I'm looking at buying a new TV at the moment, and it's disturbingly difficult these days to find a regular TV that doesn't come with so-called smart features.
I don't want smart features in my TV. I want my TV to show pictures and maybe make sounds from a useful range of input connections, and nothing else.
I can add my own features by connecting different sources to the TV, and so can anyone else who ever bought a FreeView box or PVR or other similar device. And that way, we can also ignore those sources that don't serve our interests, and upgrade or replace the supplementary sources as things like catch-up and on-demand services evolve, without throwing out perfectly good TV hardware.
I get that the TV brands want to jump on the advertising bandwagon, but this is the UK, home of the (commercial-ad-free) BBC. The vendors aren't going to be popular if they try to ram this obvious backward step down our throats, and I suspect they may be surprised by how many of us will vote with our wallets to avoid it. We just need to make sure customers who aren't A/V fanatics or HN-reading geeks are educated about what is going on, so they can vote with their wallets too.
Unfortunately, there are still areas where a good TV will beat a computer-style monitor, such as availability in sizes above 30" or so, and coming with a remote that can at least select between input sources and control basics like power/volume/brightness. But I agree with you, a good and dumb screen is what I really want.
My TV does not even play sound through its speakers anymore since I upgraded to a surround setup. It literally does just display whatever I feed it through its HDMI inputs.
I kinda like it that way. Should the TV break, I can get a new one and won't have to spend hours trying to set everything back up the way it was.
I don't want smart features in my TV. I want my TV to show pictures and maybe make sounds from a useful range of input connections, and nothing else.
I can add my own features by connecting different sources to the TV, and so can anyone else who ever bought a FreeView box or PVR or other similar device. And that way, we can also ignore those sources that don't serve our interests, and upgrade or replace the supplementary sources as things like catch-up and on-demand services evolve, without throwing out perfectly good TV hardware.
I get that the TV brands want to jump on the advertising bandwagon, but this is the UK, home of the (commercial-ad-free) BBC. The vendors aren't going to be popular if they try to ram this obvious backward step down our throats, and I suspect they may be surprised by how many of us will vote with our wallets to avoid it. We just need to make sure customers who aren't A/V fanatics or HN-reading geeks are educated about what is going on, so they can vote with their wallets too.