Ask Lemmy

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.

Zenith.

I won’t use any smart tv features. As soon as they’re connected to the internet they start sending data about everything you do. So I plug in an apple tv and stream everything through there. We have a FireTV and it nags me to connect it to the internet every time I turn it on. I hate it. We also have an LG. It does exactly as I would expect and I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve had good luck with other LG products in the past.

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.

There will be so much “Ying and Yang” to this discussion that the answer will be … all of them..

We have a Philips 43pfs5525.

No smarts, just a chromecast plugged in and working like a charm.

Reliable, or lacking in bloatware? Which is the priority here?

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.

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.

Sony makes amazing TVs.

Panasonic dumb plasma is going on 14 years. We’re hopeful we can get about 6-10 out of it.

Panasonic. Bought current Panasonic TV a few years ago based on the strength of our previous one. Brilliant picture quality on both. Never connected to the interpipes

No idea, but my 15 year old Sony seems to be hanging on just fine.

LG seems to be ok with internet disconnected, my cousin recently got one. I have a samsung and yeah the software is atrocious, tho mine's from 2016 or so and still working pretty well.

My Samsung dumb TV is still going strong after about 10 years but the slightly newer "smart" TV is already looking dodgy and I hate the software on it.

Philips. I've had my last one for 15 years before it died and the picture still had better colors than my sister's new ultra thin LG. Can't say much about their newer models as I haven't bought a new one yet, but I also use Philips monitors on my PC and I'm very happy with them.

I have a 43" 4K Sharp I bought back in 2016 that's still going strong through two moves.

Today I would say that Samsung is the most reliable brand for TV's. If your tv would last longer than 5-10 years you would never buy a new one.

Have you considered trying to repair it? Darkened screen sounds like failed LED lighting strips and those can be replaced. Watch a few videos on the subject to get an idea of what you are getting into. I did it on a vizio TV and it took me about an hour all told.

LG has been great but protip - don’t use the built in “smart” features as they seem to get outdated faster than the panel. Get an external device such as an Nvidia Shield, Google TV, Apple TV.

None, go by a decent monitor as big as you can and use that instead, or a decent LED projector if you're so inclined (going that way myself, since my lamp projector ate the last bulb I bought). Actual TVs are trash and just awful to use.

Not sure it's what you're looking for but we use a computer screen to watch stuff (DVD and, back when we subscribed to those, streaming services). To be clear, we don't have a tv and have not had any for over 25 years as we don't watch TV (but we probably could watch it on the computer screen if we wanted to by hooking some USB converter thingy to it; sorry I'm really not an expert in those questions).

Our last screen (from Dell) lasted 18 years before we had to replace it... The 'new' one, unsurprisingly, is also from Dell but I don't expect it to last as long, if we get 10 years out of it we will consider this good enough.