I need to pick out a new TV for my mother in law. She will have TV service through a satellite provider, but I also want to make sure she will have access to streaming apps, including Plex. (In fact she’s the perfect target for Plex’s own streaming channels… You can bet I will be pinning them!)
I will be looking exclusively at bargain brands like Visio, Hisense, and TCL. Image quality barely matters so I’ll be getting the cheapest ~55" TV I can, haha.
It seems like I’ll have the choice between Android and Roku systems… Is there any consensus on which is better for Plex, or easier to operate overall?
Thanks if you have any opinions on this stuff. I haven’t even touched a TV made within the last 10 years so I am completely in the dark.
I personally would not get a TV for its smart features at all at all and instead get some sort of attached device like a Roku.
I think a Roku TV is likely to get the most continuous updates and not basically become obsolete after a couple years. Though I don’t have a specific brand recommendation. It also seems to be the most friendly OS for a casual non-techy person. I got a Roku device to hook up to my parents TV and they only rarely call me with any issues.
Let your users worry about themselves, we as admins have enough to worry about and to take into consideration (my personal opinion). If the user bought some tech that they don’t understand or know how to operate it, that’s on them…
I have a Hisense TV myself and I love it (Dolby Vision + Atmos support), but the only device I stream anything to Plex or otherwise is my Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 which is connected to my TV. Audio is all passed through to my soundbar.
My TV still hasn’t been “fully set up” yet and I’ve had it close to a year (never use the actual TV).
Roku is generally recommended as being the easiest to use, particularly for non-tech savvy people, though personally I find it the most cumbersome out of the services I’ve tried (LG’s WebOS, Amazon’s Fire TV (Android based), Nvidia Shield (Android), and TCL’s Roku built in). I also found that my TCL’s Roku struggles to play local HDR content that my older LG plays just fine, but that likely won’t be relevant for your mother in law. I’m honestly not sure why the Roku is so frequently recommended, but maybe as a tech savvy person there’s something about it I’m missing.
I will add that my own mother found having several streaming apps to be overwhelming. So a single streaming app may be the way to go, even if it means less content.
I would normally recommend Hisense. They have significantly improved their tv’s in the 450 to 500 range but their lower end TV’s still don’t get very good ratings
My girlfriends cousin gave her one of these as a gift. She set it up herself which is a minor miracle if that’s a consideration.
It’s actually not terrible and I think it even has Dolby Vision. There are TLC’s for a few bucks more but I think in this price range the reviews will all look just similar enough to be unhelpful.
I think people recommend the built in Roku’s because they’re better than the native TV apps but not as complicated as a separate streaming box. One remote for everything without a lot of buttons. The built in Fire TV’s seem to be in slightly smaller TV’s like a 43”
Once you get the 2 or 3 apps they use pinned at the front, there’s little to no navigation required
