To wonder about smart tvs

[Creeper8]

I need a new tv. Was wondering about smart tvs but are they worth the extra? anyone got one? are normal tvs just as good?

We have a 5 year old samsung smart tv ( not old in my book!)
It is becoming less smart as apps such as u tube are not supported any more (and have disappeared)
I'm not very impressed

My mum has a Roku that she finds great to cast with; our Chromecast suits us. I think the Roku can be used independently of a phone or tablet.

We're not replacing our 12 year old tv until it dies, so the CC does the job for us just now. At £30 it's more than paid for itself. I think the Roku costs similar.

Ours is about 10 years old and can be really useful if the HUMAX box fails - we record a lot or wouldn't have bothered buying that, as the TV has everything on it!

The problem with Smart TVs, is the same as for smartphones ... the second it's sold, the manufacturers only incentive is to sell you another. Which is contradictory to the idea of supporting it for a long time.

We're now on our 2nd smart TV, but Rossetti family replacement strategy will be look at the next TVs interconnectability (Miracast, HDMI and extension sockets) and have the "Smart" bit provided by a Chromecast or Firestick, or much cheaper add-on. All the TV has to do is show the **ing picture.

I'm finding cars are becoming like that .... why should I pay £1500+ for the "option pack" to get a pretty shitty satnav and media player, when I can use a smartphone with a free satnav and media player app which are much more customisable, and be taken car to car ?

quite right. The apps go out of date and stop working.

but you don't have a choice, all TVs over a certain size are smart. Same as you don't have a choice if you want a freesat recorder; there's only one and it is a design disaster.

Built in obsolescence. Not good for anyone and especially not the planet.

We watch Netflix & Amazon Prime on ours, can also cast YouTube vids onto it, which is useful.

That in combination with a Roku means we can pretty much watch all we want to - having just ditched the TV & Phone, we're only getting Broadband from Virgin now.

My experience is that it's better to get an Amazon fire stick rather than using the native smart apps - we find ours much much better Its faster, more reliable and easier to use.

We've just got one to replace our old HD and fire stick set up.

We're going the whole smart home hog a bit at a time. I can control my tv with my voice using my Echo.

having just ditched the TV & Phone, we're only getting Broadband from Virgin now.

When you say "ditched" do you mean "removed from bundle" ?

Last time we looked at that, the saving for just broadband was lost because of the discount for taking 3 services.

You can get business broadband (was £30/month), but that's a separate outfit.

We started with a smart stick it kept getting hot scared the beyaysus out of me. So asked for a smart tv from santa. I know it can do a lot more than we use it for but for netflix and prime which is all I am technologically capable of doing.

Our smart tv hasn't enabled us to get rid of Sky. I honestly can never find anything decent to watch on Amazon Prime or Netflix- not sure why we still pay for these services (oh yeah the kids are spoilt brats).

Got the smart tv in the end. It was on offer so made sense.

Oh, definitely worth it! We don’t have sky or virgin etc, only watch amazon prime/Netflix/catch up tv – so much better! Never run out of things to watch and so much cheaper in the long run.

Last time we looked at that, the saving for just broadband was lost because of the discount for taking 3 services.

It had crept up & up to £72 a month for TV, Phone (never used) & 150 meg broadband.

I've now only got 100 Meg broadband for £40 a month - it was a no-brainer for us.

If you don't have sky it's probably a good idea. Ours is a JVC. It's got IPlayer, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 catch up along with Netflix and Amazon. We've got sky though so most of what's available on the TV, we can get on sky. We only got it cos it's 4k and DH wanted 4k one.

We're thinking of ditching the cable tv part of our Virgin bundle and just having phone and broadband. We hardly ever use the cable and could live without it. We don't want Netflix or Prime; with freeview, Youtube and other video apps, all the catch up apps (iPlayer, All4, ITVHub and My5), that we cast to the tv, there's always something to watch. DH casts Spotify with his phone, ditto iPlayer Radio and other cast compatible radio apps. We can watch our own videos and view photos via Localcast. No need for cable at all now, and we're trying to save cash, as DD3 has started asking for horse riding lessons.

Make sure you set the privacy options when you set it up. Many smart TVs are incredibly snoopy by default, sending details of everything you watch to the TV manufacturer.

www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/

I don't set much store by the smart features because as a PP mentioned, the apps often don't get updated and stop working in a few years. Something like a Chromecast or Fire TV Stick will be supported for much longer and is a cheap item to replace if it does get out of date. But I think nowadays if you want a TV with quality picture and sound it's going to be "smart" as well.