So I’m soon buying a new TV and looking at Samsung, Sony and LG and I’m not sure what to go for…
I’m currently looking at Samsungs UE55KS7005 and Sony KD-55XD8505 witch cost the same in my county(Norway), but can’t decide witch of the them to go for. After reading a lot of tests I know the Samsung TV is slightly better, but the Android OS is very interesting as it gives you a lot of options and I use Chrome cast for almost every thing today. However I read that Android OS on Sony is not optimal yet?
What do you think guys? Samsung or Sony? - I really can’t decide
I’d honestly get a “dumb TV” and buy a set top box to run the OS you like, be it Roku or nVidia Shield, or whatever. The actual screen itself on those TVs will serve you better far longer than whatever “smart” bits they shove into it, so may as well buy smart bits you can cheaply replace more often than the TV itself.
I’ve taken this a step further in my own TV watching.
I have a built in Plex client app on my Vizio, but it seems to stop movies about 50 minutes or so in, fails to start a movie or suddenly stops a TV episode about 3 minutes before the actual end of it. The Roku out in the main living room doesn’t do this on any of the same shows, nor does the web player, Androids or any other device I try the problem shows with. 90% of the time the volume control won’t work while PLAYING something on this TV, so if I exit out to the browse list, I have to guess where to set the volume and go back into the movie/show. All in all, not a great experience.
Then, a very kind developer on the Asustor boards started messing around with an Ubuntu shell, and part of the shell he set up, has an older version of PHT installed. Then he took it a bit further and ported over 1.0.6 of PMP. Which I can also run via his Ubuntu port. Since my NAS is attached to the TV via HDMI, I just VNC into the NAS to start a movie/show via desktop, or cast from an android, and only use the TV’s remote for volume control anymore.
I seem to be the only one with the problem on the Visio app (at least searches don’t provide any information.) and I’m sure it has something to do with the way I part my hair or something.
I second putting something else in the works. Buy your TV for it’s screen abilities, and then add a client device that meets or exceeds your requirements for playing video/audio. Don’t rely on the TV’s “smarts” as they can generally become not smart quicker than the TV stops being a TV.
@jkalland said:
I’d honestly get a “dumb TV” and buy a set top box to run the OS you like, be it Roku or nVidia Shield, or whatever. The actual screen itself on those TVs will serve you better far longer than whatever “smart” bits they shove into it, so may as well buy smart bits you can cheaply replace more often than the TV itself.
Dumb tv’s barely exist anymore…
Personally is to with android TV, but I do prefer a settop box.
Have you looked at Vizio? The P (top of line) and M (middle) Series TVs are beautiful (2016 models specifically). You also get full array backlighting, instead of edge lit.
I have the Vizio P65, 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision. The M has less backlit zones and only HDR. I had a Samsung comparable model for about a week and switched. The switch gained me Dolby Vision, saved me about $1600 and got me backlighting instead of edge lit (which is an insane visual difference. The blacks on this TV blow my Pannasonic Plasma out of the water, which is extremely hard to do.
Forgot to mention what everyone else has said, screw the smart functionality, although the Vizios don’t have it anymore which is nice, it’s via a Chromecast player and from Android tablet they give you. What’s nice is they are acknowledging that smart tvs aren’t the best approach.
Plex via their chromecast supports 4K video as well, or well it tells me it is direct playing my 4K files
Fair…but along the same vein you can just buy the smart TV with the best screen/speakers you can and ignore the smart part so long as it has a UI that doesn’t make switching HDMI inputs awful.
