Smart TV?

Reply Subscribe

Page 4 of 4

« First

Thread Tools

02-10-2014, 09:44 AM

#31

gale

Super Member

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: North-Central Indiana

Posts: 4,909

We'll probably look for a sony or LG. After the problems we had getting a part that was missing from our new Samsung range, dh said no more samsung. It was ridiculous and took months and a lot of phone calls, emails and online chats for this one missing part.

02-10-2014, 09:46 AM

#32

gale

Super Member

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: North-Central Indiana

Posts: 4,909

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prism99

This thread got me to thinking. Dh and I went to Best Buy and ended up buying a new smart TV and a new (very smart) laptop to control it, plus a wireless keyboard. Here's how it's going to work. The TV will have an HDMI cord attached to it. When we want to stream from the computer, we will plug the laptop into this cord to connect it to the tv. The wireless keyboard will be kept next to the couch, and we will use that to control what we see on the tv. Basically we will be using the tv as a huge computer monitor to stream things such as Amazon prime movies (and anything else we sign up for). My understanding is that this eliminates the need for extra boxes such as Roku, etc. One caveat for this -- be sure the laptop has a separate graphics chip (which makes the streaming seamless).

There is a ***lot*** to know before you make a decision. We were very impressed with the quality of the people who helped us at Best Buy. My dh has worked 40+ years on mainframe computers and thought he knew enough, but even he admitted that he got a lot of additional information that helped make our decision easier.

The laptop/smart TV route is not the only way to go; it was just what we decided was the best for us.

I think that you can buy a regular tv and, as long as you have a wireless internet setup within your house (or an ethernet cable connection to the internet), you can buy add a Roku unit to stream internet to your tv. With Roku, for example, you can subscribe to Netflix and get Netflix movies streaming. Roku offers quite a few others channels too. This could be considerably less expensive than the route we went. Here is a link to Roku info:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4203847AAbMFuo
There are media streamers other than Roku that are possibilities as well:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-th...rsus-apple-tv/

If you are near a Best Buy, I think it is well worth carving out a couple of hours of time to go there and start asking questions. Have a good idea of your budget and what you want to watch. (For example, some of the stuff we get for free on Amazon Prime is much more attractive to us than Netflix offerings.) Just be prepared to spend at least twice the amount of time you think you will need, and plan more than one trip if necessary. We didn't learn all there is to know about smart TVs, but did learn enough to know what we wanted to get.

I thought with a smart tv you didn't need a laptop. I can hook a computer up to my dumb tv-it has an HDMI port on it. I thought the whole draw of a smart tv is that it's like a computer and tv in one.

02-10-2014, 10:21 AM

#33

Prism99

Power Poster

Join Date: Dec 2008

Location: Western Wisconsin

Posts: 12,930

Quote:

Originally Posted by gale

That's true. However, a smart tv is not quite as smart as a laptop. We are subscribed to a series of business lectures from a private company, and these are not offered via any "channel" such as Netflix, Amazon, or ....... We really want to be able to watch these lectures on the tv in the living room instead of being chained to our computer desks. That's why we ended up going the laptop route. It also makes tasks such as creating a spreadsheet possible. Basically we can use this big tv screen as a computer monitor for any computerized task we want to do.

When we went in initially, dh was thinking in terms of a smart tv with its own built-in web browser. However, those types of built-in tv browsers have idiosyncrasies. "Smartness" varies from tv to tv. Not everyone wants full computer adaptability like we do, but we figured it gives us the most features and makes us a little more obsolete-proof for future applications.

We also like being able to use a *keyboard* to stream information to the tv. The built-in web browsers for smart tv's typically have you using a remote to scroll through information to get where you want to go. Our blu-ray DVD player has apps for Netflix, etc. but it is a real pain to scroll through to find what we want; a keyboard is faster.

By plugging in the laptop, we really didn't need to get a smart tv. You're right; you can do the same thing with a dumb tv as long as it has an HDMI outlet. My dh happened to be in the room, so I asked him why we didn't get a dumb tv. He said that only the lower quality tvs sold now are dumb. All of the better quality tvs (ones with better picture) automatically come with some level of "smart"; they also now all come "3D ready". These features are just automatically built-in whether you use them or not.

Picture quality may not matter as much to many people. Our tv's tend to last at least 20 years and we are both past retirement age. I wanted to get the very best picture possible since we will likely be using the tv for several hours every day for the next 20 years.

There are so many variables. For example, it's fine to get a dumb tv and plug in a laptop to it as we are doing. However, you need to be sure the laptop has a graphics chip. If graphics are run through the CPU, you will get buffering problems and the whole process will be slowed down. (This is true whether the tv is smart or not.)

Last edited by Prism99; 02-10-2014 at 10:25 AM.