this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
97 points (92.2% liked)

Technology

63082 readers
3508 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
97
Are Expensive TVs Actually Better? An Analysis of TV Prices and Review Scores (comparetvprices.com)
submitted 1 week ago by mahin@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
61 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] AA5B@lemmy.world -4 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Does anyone still use a tv? What do you use it for?

As we’ve built up a plethora of small screens in the house, we almost never use the big screen anymore. I wonder if this is going the way of landlines, and cable - a huge expense that is no longer relevant.

With all the choices of media and activities, it’s not like we have a family activity of sitting to watch whatever dreck, on the broadcasters schedule. We’ll still probably be in the same room relaxing at the same time, but the kids will be gaming, the wife will be cackling at Instagram, and I’ll probably be doomscrolling. We all have screens that are more suited than the big screen, and the big screen would just interfere with someone else’s enjoyment

I suppose we did watch the Super Bowl together, but that may be it for the last few years. Is a big tv worthwhile for one event? Even when I’m home alone and want to watch something, I have a better suited small screen (heck, that bedroom tv hasn’t been turned on in years)

[–] dmention7@lemm.ee 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Not to knock on you, because everyone's got different priorities, but I think calling it a "huge expense that's no longer relevant" is a pretty loaded framing. A decent 75-ish inch TV can be had for about the same price as a middle-road flagship phone.

Sure, I can certainly watch a movie or play a game on my little 6" phone screen, but it's an entirely different experience--in the same way that eating a protein bar and eating your favorite meal will both technically nourish you.

Granted, I've spent quite a bit in excess of the cost of a decent TV on the audio system to go with it, but pretty much anything other than watching rando youtube videos or playing idle phone games, I would rather do in front of a large screen with immersive sound--gaming, shows, movies etc., even if it's just me alone.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

That’s all part of my reasoning, at least for myself.

I used to spend a lot for an excellent tv and sound system for the immersive experience. However over time I tend to choose options for convenience. The sound system stopped being used and no longer exists. I use the TV itself less and less.

This is the same pattern as for music. Over time I found connected speakers in every room more compelling than my good sound system, and stopped spending money on it.

I could argue a similar pattern for cable, for a landline, for CDs, for computer desks, for many things I’ve left behind.

Some of these similar patterns left behind are a trend, not just me

[–] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago

Collective viewing is still best on a TV.

If you are alone there may be functionally little difference between sitting on the couch watching TV and lying in bed with a smartphone balanced on your chest, but as soon as you're sharing the viewing experience at all there's still value in having a big shared screen.

[–] underfreyja@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

We use our TV extensively. I much prefer watching shows or movies on it, we watch Hockey and Football (Soccer). We play games on it.

Sure we all have tablets and it permits us to do things away from the big screen but our TV is the communal screen.

Hell, I'm currently looking into buying a used tv for. my bedroom because I don't like holding my tablet to watch a show in bed.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

The only thing keeping me from taking down my bedroom tv, is that I’d have to patch the holes (and it’s old enough I wouldn’t offer it to anyone)

[–] tankplanker@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Live sport (Football/F1), family movie or TV night, its a social gathering point as much as anything. There is still stuff we want to watch together on a high quality screen thru a proper AV setup, although we moved back to a 2.0 setup from a 5.1.

Its also my main screen away from my desk, I like watching on a big screen even if its my youtube videos of woodworkers or trains or whatever.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

For sure, maybe one of the reasons we almost never use the big screen is I haven’t hooked up broadcast TV yet, but one of the reasons I haven’t bothered is live sports is increasingly paywalled. It was all too easy to say I’m not that interested in watching the Patriots every Sunday, when there are more barriers to watching or enjoying (and the Bellicheck/Brady era is over: I’m not sure I can name a single player anymore).

For the Super Bowl, I’d buy one month of whatever parasite you’re paywalled behind. However I’m not paying a subscription to watch regular games

I really think this is yet another scenario of short term profit seeking ruining the longer term profits. I’m sure a paywall is more profitable in the short term, but watching sports seems to be a habit , a ritual, and there are many of us less intense watchers that will lose the habit with too many obstacles. Are they really getting more profit when their paywall shrinks the audience? Heck, I’m also much less likely to attend a game in person, since I don’t really follow teams anymore. I used to always goto a couple mlb games every summer, but if I can’t watch at home, why would I be interested?. I really only follow college hockey now

[–] tankplanker@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah we gave up and paid for live sports streaming once it came in 4k HDR for sports. It isn't cheap but no real alternative that doesn't have risk and unreliability associated around it. Anything that isn't live there are plenty of reliable, high quality ways to obtain things for free, but live, I need it to work and not look like a potato on a large screen if I have people round. I did try that method for a few years, its ok on a phone or laptop with just me as I will put up with the problems but absolutely not on a big screen.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This is absurd. Not because of your personal preferences but because you are so naive and narrow minded as to be incapable of imagining another viewpoint. This thinking is why the world is falling apart.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Wow, narrow minded because I asked for other viewpoints? Narrow minded because I wondered if it there’s a trend or if it’s just me? Maybe you should revisit your definitions

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

if you can't tell the difference between a nice OLED and an average LCD then you need your eyeballs checked.

[–] MichaelScotch@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It’s not just about oled vs lcd. There’s a huge difference between backlight arrays in cheap lcds vs expensive lcds. And there’s still benefits to choosing lcd over oled. Either way, some people just don’t care about image quality. I have a friend that claims he still can’t tell the difference between dvd and Blu-ray, or 4k Blu-ray.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

sure, it was just an extreme example. the point is the article is nonsense.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It might be kind of helpful for like a portion of the population. Maybe.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

maybe if they said "expensive TVs are not worth it for some people" but 1) that's not what they said, and 2) that's obvious and doesn't need analysis anyway.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There’s plenty of people in this very thread who are super proud of their 7 year old $300 nameless small tvs

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

The people:

1000002268

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

My girlfriend has a shit 300$ 4k tcl and fwiw the difference between my midrange Samsung and higher end Visio and her shit tcl is definitely not $1000+ in my opinion.

Happy I have the better quality for sure

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 58 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Expensive large screen displays are better.

Smart TVs are privacy invasive billboards that let you watch some TV on their terms.

[–] Xed@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Now you got me thinking of the potential of a modded smart tv

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Funny; that’s where my mind went too.

TV equivalent of OpenWRT?

[–] Arbiter@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (4 children)

They’re a little bit better if you just never connect them to the internet.

[–] Fungah@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I opened my smart TV and removed the Bluetooth/WiFi PCI card that was inside it.

Good fucking luck connecting to something you privacy invading piece of shit.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

This just doesn’t seem to click for a lot of people for some reason that I cannot explain whatsoever. I don’t even have mine connected to electricity when I’m not using it.

[–] triptrapper@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

To be honest, I recently got a TCL Roku TV and I almost gave up on trying to use it as a dumb TV. I'm not a beginner at this, but setting up a network connection was so embedded in the initial setup, from the moment you turn the TV on. I did a couple factory resets and I could not figure out how to bypass it. Turns out I had to set it to "store display mode" at a certain point and then connect my other streaming device.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, the Roku OS is REALLY baked in there and REALLY wants your data, and they recently updated it to make it even harder to circumvent. The trick is to just block its connection at the router level.

[–] triptrapper@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh my god that didn't even occur to me. Maybe I am a beginner!

[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I have a Fire TV which I rarely use and when I do I stream from the Apple TV box. I noticed that the TV was consuming 50-100mb data per day even when it was turned off. I have blocked WiFi access using my router so I can tell you that it works.

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

My gf has one of these and I tried to plug and Apple TV into it to bypass all of that and it won’t take the signal …. It works everywhere else but that Roku TV is like “nah fam, no signal sooorrrrryyyyty”

[–] SamboT@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Mine gets put in the garage when its not being used. Microphones to record you can work on battery power inside the tv

[–] Arbiter@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I keep mine chained up in the basement when not in use.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Exactly what I did. I'd get a 65" monitor if there was any. But an always offline smart TV will do.

[–] leisesprecher@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Even then you still have a bunch of cheap hardware crammed into an insufficiently ventilated box that will lead to problems down the line.

My TV is 15 years old, not very smart, thick as oatmeal, but works like a charm.

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

you don't have to use the smart bulllshit.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I’m not worried about me using the smart bullshit. I’m worried about it using me. Beyond the ones that literally spy on you through camera or microphone …

A few years back I started to see descriptions of media recognition, so a tv could know what you’re watching even if it’s not through one of its apps. While I have no idea how widely that’s deployed, it’s awfully dystopian. There’s a specific reason to keep your smart tv off the network, even if you never use the apps.

I’ve also read articles (not sure if legit) about smart TV’s piggybacking on other networks, such as using WiFi even when you disable it, or picking up your streaming devices network over hdmi

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

you can opt out of all that stuff. They bury the options deep in the settings but you can do it and it works.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

While there are usually options to opt out, past behavior has shown that manufacturers can’t be trusted. It starts with opting you in by default, and trying to trap you into one sided terms of service that you can’t even see until you’ve “agreed” by opening the box. However most manufacturers have been caught ignoring these options in the past, so we have no reason to trust they won’t again. Especially here in the US where what little consumer protection we used to have is being shut down

[–] leisesprecher@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago (8 children)

It's still there, though.

And since it's usually one integrated board, a failure in the "bullshit" will likely affect the not-shit.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm still rocking a 2011 38" vizio from Costco. Does everything I need, nice and dumb, as a TV should be. A bigger and higher def TV won't bring me more happiness, so I'll be sticking with it until it quits and I can't fix it.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

I just had similar I gave to my kid. OLED was a huge upgrade. My new TV is much higher contrast, much smoother, more detailed, especially in high activity scenes

[–] CosmicGiraffe@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This assumes that the reviewer who gave the rating wasn't considering value as part of their scoring. I'd expect the reviewer to be scoring a TV based on his good it is compared to similarly priced competitors, not comparing to every other TV on the market

[–] mahin@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Rtings.com scores do not include price as a factor. Scores are calculated by multiple test results.

[–] RangerJosey@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I bought a Roku smart TV 65in like 5 years ago. Light as a feather and never gave me a minutes trouble. Think I paid like $300 for it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›