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What is the best dumb TV?

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Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#611
post #508
post #470

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Cheap ones, anyway. Expensive models sometimes have an inverter.

Several years back (and things may have changed) Panasonic had a patent on the inverter and was the only microwave that offered it. I purchased a Panasonic for that reason and love it. This from their website: The Panasonic Microwave Ovens powered with patented Inverter Technology™ deliver evenly cooked meals, from edges to center, every time.

Thanks. I've googled around for microwaves that heat evenly, but the term "inverter" never showed up. Glad to know this exists.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must be a higher-end thing, for whatever reason. Mine is literally the cheapest 43-inch 4K "HDR" model they sell (for a bit under 300€). I got a plastic remote with a fair amount of buttons that are much closer to standard a dumb TV remote (and rather suspiciously similar to LG's...). I also haven't found any ads in any menu, despite being connected to the Interned and logged into a Samsung account (by necessity).

Necessity? Why is that?

I use IPTV and my provider's client app is in the Samsung app store, which requires an account to download things from. The Spotify app was also not pre-installed, so I needed the store for that too.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#613
post #52

LG sells them as some of their "Business" tvs, intended e.g. for hotels. In Canada some of them are branded as "Commercial Lite". Here's an LG 65" 4k HDR dumb TV: https://www.lg.com/ca_en/business/commercial-tv/lg-65UV340H I have a similar model from a few years ago (purchased from Canada Computers fwiw), and I love it. Because I don't notice it exists. It just does its job, like a TV should.

Main issue with these are the lack of inputs. 2 HDMI ports is not enough for most people. And lack of ARC complicated adding a sound system.

I don't own a TV, so sorry for the question, but why there are more than 2 HDMI ports needed, or even more than 1?

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#614
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My microwave has a wheel to turn the timer, a wheel to set the WATT, a stop button and a start button. If you press the start button it’ll automatically run for 30 seconds, if you press it again it’ll add another 30 seconds to the current run. It took me maybe 4 years of owning it before I learned of the start button feature. Not sure what the hell people are doing with microwaves that connect to the internet, but I…

I don't own a microwave, but find routers to be one of the most frustrating machines to deal with. All communication is done via different lights either on/off or blinking, and none of it makes any sense. How much is a freaking display these days?

I have a router with a lcd display... I never use it (the display), because well.. it's a router, and it's hidden (literally) behind a couch.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#615

What I want from a TV is a good screen. That's it. It's a big monitor optimised for video. The thing that really gets me is why companies bother putting speakers in high end TVs. The kind of person that is going to drop several thousand on a TV will have a separate speaker system.

They have to put a small speaker inside just for testing basically. Otherwise they will get tons of RMA for "there being no sound".

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#616
post #455

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I want a smart TV so I can access Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ etc. right from the TV and don't need a separate device for it. Many people suggest buying a dumb tv and then an apple tv. The problem is, now I have two devices and instead of trusting [TV manufacturer] I have to trust Apple. I don't see a big gain in it and also don't consider Apple to be especially trustworthy. [TV manufacturer] should just sell me a…

With a standalone smart box connected via HDMI if it becomes obsolete, or you want to use different software it’s just that which needs replacing. With a smart TV the entire display has to be replaced, to no real benefit.

Not really. Why not just use the TV until it becomes obsolete then buy a box if you have to?

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#617
post #575

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I prefer QLED anyways, even the best OLEDs still have issues with burn in these days.

There are ways to reduce burn-in, some TVs even have this functionality built-in. But it is enough to simply don't display the same patterns on the same place for long periods (I mean days). As long as you are mostly watching movies and zooming to avoid black stripes or replacing black stripes with gray stripes, you are fine...

My TV is an LG plasma unit from 2010. This tech was also was supposed to suffer from burn in problems. And in fact, just recently I noticed that the Ubuntu screen that manage this TV's content with was starting to burn in where the Icon array is along the top. So, what I should have done in the first place, I did now, which is make that icon automatically hide when the mouse isn't near. And now, about three months later, that burn in image is now imperceptible. The screen's colors are still as fabulous as they were in 2010 but the 720p aspect is starting to feel like a hinderance but one of the best buys I've ever made.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#618
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are IoT SIMs available on most major carriers, which are intended for economical occasional low-data usage on large numbers of devices. They're popular in GPSes among other things. 5G is looking to reduce the cost of them further as LPWA is a key part of the standard.

maybe one way to fight this is by finding a way to abuse these SIMs/connections to use a lot of data en masse until they get cut off or dropped altogether.

They can easily be remotely disabled if there's any suspicious activity, ie to any other server than the telemetry backend.

Re: What is the best dumb TV?

#619
post #207

I don't have a TV, only a few monitors (it's very liberating, actually). So instead I'll talk about my microwave. Yes, unironically! :D It has two dials. OMG how do I survive with only two dials? How do I program it? Well, the answer is, unsurprisingly, that I don't program it. Instead I crank it to watever wattage I need (usually the top one), and the time I think it'll take until the food I becomes hot. Aaaand that…

When living in japan my apartment came with this microwave that wasn’t smart by any means, but had like 50 buttons and I only ever had to use one of them.

The Start button.

It would start heating and I would guess there was a temperature sensor that would automatically stop the thing once the food was hot. In a case it was not hot enough, you would press the same button again and it would go on again for another 20 sec or so. Brilliant.

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