7 Lies TV Makers Tell to Their Customers!
Don’t be fooled by their inexpensive price tag. Cheap “Smart” TVs are more expensive than you think.
Whenever I hear the term “smart” alongside a regular product like a TV, I feel scammed. Although not all smart TVs are scams, most are useless and only add the title “smart” to make the product cost more than it should.
I don’t consider such TV units to be smart, and here’s why:
- The SoC of most budget and many expensive televisions are cheap, slow and underpowered, which creates an unpleasant and slow user experience.
- They often run a modified version of Google TV with bloatware to promote their services and clutter your viewing experience.
- Many, many “smart” televisions come with a remote that has too many buttons on them.
My problem with cheap smart TVs isn’t necessarily their price point but how companies chop off their features, causing the device to act outside the domain of an entertainment device.
Unclear HDR Standards
The problem with HDR standards is that there are too many of them, and it can get confusing for a regular consumer to buy a TV with real HDR.
Most cheap TVs limit your brightness to 400 nits and call your TV HDR 400, which shouldn’t really be an HDR standard as 400 nits don’t produce a bright colour-rich experience for your picture.
Each TV manufacturer has their propriety HDR standard, and it can easily be unclear for the customer what HDR is proper HDR.
The minimum HDR standard for a high-quality television should be HDR10. However, I suggest picking up TVs with Dolby Vision standard as well because, in my test on a couple of TVs, they produce a better HDR experience.
