Which is better to buy a TV - with or without Smart TV

Electronics stores are pretty tired of their advertising. Every seller, trying to sell a TV to a buyer, extols the technology, starting a dialogue with the embedded operating system. In the media, social networks, blogs and YouTube channels, the authors focus on Smart TV. But TVs have other, more important characteristics.

 

Which is better to buy a TV - with or without Smart TV

 

Having an operating system on TVs is one of the benefits. Only sellers are silent that Smart TV is a stripped-down version of the system that does not provide a full set of functions for a full-fledged multimedia experience:

 

• Many video formats cannot be played (for which a license is required).
• Most multichannel audio codecs are not supported (no same license).
• Restrictions on installing Android applications.
• Weak chip for playing UHD movies over 30 GB in size.

And one more nuisance - the manufacturer controls the TV remotely. It can be blocked or limited functionality by firmware. In no case can you rely on Smart TV. And, if there is a choice between a TV with or without Smart TV, and the price is different, it is definitely better to buy a TV without an operating system.

 

And how then to work with multimedia, without Smart TV

 

Very simple. There are many applications on the TV-BOX market. These are media consoles, the price of which ranges from $ 30 to $ 300. Budget solutions are convenient for multimedia viewing and individual settings. More expensive consoles have gaming functionality. If you buy a gamepad, you won't need a game console.

And not necessarily you can only play with toys for Android. With a powerful chip, cool games from the nVidia service will run easily. And this is another level. It is easy to choose a set-top box, both in price and in functionality. On our site there are actual reviews for many TV-BOX - choose from the link.

 

Which TV is better to buy - characteristics

 

Technology is bought for 7-10 years, so it is better to focus on image quality. Definitely, it should be an IPS matrix, at least. Cool are OLED and QLED displays. More vivid colors and great dynamics in scenes of films of all genres. This is where you need to invest money - image quality.

 

The secondary criteria are functionality. To watch terrestrial and satellite channels, you need an appropriate tuner on your TV. All other technologies, such as Bluetooth, NFC, DLNA, Wi-Fi, Miracast and so on, are not interesting at all if you plan to connect a TV-BOX. After all, the TV will work in monitor mode with a set-top box. The same functionality is in the console - there is no point in overpaying.

It is better to pay attention to characteristics such as screen refresh rate and support for different video playback modes. The peculiarity of these criteria is that the set-top box will display the picture in the best quality - resolution and frame rate. And it is very important that the TV supports all these formats. Otherwise, there will be a storyboard - this is when picture jerking and braking appear on the screen.

 

And it's good when the TV has on board the current interfaces for connecting equipment. This is HDMI 2.0 (at least), analog and digital output for audio, support for power management via HDMI. Here you can add the ability to adjust HDR, brightness, contrast and color temperature. The more settings for sound and picture, the better.