Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon Microsoft and Samsung have teamed to stream Xbox games on the Korean giant's smart televisions and monitors. Samsung has offered streaming games since early 2022, taking advantage of its smart displays running the Linux-based Tizen OS. The "gaming hub" installed on those devices can already deliver games from Google Stadia and …
As per the title, how long will Samsung support these 'Smart' TV's with software and security updates? 1-year? 2-years? 5-years?
Also, how much telemetry is this 'gaming hub' sending back to Samsung and other partner companies? Do you have any option to opt-out of that?
These features add no value to me as they just add more complexity to an appliance which will render it obsolete sooner rather than later. I mean, they won't want you to be able to update the gaming hub app to the latest version in five years because they'll want you to upgrade to the latest and greatest, even it it still works fine.
For me personally, there is no compelling reason to consider buying one of these. YMMV though.
I have a Philips 'smart' TV that's about 12 years old. It wasn't very 'smart' to begin with, and the network cable plugged into it must have lasted all of a couple of days until I realised how crap it all was. It works very well as a dumb screen and can handle inputs from all sorts of devices, and I'm pretty sure it could comfortably continue to do so for another 12 years (though I'll probably want to get a UHD before then).
There's many devices that are specifically built for video processing / consuming that will happily do all the work and simply feed the image to the TV. They are typically cheap (in the case of set-top boxes from cable etc providers, provided free with a subscription) and can be upgraded every few years with minimal cost/fuss.
Why get a 'smart' TV that combines in 1 device a screen that can last 20 years with a bunch of gubbins that are outdated in 2 years and obsolete in 4?? Sad thing is, it's pretty much impossible to get a 'dumb' TV nowadays.
A have a TV with a network interface that I will not connect to my network. It has been working fine for years. When it dies of old age I will be looking carefully at reviews to ensure the replacement works without a network connection. By that time I may have to repair the TV's wifi antenna with wire cutters so it does not connect to the neighbour's ISP supplied router with a password sold by the ISP to the TV manufacturer.
My Panasonic tv is now 6 years old, iPlayer is erratic and prime doesn’t work with profiles. So now it is used for broadcast tv and the rest of time it is fed from the Apple TV, Blu-ray or PlayStation.
When it needs to be replaced (ie it is broken) then all I care about is the number of hdmi sockets and the picture quality as the rest of the services won’t be used.
I think the last firmware update was about 4 years ago…..
That's my general plan. The existing Panasonic is theoretically smart, but as its only connection to the outside world is through an HDMI cable, it doesn't get the chance to exhibit its alleged intelligence. Even the sound is stripped from the HDMI so I can hear it on a decent pair of speakers.
I always hear this, but just enjoy the lower prices. You can buy an unfathombly large TV for a low price shipped from across the world these days, in part due to all the shite software and data slurping they include.
Simple solution: don't connect it to the network. "Smart" TV functionality is simply a trap for fools, nobody should be dependant on it.
>> Simple solution: don't connect it to the network.
That is only partially true. I've seen a few 2020 "smart" TVs that take longer to boot than my Celeron PC circa 1999. Simply changing the channel or accessing a menu can take 2 - 5 seconds.
It is absolutely appalling: the smart cr*p makes them infinitely less functional than a 15 years old tv, and that even though they are never connected to any network.
The manufacturers obviously put a lot of bloated software into a hardware that is in no way enough to properly run it, and that affects basically all smart appliances I've seen, so the consumer is impacted no matter what
I wonder if the delays are the OS trying to send data to mothership every time you access a function or press a button on the remote? Does it seem to work more smoothly if it's got a network connection? How long before newer TVs won't even work without a valid network connection? Or come with a built-in "sim" and it's own mobile connection you can't disable. Kindles used to come with "free" WhisperNet.
What kind of nonsense is this? OK it supports a keyboard, but I can see people trying to write letters or slide decks with their TV remote.
And then when 3 years are up and the TV OS is no longer supported, what then?
Will TVs soon come like a PC, on which you can install your own choice of OS? Or can I just remove the “smart” electronics and just revert to being a monitor? Or just sell us a 50 inch 4K monitor, that would do.
A screen does not need smarts, all it needs is the ability to render an image, whatever the source.
Stop this "smart" nonsense. Just slap an Ethernet connector on it and allow me to stream whatever I want to watch from wherever I'm getting it.
If all it can do is render an image, it doesn't need updates and won't fall into obsolescence before its components die.
Put the smarts into whatever I connect to it, but leave my screen alone.
If the service is only for users possessing an Xbox Games Pass then it is reasonable to assume the user already has an Xbox and hence is able to directly connect via HDMI.
Although it is not clear whether the Xbox network streaming service adheres to standards or if it uses its own proprietary streaming scheme, hence why the TV needs to implement a bespoke streaming hub.
"If the service is only for users possessing an Xbox Games Pass then it is reasonable to assume the user already has an Xbox"
Not so reasonable - the game pass also gives you direct access (i.e. install/run the game locally) to the game library via a Windows PC, as well as cloud-based access (which I'm guessing is what these TVs/monitors are also using) via Android and iOS, so there's no need to have access to an actual XBox to make use of the pass.
Seems expensive for a 32" monitor. As luck would have it I use a 43" Samsung TV as a monitor. 4K and only $279 when I bought it. Works perfectly. But then I've never found a console, with its clunky controls, attractive as a games machine. I'll stick to the PC for games.
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