The left part of the screen of my parent’s Samsung TV have seriously blackened recently, so they are thinking of buying a new TV. We probably bought this like 6 years ago maybe, but I absolutely do NOT want to buy a Samsung again (6 years is just planned obsolescence reliability + their OS didn’t let me remove the bloatware in any way or shape of form)
Which brand has been the most reliable for you, and also have you been able to remove the bloatware from your TV via dev mode or with a different method?
Somehow I’ve had the same Vizio for over 10 years now. Still works great.
I basically never hear anything about Vizio. Is this an USA only thing?
Maybe? Not sure. I’m in the USA and we have em.
When it comes to electronics, reliability is determined by the quality of the electrolytic capacitors used as they are typically the first to fail in an electronic circuit. There are other considerations of course, but in general the better the capacitor used in construction the longer the item will last.
Electronics that have cheap capacitors will have about a 10 year life. Those that use higher end capacitors will last 30 years or more. I have two McIntosh amplifiers that were built in 1992 and are still working great on the original caps. They have McIntosh branded capacitors and are top tier, although I don’t now who specifically makes them for McIntosh. I also have 2 Carver amps from about the same era and I’ve had to recap them already. Carver has great sound, but lousy build quality. Also have a Marantz receiver that was built in 2000 with Marantz branded caps that came to me with a dead amplifier, which just turned out to be a dry solder joint on a PC board. Two hours of resoldering several PCBs in it and it’s working very well.
HERE is a good list of top tier capacitor manufacturers, just scroll down a bit to find it of top tier capacitor manufacturers. You’ll have to do some research to find out what TV manufacturer is using what capacitor in their designs.
With that said, there is one listed there that also makes televisions and they, fortunately, have come back to the US market. That is Panasonic. I have a Panasonic Plasma that I bought in 2010 and it is still going strong. It is still my family’s main television. It got hit by lightning in 2012 and I had to replace the power supply and main board in it, which was not the TV’s fault. It has all Panasonic capacitors in it.
I also have a Panasonic Microwave, and cordless phone. Both of which have far far outlived their predecessors. The cordless phone will be 20 years old next April and the microwave is coming up on 13 years.
I will not say that Panasonic has the best picture, best sound, or uses unicorn farts to make the best what ever… Honestly, I don’t give a damn about any of that. What I will say that in my experience if you want an electronic device that lasts a long time, buy a Panasonic.
LG, my grandma’s LG Flatscreen CRT is older than me, it is about 23 years old, works like a charm, very loud stereo speakers, ports and all important buttons in the front easily accessible, usable even without the remote thanks to the front buttons all clearly labelled
That’s CRT though, not exactly the same as new flat screens. CRT were all much more reliable.
Also brands are hard to decide since so many of them design shit to fail now. There is a Samsung washer that used two types of metals in the drum, metals that when touching dissolve each other basically, galvanic corrosion. It was literally designed to break prematurely.
Instead of a specific brand, I looked at what open box / display models the local places had available. I ended up with a Samsung model that was marked 70% off MSRP.
The operating system is probably not great but it’s connected to a Nvidia Shield so I’ve never interacted with the OS beyond the initial setup.
I’d say this kind of decision has more to do with the user interface being easily navigable for your parents and what their technical proficiency is rather than trying to pick a television that might last a decade or more.
Oh that’s a great tactic. How easy do you find open box TVs in local shops?
A few of the larger electronics retailers here have open box sections on their websites. I called several smaller ones, but due to their size they either didn’t have model units at all or only had one or two. One place I went to found they had some returned televisions in the back that they’d never put back on the sales floor, but being effectively brand new they only offered a ten percent reduction.
The website listings were ideal because as made it less arduous to compare specifications. In my case I was rather particular about certain technical details, so it might be simpler for someone that cares less about colour uniformity or input lag for example.
That said, I’ve now remembered that once I’d narrowed it down from a couple dozen options to three televisions, the deciding factor was nothing technical but instead it was the only user interface factor that I do see: it turns on and off with an animation reminiscent of old tube television. I’m not looking forward to replacing it because I find this power on visual so funny with a modern screen.
It might be handy for you to check out rtings accelerated longevity tests and see if you can find those models at a discount. I make use of their tests pretty often.
I’ve never had a TV stop working in my life
Just don’t buy OLED and it won’t darken, if you buy OLED get ready to replace the extensive TV every 5 years no matter what brand you buy.
As for removing bloatware I have no idea since my TV is from around 2010 and I only use it connected to the computer, but you can always just get a raspberry pi and install kodi on it and use the TV as a normal dumb TV. It’s also good for your privacy.
Sounds like the OP has a backlight failure though? That’s a non oled failure.
As a few others have said -> LG Oled. I have a CX 65’ for 5 years now, best TV I ever had. Bought a C4 42’ for PC monitor, best monitor I ever had.
I have a sceptre. Dumb as fuck, enough plugs of various types to get whatever I want on the screen. Has been working well for ~6 years now, though it’s not a daily use item. I’ve used it as a second monitor for ~3 of those 6 years, and never noticed issues with the quality.
Sceptre monitors are good. Have a 55" we’ve been using as our main television for 8 years without issues. Have a 32" as my computer monitor as well, about 6 years so far. They just work, no bullshit smart features.
I can second Sceptre for both TV and regular monitors! They’re definitely not the best quality (not bad, not astounding), but they’re dumb and do the job
I bought an LG in 2014 and it lasted ~10 years before the backlight died. I bought a new LG that has a bunch of smart features but I’ve never connected it to the Internet, and it’s largely stayed out of my way and not been annoying.
So I guess LG has been good for me.
And what’s your experience with the newer LG TV? Can you delete it’s bloatware apps?
I don’t think it has any apps by default, or if it did I removed them. I just plugged in an Android TV and that seems to be working just fine.
But the TV itself isn’t connected to the Internet and it doesn’t bug me to connect and the default is just a nice background image without pestering me.
Sony makes amazing TVs.
The screens Sony uses are Samsung or LG but just against a premium price.
Unfortunately, I think we’re trapped in planned obsolescence. I’ve been taking the approach of looking at cost as a primary driver.
The difference between a crappy 4K tv and a quality 4K tv is hard for me to distinguish in most cases. Especially, if they’re not side by side.
Let’s say I set my max price at $550.
You can find a cheap brand Onn or TCL in a 70” range size. If you go smaller you’ll likely find “better” brands.
I don’t think there’s much that makes one brand better than others. 5-7 years is probably max life of anything you’ll buy today. Unless you’re willing to open it up and start trying to find the bad capacitors and re solder to the board.
Rule #1. The tv never connects to internet Rule #2. Rule #1 never gets broken Rule #3. Use another device to play signal (fire stick, Apple TV, cable box, Xbox, PlayStation, pc, etc) Rule #4. Use a sound system not the tv speakers. Go big with surround systems or don’t. Anything is better than tv speakers. I’ve used a 2.1 setup for decades. A soundbar with sub is simple to setup and use.
I’ve heard Roku is one to potential avoid now as I’ve heard they may require Internet connection on setup of some new tvs.
A good tv has an acceptable picture, size, and plays a video source.
I’m a fan of both Sony and LG. LG makes TVs that have the deepest blacks which is really nice for movies. Sony doesn’t quite have the same darkness to their blacks, but the displays are very nice and the comparable Sony’s tend to be a little bit cheaper than LG’s. In my house I have a Sony and an LG as the main TV. I also have a Hisense if you want something that’s really nice and fairly cheap go for high sense.
Sony has OLED TVs now, likely using the exact same panels in the equivalent LG TV. One huge plus of Sony TVs is they run Android and so installing custom patched apps is pretty easy.
Zenith.
No idea, but my 15 year old Sony seems to be hanging on just fine.
Maybe the old ones but the current ones have absolute dog shit software. Random crashes, audio dropping out, notifications that the network connection isn’t working even if you deliberately turned it off, the audio level is in the bottom center of the screen, covering up subtitles and a bunch more annoyances. I don’t know who shipped this and thought it was good enough.
Hmm what is your Sony TV model? Most people seems to recommend Sony’s, but I wouldn’t be surprised that the recent models are shittier than they used to be
It’s a Sony BRAVIA XR-55A95L. I‘ve read multiple reports that there issues with Sony‘s current software on their TVs and people even went as far as to recommend other TVs with the same panel instead.
I don’t use “smart” features my current TV is a MicroLED with local dimming zones hooked up to a full fat PC running Linux with GNOME because the GUI works well in a living room environment with a wireless trackpad keyboard. The Logitech one is best, there’s not many options there unfortunately but it’s a good one except the lack of backlit keys.
So ignoring the crap onboard APU and shitty TV OS, well I’ve never had a TV break before I’ve replaced it frankly…except my previous TV. OLED aren’t worth it unless you don’t care about them being expensive disposable items that absolutely will degrade over time.
Current TV is an 75" LG and it’s fine. I wanted VRR and 120Hz for gaming. Are the dimming zones apparent when scrolling websites in dark mode? Yep but I don’t care.
Obviously if you don’t care about games then get a cheaper mini-PC instead.
Well my parents do not game at all, so they don’t need VRR and such, but do you think a 90 / 120 hz TV can be beneficial just for watching movies and normal TV shows?
No, in this case I’d say 60hz is totally fine (maaaaybe if someone is an avid sports fan, black frame insertion for blur busting on a high refresh rate screen I suppose, but it’s just a nice to have feature, nothing critical) and I’d be more concerned with nit numbers / HDR certs if they’d like that sort of thing at extra expense. I don’t think anything less than 1000 really counts personally if you want HDR. Lower is all marketing wank IMO. Did have a nice wow factor with my parents when they upgraded from a plain 1080p LCD recently. My mother doesn’t really care she’d be fine with a 300 dollar TCL lol.
