Replacement TV Questions

[Cedric48]

Hello all,

Is this a dedicated European forum, or do you discuss things in the Australian context as well?

If this is the correct p;ace to obtain advice, I first give you some idea where I am, then put my questions:

My current Kogan KALED423DXZA (42” dumb TV) is dying. It records perfectly well still, but at variable times after switching on, the screen starts pixelating, or just goes blank with a “no signal” error message.

It is wall mounted in a recessed area. If the replacement has the same W/H 5/3 ratio with the same 3 cm wide perimeter outside the visible screen, in theory a 62" TV would fit . As I'm not the youngest kid on the block, and have eye problems, my children suggested I get a larger one than 42". I think 50" or 55" would be okay – just myself viewing it, in a not huge lounge room.

And other posts discuss room lighting – over 50% of my watching is after sunset. Daytime watching is sometimes when sun is coming in a window beside the TV (only summer time), but I usually reduce that problem by pulling a blind.

Next question is dumb or smart. I know nothing about smart TVs. A friend has recently had major problems with a hacker. Despite his 6-year warranty, the retailer hasn’t yet fixed that, meanwhile he’s lost a month's Internet data. I have changed passwords and SSID’s without fixing the problem for him, so I prefer a dumb one. I don’t want gaming capability, or Internet downloads such as Netflix. I just want to watch “free to air” broadcast TV, and be able to record programs to a USB stick. I have a 5:1 speaker system in my lounge room; also I have poor hearing, so high-quality sound in the TV is not a high priority. I also have a sound system.

So can anyone suggest a suitable model that is available? I have seen mention of the Komodo by Sceptre KU515R 50", but the few retailers I have seen so far list it as out of stock, no indication when or even if new stock will arrive. And the listing on Amazon wasn’t very clear whether that was their Australian or US store.

If I have to go to a Smart TV I am quite lost. With my eyesight problems, high quality picture isn’t an issue - I can’t tell the difference between medium and high quality. Some things I got from a bit of a look around:

OLED advantages - Contrast, response, lag, refresh, view angle, power consumption, eye comfort

QLED advantages - Brightness, max size, lifespan, burn-in, price (but only for poor quality)

Draw - Colour accuracy

Security issues (cyber security) – HPAA compliance (US legislation)

I have had experience with 2 Samsung products, and the User Manuals for both were useless. The User Manual for my Home Entertainment system is so poorly laid out, and such poor English that I find it useless. Samsung and the retailer will only supply a generic manual for my friend’s TV. It states “if your model has Bluetooth” - a fat lot of use if we want to explore whether the hacker is accessing it via Bluetooth rather than WiFi (some people claim that is possible, others claim it isn’t). I hope other manufacturers do better with their User Manuals.



My current leanings are that:

1) a good quality 50” or 55” new dumb TV is my preference, if available

2) Otherwise, OLED Smart TV probably preferred to QLED, for reasons of power consumption and eye comfort, though lifespan is a concern

3) Needs a decent User Manual, same wall mounts as the old Kogan, and easy to handle security settings.

 

[Dodgexander]

Yeah its fine to post here, most members are from Europe or the US but we do have Australian too.

To address your points;

1. I'm not sure this exists any more, you may find some cheap supermarket specials which are dumb, but even those tend to have smart to some degree. They are of course all bottom of the barrel quality though, not only with picture quality, stability and build quality too.
2. When using the TV for regular broadcast TV power consumption on any modern TV is going to be very low. Its when HDR is used on the TV via modern streams/video where it starts to get high, and can actually be higher on LCD TVs like QLED models than OLEDs.
3. Perhaps the hardest point of all, TVs are designed to just be turned on and used. Interfaces are meant to be intuitive, and sometimes manuals now are even just built in to the TV themselves. The old paper manuals are just awful. Over-complicated, but somehow also missing useful information. I honestly can't say one brand is better than another in this respect, so I'd say try focus on buying something that is easy to use, rather than the quality of the manual.

Regarding your use-case, if you want to use a TV for recording you may want to consider just using a separate PVR box just for that purpose. Especially if you are concious of power use. If you use recording direct on a TV it won't go into a proper standby power rate and instead consume more energy waiting for the next recording. Having a dedicated recording box would actually save more power in the long term, and would also mean you don't have to search for TVs with dual tuners.

As for recommendations, assuming you stick to wanting an LCD TV (QLED is just a type of LCD) then Samsung do have the easiest to use smart OS. Their very bottom level modes will be fine for your usage provided you only view the TV head-on, rather than at an angle. Last years Samsung's were sold as TUxxxx models, this years AUxxxx. They do both 50" and 55" models.

I have to say I don't think your friends problem will have anything to do with the smart TV. If somehow they have been hacked via their TV its the first I've ever heard of it. Typically this kind of thing happens via websites, or windows computers.