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I'm trying to figure out what to buy now because my TV from 20 years ago finally died. Can't find anything that's essentially a large monitor.
Hisense with Android TV or TCL with Roku seems to be the least bad of the smart TVs about ads, and you can easily not connect them to your WiFi. If you want smart TV functions, you can always hook a PS5 or XBX/S or OSMC PC to the TV with HDMI.
Hisense U8K this year has good reviews from rtings.com and is probably the best you can get without going into OLED territory.
My parents have a couple of TCL televisions, and they kind of concern me. That product, for that price...it's got to come with botnet software out of the box. There's no way you're not aiding and abetting a fascist regime buying these suspiciously cheap TVs.
Just buy a TV and don't connect the wi-fi for the smart capability. It's only 90% solved, but as long as it has HDMI inputs and a digital audio out it gets the job done.
Just buy a TV and don't connect the wi-fi for the smart capability
Some of these TVs will find an unsecured network within range to connect to, so they can still bombard you with ads.
And (in my experience) they're still slow as hell. I press "power on" and have to go pour a drink or something while I wait for it to boot up, as if I'm warming up a radio in the 1930s.
I'll give you that one. I don't know about finding unsecured networks, that would be enough to make me return the TV, but the two Samsung TVs I have take about 30 seconds for their input menus to go away. The menu from my Shield or whatever little device I have on my office TV are loaded, but the "Select your input" kinda menu fills 20% of the screen for about 30 seconds and it's annoying.
That said.. I'm never in that much of a hurry so it doesn't really bother me (though it is a minor annoyance). I don't blame you if it bothers you, though.
I know, I want the same.
Hisense U8 range is fantastic.