My old Android TV is almost 10 years old and despite ADB modding it shows its age. So I took a look around and quickly found out how bad things have gotten in the Smart TV space.
Dumb TVs are out of the question because of their high prices - they’re for commercial use after all.
What I want is a nice big TV (around 65" to 75") with a real colorful, sharp display and an OS that does not annoy me with ads (I despise ads) and recommendations while still fulfilling my needs, which are
- Crunchyroll
- Prime
- Ad-free Youtube client like smarttubenext
- HDMI for console gaming
- Absolutely no stuttering and frame rate issues when playing videos in apps
- Preferably no stuttering menus
- Reasonably priced
Anything else is completely uninteresting to me.
And yes, I know about the nvidia shield, but that thing is 5 years old and I don’t want to ride an already old horse that might be replaced very soon due to its age (even though there’s currently no signs of that on the horizon). I also don’t like using more than one remote…
I have no issue with modding it as long as that’s reasonably possible - just to get rid of most bloatware, annoyances, ads and such.
Any ideas?
As others have said, the best option is to buy the TV you want, update it to the latest firmware, then disconnect it from the internet and use your own external devices.
This is because the companies making the best display technology (much of it proprietary) at an affordable price have no incentive to sell “dumb” variants of their TVs when the “smart” version makes them way more money.