m currently looking into buying a used tv for. my bedroom because I don’t like holding my tablet to watch a show in bed.
The only thing keeping me from taking down my bedroom tv, is that I’d have to patch the holes (and it’s old enough I wouldn’t offer it to anyone)
Live sport (Football/F1), family movie or TV night, its a social gathering point as much as anything. There is still stuff we want to watch together on a high quality screen thru a proper AV setup, although we moved back to a 2.0 setup from a 5.1.
Its also my main screen away from my desk, I like watching on a big screen even if its my youtube videos of woodworkers or trains or whatever.
For sure, maybe one of the reasons we almost never use the big screen is I haven’t hooked up broadcast TV yet, but one of the reasons I haven’t bothered is live sports is increasingly paywalled. It was all too easy to say I’m not that interested in watching the Patriots every Sunday, when there are more barriers to watching or enjoying (and the Bellicheck/Brady era is over: I’m not sure I can name a single player anymore).
For the Super Bowl, I’d buy one month of whatever parasite you’re paywalled behind. However I’m not paying a subscription to watch regular games
I really think this is yet another scenario of short term profit seeking ruining the longer term profits. I’m sure a paywall is more profitable in the short term, but watching sports seems to be a habit , a ritual, and there are many of us less intense watchers that will lose the habit with too many obstacles. Are they really getting more profit when their paywall shrinks the audience? Heck, I’m also much less likely to attend a game in person, since I don’t really follow teams anymore. I used to always goto a couple mlb games every summer, but if I can’t watch at home, why would I be interested?. I really only follow college hockey now
Yeah we gave up and paid for live sports streaming once it came in 4k HDR for sports. It isn’t cheap but no real alternative that doesn’t have risk and unreliability associated around it. Anything that isn’t live there are plenty of reliable, high quality ways to obtain things for free, but live, I need it to work and not look like a potato on a large screen if I have people round. I did try that method for a few years, its ok on a phone or laptop with just me as I will put up with the problems but absolutely not on a big screen.
Expensive large screen displays are better.
Smart TVs are privacy invasive billboards that let you watch some TV on their terms.
They’re a little bit better if you just never connect them to the internet.
I opened my smart TV and removed the Bluetooth/WiFi PCI card that was inside it.
Good fucking luck connecting to something you privacy invading piece of shit.
chad!
This just doesn’t seem to click for a lot of people for some reason that I cannot explain whatsoever. I don’t even have mine connected to electricity when I’m not using it.
To be honest, I recently got a TCL Roku TV and I almost gave up on trying to use it as a dumb TV. I’m not a beginner at this, but setting up a network connection was so embedded in the initial setup, from the moment you turn the TV on. I did a couple factory resets and I could not figure out how to bypass it. Turns out I had to set it to “store display mode” at a certain point and then connect my other streaming device.
Yeah, the Roku OS is REALLY baked in there and REALLY wants your data, and they recently updated it to make it even harder to circumvent. The trick is to just block its connection at the router level.
My gf has one of these and I tried to plug and Apple TV into it to bypass all of that and it won’t take the signal …. It works everywhere else but that Roku TV is like “nah fam, no signal sooorrrrryyyyty”
Oh my god that didn’t even occur to me. Maybe I am a beginner!
I have a Fire TV which I rarely use and when I do I stream from the Apple TV box. I noticed that the TV was consuming 50-100mb data per day even when it was turned off. I have blocked WiFi access using my router so I can tell you that it works.
Mine gets put in the garage when its not being used. Microphones to record you can work on battery power inside the tv
I keep mine chained up in the basement when not in use.
I’m picturing a big screen on the old school TV carts.
Exactly what I did. I’d get a 65" monitor if there was any. But an always offline smart TV will do.
Even then you still have a bunch of cheap hardware crammed into an insufficiently ventilated box that will lead to problems down the line.
My TV is 15 years old, not very smart, thick as oatmeal, but works like a charm.
you don’t have to use the smart bulllshit.
I’m not worried about me using the smart bullshit. I’m worried about it using me. Beyond the ones that literally spy on you through camera or microphone …
A few years back I started to see descriptions of media recognition, so a tv could know what you’re watching even if it’s not through one of its apps. While I have no idea how widely that’s deployed, it’s awfully dystopian. There’s a specific reason to keep your smart tv off the network, even if you never use the apps.
I’ve also read articles (not sure if legit) about smart TV’s piggybacking on other networks, such as using WiFi even when you disable it, or picking up your streaming devices network over hdmi
you can opt out of all that stuff. They bury the options deep in the settings but you can do it and it works.
While there are usually options to opt out, past behavior has shown that manufacturers can’t be trusted. It starts with opting you in by default, and trying to trap you into one sided terms of service that you can’t even see until you’ve “agreed” by opening the box. However most manufacturers have been caught ignoring these options in the past, so we have no reason to trust they won’t again. Especially here in the US where what little consumer protection we used to have is being shut down
It’s still there, though.
And since it’s usually one integrated board, a failure in the “bullshit” will likely affect the not-shit.
that’s just pure speculation. if they design the boards to cool properly during the warranty period there’s no reason to think they’ll have major issues after that.
Read that statement again and ask yourself, if it really makes sense .
unnecessary disrespectful bullshit.
I’m still rocking a 2011 38" vizio from Costco. Does everything I need, nice and dumb, as a TV should be. A bigger and higher def TV won’t bring me more happiness, so I’ll be sticking with it until it quits and I can’t fix it.
I just had similar I gave to my kid. OLED was a huge upgrade. My new TV is much higher contrast, much smoother, more detailed, especially in high activity scenes
Super
This assumes that the reviewer who gave the rating wasn’t considering value as part of their scoring. I’d expect the reviewer to be scoring a TV based on his good it is compared to similarly priced competitors, not comparing to every other TV on the market
Rtings.com scores do not include price as a factor. Scores are calculated by multiple test results.
The more expensive it is, the more ads and spyware it will have.
What? Cheap TVs are full of this stuff which is partially why they’re so cheap.
They all have it.
I’m not an “imagephile”, my eyes can tell the difference between 4k & 1080p but for a 45 min TV show I couldn’t care less if its in standard def.
We have an HTPC handling all media including TV recrdings so I took a USB with a few media files of differing qualities & tested them on TV’s in the store - no way I’m buying a TV without seeing how it handles everyday stuff that isnt the ridiculous over bright awful motion smoothed in store demo scenes.
I’d never use the “smart” features of a TV, that thing is never going online.
Last 3 TV’s have been Panasonic. One of them was a lower priced set but still fantastic picture. Not the best UI & to be honest a nightmare menu system but excellent panels & no ads or BS in the UI.
The way the tech overlords are heading I’m not looking forward to replacing our set when it eventually needs it
I bought a Roku smart TV 65in like 5 years ago. Light as a feather and never gave me a minutes trouble. Think I paid like $300 for it.
I’m in the same boat, bought a Samsung 40-something-inch smart tv for around $300 maybe 6 years ago off the neglected “small TV” aisle. It has some bloatware, but it’s never been an issue after configuring a few settings. I’m guessing if I went for one of the floor models, it’d have been a problem.
