Looking for some advice/recommendations around getting a new TV that is a 4K. The one big requirement I have is that its a non-smart TV. Ideally I don’t want any of the additional hardware/software in there.
Best case scenario, if possible I would love for it to be an OLED.
And before the replies start chiming in. Please don’t turn this into a flame war thread about how you can turn features off etc. I’m not interested in that discussion, just purely some recommendations.
I have not found non smart televisions. Depending on your preferred size you could get a large monitor like a GIGABYTE AORUS FO48U, 47.53". It is 4K and OLED.
Thats a good idea, I’m driving the TV via an Marantz receiver, so it doesn’t really matter too much if its a “tv” or a monitor, I mainly just need it to drive pixels, everything else can be controlled via the receiver or my AppleTV.
You could also have a look at the Philips Momentum 558M1RY, 55". It is a VA panel, not OLED, but it is larger and while I am not entirely sure it is not smart, it is being marketed as a monitor.
Can always disable/muff, that bit of nonsense… I just use my TV ultimately as a large display
[Older Video Game Consoles, XP-Box… Roku is the only current-ish device attached]
… I haven’t seen a TV, without some kinda bloatware embedded, in quite a few years
Can always look into them newer large format monitors, as the best work around avoiding bloatware
I briefly had a look at the BFD monitors and then noped out when I saw how expensive they were. I just went with a smart TV and just never connected it to the Internet.
This is a question I’ve asking for a while now (as my TV is getting long in the tooth… as in, it’s not even Full HD old in the tooth) but still does almost everything I want, so I don’t plan to update it until my hand is forced.
The answer I keep coming to time and time again is that the compromises required to get a non-smart TV just aren’t worth the added cost or the potential downsides in terms of how the screen performs or functions.
So the next best solution is to get a smart TV with the hardware features I want, that will function without WAN access, and that doesn’t have any deal breaking hardware or software issues (such as ads when changing inputs). I would disable internet access on the TV itself and block it altogether on my pfSense box. I’d then use an external device (ideally a low power consumption HTPC) to take care of all the smart features.
The goal would be that, after calibrating the TV, I’d only ever switch inputs on the TV itself. Everything else would be done via a HTPC or my PVR.
That’s stupid, I’d return that in a heart beat, and leave a one star review. There’s no reason for basic functionilty (input switching, and the tv tuner) to require internet connectivity. And a TV without basic functionality is defective.
The low , low price of the “Smart TV” is the subsidy you pay with your data.
Why should they allow you to avoid paying up forever?
You got the giant tv for cheap, after all.
That’s why the Commercial displays are more expensive, you just pay for the hardware sans data subsidy.
It just… isn’t though. If you spend £2000 on a TV it’s going to have all the same tracking shit as on a £400 TV, and it’s not as if £400 TVs just didn’t exist before they stuck an ARM chip in all of them. Looking at it like this just obfuscates the fact that this is an extra non-consensual revenue stream to turn you from the consumer into the product that exists at every price point and doesn’t reduce the price points that existed prior.
There has always been a market for *phile gear.
For the customer for whom paying more is a badge of honor.
Their data, it could be argued, is much more valuable than data from cheap pleb tv’s.
The end result is you’re used just the same no matter how much you spend, and you don’t pay any less than before this spyware was normalised. This is 100% extra revenue across the board, not a subsidy for anything.
Just get a smart tv and not connect it, and attach a streaming device if you are so inclined.The market is subsidizing tv costs with ads since every dumb user is going to connect it anyways.
Only other option I can think of is a projector since they typically aren’t “smart”
Some say big monitors but that doesn’t realistically cut it.
I’ve said to others not on this forum, I would be happy to pay extra for a “dumb tv” just to not have more digital spyware in my house to be honest. Though the reality is that I shouldn’t have to pay more for a TV that has fewer components.
I think that the main difference is that a TV would be expected to have an OTA (antenna) tuner for DVB-T, ISDB-T, ATSC, or DTMB, as well as being remote controlled.
Additionally, TVs tend to have integrated speakers more often than monitors.