Hi there!
So I am looking to buy a new TV, but the latest smart-TVs all seem to be very bloated with ads and other ridiculous and unnecessary features. I know very little about TVs, and therefore wondering if anyone has any tips on some good TVs that include as little bloat as possible.
Thanks for any recommendations or tips!
Get one with a good panel and ignore the “Smart” part. Better use something like a Fire TV Stick.
Firesticks are also full of ads and tracking. It’d be more ideal to use something like a Raspberry Pi or building an Android TV box instead as a media client.
I can recommend the Apple TV. Even the android TV ones have ads now (looking at you shield tv!).
No one forces you to use that stuff. I don’t think I’ve ever used my TV menus. I have a chromestick and I just cast everything from my phone. I could have the smartest TV in the world for all I know, I don’t care.
The most recent Samsung TV we got has built in adds on the home screen, i do not want to see ads when ive used hundreds of euros to buy the TV already. Not much I can do to avoid that.
You can setup PiHole to block Samsung’s ad servers. Some routers give you the option to block specific websites, that works, too.
The site you have to block:
- samsungads dot com
- samsungtvads dot com
My newish Sony has a basic mode where it just functions as a tv. No smart bs. Picked that at setup and never looked back.
Walmart sells a brand called Sceptre that I’ve been using for years now. Cheap dumb TV and use a Chromecast for all my streaming needs, works like a charm. And, I can always plug a real computer into it if I need it to be “smart”
Bear in mind that the audio in those TVs is garbage. Pair it with a nice sound bar.
Recently LinusTechTips posted a video vouching for Roku TVs. It seems they have a really snappy UI with no ads.
Roku TV owner here: Yes, mostly.
The main screen does show one “banner ad” (which you can briefly see in the LTT video), usually for some show that is streaming on some platform.
But that’s the only one, and I appreciate that it’s microphone is built into the remote and only activated when pressing a button on said remote.
Otherwise it stays out of your way, and the app selection is quite good, if you need them - otherwise just a really solid, budget friendly TV.
My 5 year old Roku which I used to block it from internet a access as it is so chatting talking to Roku all the time, even when itin use suddenly would not work at all unless I gave it access to the internet. So be wary of Roku tvs if you plan to not let them use the internet. In fact is is the second most block domain on my network.
If I could figure out how to post an image I could show the almost 11k requests it blocked over the last 7 days. And I don’t use any of its smart features as I have an Apple TV connected to it that I use.
