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Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

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Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#691

Post by Godel_unicode »

roywiggins wrote: post #688
Godel_unicode wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ISPs are giving out APs with no key needed and no captive portal? Every one that I’m aware of requires some manner of secret to login to the shared AP.

There's nothing actually stopping an ISP from making a deal with a TV manufacturer to provide connectivity though, is there?

There’s also nothing stopping any of them from including an Iridium modem in their sets. Or using aircrack to try and break into a nearby network. Or any other tinfoil hat thing we can come up with.

There are literally thousands of paranoid security researchers who would love to post about something like this (hi), and none of them have. That’s hardly conclusive, but if it’s not good enough for you then maybe you should reconsider whether society is the place for you.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#692

Post by amw »

serf wrote: post #600
n0zmer wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. More than 7$ a month leave my bank account every month on so many random things, subscriptions I forget to cancel, virtual machines I forget to destroy etc etc. I'd rather have my TV shutdown / turn on quickly over sweating about a random $7 savings on an electric bill that I wouldn't even see anyway.

you don't need to be put into a financial crunch by the $7 in order to see it as wasteful, and it doesn't take 20W of energy to get a television to do things quickly. we're in this sorry state of affairs because of people accepting lower quality without protest, while expecting everything to be cheap. Companies are in a bad spot, and so are consumers.

Demand doesn't really drive supply, not the way we're told it does. The manufacturers want to make devices that give them a further income stream, and they just have a marketing budget for making sure demand doesn't drop too low for what they're making.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#693

Post by zakki »

lbotos wrote: post #31

Search: digital information display Samsung 4k https://www.samsung.com/us/business/displays/4k-uhd/qb-serie... It's more expensive then the subsidized ones, but right in the description: QB65B--N * Direct-Lit 4K Crystal UHD LED Display for Business Without Embedded Wi-Fi or Bluetooth As others have suggested as well, possibly a monitor, but I'm not aware of many 65" 4k monitors (But they may exist)

I don’t see it said about TV Tuner which is needed to call it a TV.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#694

Post by tmm »

pupdogg wrote: post #667
tmm wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Color calibration - I'm not entirely sure what would be involved here, TBH. "Professional" in this context would be what a pro home AV installer[1] would look for, not what a Hollywood color grader would need. TV Tuner - Yes. An ATSC tuner with a COAX antenna input that can auto-scan for receivable channels. If this isn't feasible anymore, then I guess the HDMI input doesn't need ARC. Connectors - looking at your pho…

In that case, I would say that color calibration is very easy to accomplish and having the connectors facing down is something I was already planning to do. Our industrial displays are typically mounted 15-20ft in the air, so customers have an easier time accessing them from the side while on their lift. As for outdoor TVs, that's a whole other Pandora's box, but yes, we also make those displays, mainly for digital b…

Your wraparound display is very cool.

So my use case for outdoor displays is in the recreational marine market. Screen sizes are typically between 7" and 18" with some very high-end "glass bridge" displays coming in around 24". Retail for a 12" chart plotter is $4000. Typical display brightness is 1200 nits, which is OK, but still hard to see in direct sunlight with sunglasses. Conversely, they also don't get dim enough at night.

The glass bridge solutions all use a "black box" chart plotter (essentially a rugged PC) and dumb displays. But the smallest displays are 16" and way more expensive than the integrated solution.

I'd love a 12" to 15" HD display with capacitive touch, optically bonded LCD, wide viewing angle, viewable in direct sunlight (with sunglasses), and dimmable to nearly off (20 - 50 nits maybe?) so that its not blinding at night (not city night, but offshore night). It should have one cable: a USB connection for power, video, and HID output.

In the vein of your pole display, a 14-18" tall, 4" wide screen would be very cool for the sailing market. Most folks mounting mast displays are still stacking a bunch of individual 3" or 4" monochrome LCDs (at $1000/ea).

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#695

Post by kitsunesoba »

potatolicious wrote: post #551
delecti wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to most people. My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors can return from sleep (a second or two); changing inputs is just as quick (input button on remote, left/right to select, okay to confirm), and the automatic input selection when…

> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements" Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks. So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that do…

What year/model of Sony TV is it?

I've had a couple of Bravias over the past 7 years, with the newer of the two having been purchased in 2018 and I've not seen the smart TV homescreen once since configuring the last used input as the default. Neither were ever connected to the internet though.

Also, as I understand recent Sony TVs include something called "basic TV mode" that turns off all smart functionality and make them function much more similarly to dumb TVs, perhaps yours has this feature?

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#696

Post by actually_a_dog »

kelnos wrote: post #521
actually_a_dog wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how mu…

Are you seriously trying to suggest that paying $7/mo for literally nothing is a reasonable thing to do? Not to mention the waste this causes... Sure, other appliances may suck down more power, but at least you are getting something valuable for that energy use and expense.

I am not. I am suggesting there are other savings in the average household energy budget that are more significant. Besides, even "waste" electricity heats a home in the winter, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds even.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#698

Post by madjam002 »

EastSmith wrote: post #288
TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #95

It's worth noting that TVs that run Google TV (which includes Sony Bravia) let you choose Basic TV or Google TV. https://support.google.com/googletv/answer/10408998?hl=en#zi... If you don't want to connect to the internet, you can select Basic TV at setup and get the equivalent of a dumb TV.

Never buying a Sony device ever again. Got one 4,5 years back (3rd one for last 10 years). It had Google TV and I could not pass a screen and use the TV unless I agree a stupid EULA. Had to take it, because ... family, but they made me feel soo stupid. Pair this with a horrible PS support and Sony is banned for life for me.

Same but for different reasons, mine was an expensive TV with a single core processor and running Android TV, and it was incredibly slow. I remember connecting via adb and watching the volume indicator applet use 100% CPU when trying to change the volume from the remote control and only showing up 10 seconds after pressing the button.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#699

Post by me_again »

mattacular wrote: post #459
rolenthedeep wrote: post #376

"just don't connect it to the internet" is such a typical HN response that completely misses the point. A smart TV with no internet connection is still a smart TV. It still has an entire operating system that needs to load wifi, ethernet, Bluetooth, usb driver stacks. It still has an awful, flashy interface that adds unnecessary steps between changing inputs. It still tries to load god knows what apps every time you…

I have a TCL and the factory firmware was out of date and apparently was affecting the picture quality in negative aways. My options were: 1) connect to wifi, update, then disconnect and trust that it's been done or 2) load the update onto a usb stick. I went with #2 but they could just remove that option in the future if they feel it's interfering with their ability to mine data off customers. PS. the update fixed t…

I guess you could change the wifi password after if you're worried the TV is secretly keeping the connection after you disconnect it.

Re: Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?

#700

Post by odysseus »

potatolicious wrote: post #551
delecti wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements (low processing power) frankly don't matter to most people. My smart-but-disconnected TV turns on just as quickly as my PC monitors can return from sleep (a second or two); changing inputs is just as quick (input button on remote, left/right to select, okay to confirm), and the automatic input selection when…

> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements" Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks. So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that do…

Thanks for this, I will stay away from any Google TV sets for my next purchase.
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