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It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

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Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#71
> There are options, but guides on this front will usually shovel you toward computer monitors (too pricey at large sizes)

I have the feeling that "smart" tvs are cheaper because (like the laptops with windows preinstalled) they are filled to the brim with adware and spyware.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#72
post #37

TVs without a tuner are quite popular in Austria. You save around 30€ per month on payments to public TV stations, if your TV is just a monitor and has no tuner. You can get for example one of those (german, but you probably can read the specs anyway): https://nogis.at or https://www.gisbefreit.at/ Most devices are not high end though.

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Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#74

A serious, non-trolling question to all. I've not had a TV for decades and for me that's a good thing. I've watched TVs in pubs (I'm in the uk) and round my mates' houses so it's not become some strange alien thing, and I'm still happy to be without it (that is, on balance; there are good things about broadcast TV and some bad, and the latter outweighs the former for me). In your opinion, is there actual overall valu…

Our TV is basically just a movie machine in our case. We could watch movies on a laptop on the couch, but it's not as nice as having a TV. For what it's worth, our TV is actually a big old tube TV. We have a small collection of DVDs and VHS, and also a Raspberry Pi 3 which is very capable of playing movie files, and can even stream from Amazon in a pinch.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#75

That's why I'm not replacing my 10 years old panel, which is HD only (1080p) but has no connection abilities other than the ethernet port. When it'll be too old to work, I'll replace it with a projector.

I use a projector. They're cheap and dumb.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#76
post #70

A serious, non-trolling question to all. I've not had a TV for decades and for me that's a good thing. I've watched TVs in pubs (I'm in the uk) and round my mates' houses so it's not become some strange alien thing, and I'm still happy to be without it (that is, on balance; there are good things about broadcast TV and some bad, and the latter outweighs the former for me). In your opinion, is there actual overall valu…

Without a TV I'd miss the ability to "turn something on without being paralysed by choice". Usually mealtimes or when very tired, I just want to turn on the TV and flick through a handful of channels and just watch whatever there is on. It's mainly a UX thing. There's just more friction with TV apps even if they do have a "watch live" option. Channel hopping is just much harder.

It isn't much different to open YouTube, pick whatever's recommended, and just let autoplay pick the next video to play. You get better tailored content.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#77
post #41

Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…

If you’re happy with a computer monitor as a tv good for you. I’m spoiled by super large screen 4K Qdot displays. If I really have to choose not to get a smart tv, the simple solution is actually to get a really good projector.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#78
post #13

I’m dead serious I’d pay an $80 to $100 premium for a dumb TV I’d even consider replacing a couple Smart TVs are just terrible

The premium for a dumb TV screen is about 500-1000$ though. Are you ready to pay that? Because manufacturers will earn more than your 100$ with ads and all other smart features on you if they don't let you buy a dumb screen.

Yes. At this point I will pay a potentially very large premium solely to give the proverbial middle finger to surveillance capitalism.

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#79

A serious, non-trolling question to all. I've not had a TV for decades and for me that's a good thing. I've watched TVs in pubs (I'm in the uk) and round my mates' houses so it's not become some strange alien thing, and I'm still happy to be without it (that is, on balance; there are good things about broadcast TV and some bad, and the latter outweighs the former for me). In your opinion, is there actual overall valu…

A really big screen makes a huge difference. If you truly want to appreciate 4K content (be aware that most streaming 4K content is not good at all, surprisingly YouTube’s rentals have the best 4K fidelity of any streaming option I’ve seen) you need like a 70 inch screen at less than 10 feet away. I can assure you that with right content this can transport you into the movie in ways only a theater can match.

A great example I use is that in the Dark Knight, the thread the joker ties to the smoke grenade while getting into the school bus unwinds from his coat and is also purple. Like isn’t that insane to notice?

Re: It’s Still Stupidly, Difficult to Buy a ‘Dumb’ TV

#80
post #41

Smart TVs were created for all kinds of agendas but none were actually for us the consumers. All those agendas require an OS which takes time to boot. Making it worse, some of those TVs' CPU are crap and thus every operation takes much longer than those dumb ones. Lots of vendors also start to ship new remotes that removed all the essential buttons, especially the video source button, and I have to press 5 or more ti…

It sounds like you are out of touch with the average consumer. They absolutely love smart TVs and would consider a TV without apps and streaming to be broken. In fact, even the ideal HN approved setup is just a smart TV where the online bit is a removable stick on the back. The average consumer just doesn’t care about being able to swap it out.

Yeah, they love also facebook, which monetize all their private life or sugary food, which alter your diet balance or cigarettes who can literally kill you. Not to mention all of them are addictive.

The fact consumers love something doesn't make it a good thing.

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