Which TV to buy

RumRat

Ancessitere said:

I prefer the televisions from Meizu, I can't explain why, but I like their design very much. They may lose out on features, matrices, displays, sound, and so on, but most of us don't notice that.

Do Meizu make any TV's??? Thought they were solely a phone manufacturer....

sevenhills

DullGreyGuy said:

Buy a TV based on its picture quality primarily, sound quality secondary if you arent wanting to have a soundbar or other external sound system. All TVs will be "smart" these days but even the top manufacturers are bad at maintaining their smarts but you dont need to throw the TV out when its gets redundant but just move the smart to an external box like FireStick/ AppleTV etc.

Even buying a top of the range Samsung and LG TV my external streaming devices were better at not buffering etc from day one and the gap got bigger as the TV's systems were slow to be updated. 

Not sure about the previous commentator's comments that all TVs are made by one company... for a start all OLED panels are made by LG with the exception of the ones used in Samsung TVs. Plus there is a difference between a manufacturer and the people that put the thing together... Foxconn assemble mobile phones for a wide range of clients but that doesnt make an Apple iPhone the same as a Google Pixel phone just because the same company puts them together... they have very different components inside.

NITs for more brightness and a decent wattage?

GDB2222

Chickereeeee said:

GDB2222 said:

As I know nothing about this, can I ask why people buy smart TVs at all? Why not buy a dumb TV and an external box to do the smart stuff? 

Then 5 years down the line you might need to throw away the smart box, but you can get another for a fraction of the cost of a new TV.

I used to thnk like that, but I have to admit having the apps I want to use on the the TV (LG) - iPlayer, YouTube, Plex, Ch4 Catchup,  Live record etc - and all accessed/controlled using the same remote control makes life a lot easier.

We have a BT Youview Freeview recording box. The controller for that switches the TV on/off, and everything else is done on the BT box. So, that’s just the one controller. 

I’m probably missing some features somewhere, but in my ignorance I don’t know what I’m missing out on? 

Worryingly, we tidied up and we have misplaced the TV's own controller. Do any of you tech wizards know where we put it please?  

Edit: Found it, without any help from the forum!

facade

GDB2222 said:

Worryingly, we tidied up and we have misplaced the TV's own controller. Do any of you tech wizards know where we put it please?  

Edit: Found it, without any help from the forum!

The single Most Useful Feature In The Universe is a remote finder. If a device has it, buy it!

(You press a button on the TV and the remote beeps like crazy until you find it- trivial beyond trivialness with modern bluetooth remotes, but my Samsung doesn't have it, so I have a spare remote under the tv and a spare spare in a drawer)

Ancessitere

RumRat said:

Ancessitere said:

I prefer the televisions from Meizu, I can't explain why, but I like their design very much. They may lose out on features, matrices, displays, sound, and so on, but most of us don't notice that.

Do Meizu make any TV's??? Thought they were solely a phone manufacturer....

I mean Xiaomi. I'm sorry, I mix them up.

Chickereeeee

csswiift said:

I ended up getting a Philips 65” TV which is purely a screen rather than a smart TV. I use Sky / Firestick so that’s not an issue. 

So far, so good..

Fair enough. You just need one device to act as the 'hub', and use that control.

My TV has a Chromecast, Freesat recording box and hifi plugged into using HDMI, while I use Plex, Youtube, catchup apps, Freesat channels, live tv record, and occasionally streaming services, built into the TV. TV also has sat dish and terrestrial aerial. So using the TV remote makes much sense.