I am hanging on to my 1080p Samsung for dear life. It is about 12 years old, but the picture quality is still fantastic with LED backlighting and it has – get this – no smart “features”.
Someone a while back on a thread not dissimilar from this one suggested looking into commercial display screens. A kind of BYO solution to the smart TV problems.
The nice thing about Samsungs is that basically all their remotes work with all their TVs, so I just found one without the smart button so I can’t tell that mine is smart, and I obviously never connected it to internet. I think it’s a lot cheaper than trying to get a commercial dumb TV too.
I feel the exact same way about my 42" 1080 Sony Bravia. It’s heavy as fuck, so I had to hang it on the burliest monitor arm I could find, but it was built like a tank and the picture quality is still great. Bonus - since it’s not a flat panel, the built-in speakers are more than decent.
I don’t know about new ones, but you’re right older Bravias are built like tanks. I got a 40" LED that’s, uh, more than 15 years old now. Survived 5 rental moves, covered in nothing but cling wrap and chucked at the back of me car.
I have no idea what to do when it eventually breaks…
My 1080p plasma is still going strong. Sure there’s burn in but it’s had it since I got it and it’s a real big dumb tv. Dreading moving the monstrosity across the country, but it was the perfect price and I don’t want to drop a ton of money on a new tv during a time of uncertainty.
I will say my oled steam deck has made me want a better tv, but I can wait for it.
I have been surprised at how good some of the early LED backlighting can look versus OLED. My understanding is that the backlight in dark areas on my Samsung can be shut off independently area by area, so while the black point isn’t as dark as an OLED, it is way darker than on a lot of other displays I have seen. So it’s a good example of good enough for me.
What does it matter? Unless you’re going back to cable you’ll have to get a “smart” something or other and the “smart” ones always let you pass through the signal anyway so you might as well not deal with all the wires.
…all what wires? Back to cable? Not sure what you are referring to. I have a single HDMI cable plugged in to a dumb TV from a computer I control. All content comes in through that (with the benefit of things like ad blocking).
Smart TVs have features designed in part to collect data on you and facilitate things like serving you ads. Why would I want that as opposed to a TV without such “features”?
It wouldn’t be an issue if the industry still offered dumb TVs, but by and large, they don’t (for good reason – they can profit off of the collected data).
“Oh, those little straps on the controllers? Yeah, don’t worry about those.”
For real though: it’s easier to convince the wife if the old TV can be sold to make the space and get some money to put towards the new one. TVs can last for decades and it’ll be a long time if you’re waiting for it to get “broken”.
TVs can last for decades and it’ll be a long time if you’re waiting for it to get “broken”.
Ummm…who wants to tell him?
He is correct tho. Unless we are talking about some more expensive tvs. Ironicaly more expensive tv dont last as long Beacuse they have more cutting edge experimental technology ( early OLEDs for example ).
Maybe if you’re paying the Samsung/Sony/LG premium
But the cheap brands most people buy like TCL and Hisense, cut corners everywhere they can so that they can hawk a 75" “4K” TV for $400. They usually die in < 5 years and it’ll probably be, at least one of, the LED backlight strips. They’re damn near almost made to be “disposable”
Teaching kids how to be capitalists: create a demand by obsoleting early.
I miss my LG Plasma. Sold that dude with the house because it was super heavy and I was too lazy to unbolt it from the wall. Still regret that decision.