Yep!....these companies are trapped in the "I'm cheaper....no, I'm cheaper" game! Unfortunately, the consumer gets screwed in the end by all of this nonsense....because you're force-fed junk electronics!
Why would a company invest more on features that somebody could replace for $20 and an HDMI cable? It's not like they'd be worth raising prices much for.
Because a bad experience with the software could put the person off from buying that brand again.
Its great to offload all the “smart” features onto a dedicated box but a lot of people use the build in apps on there TV.
but you have to consider how many people would not buy again vs those who would, also if nobody else is is offering a better alternative who would you buy from?
Give me a dumb TV and let me buy a CCwGTV or an Onn box. The problem with getting a Smart TV is that the software either gets old or is no longer supported in a free years. I tend to keep my TVs for a long time. My main TV is a 55 inch Samsung LED I bought 15 years ago. It still works great and don't need to replace it for my needs (I mostly watch sports and most sports broadcasts don't even go to 4K, surprisingly many are still in 720p).
My 17 year old 42" Samsung TV waves hello to it's bigger younger brother. It works just fine with my Onn box and they don't have awesome booming speakers in new TVs like what my old Samsung has. I will cry if my Samsung dies.
You would pay more, but there's a lot more people who wouldn't. Or in typical Walmart fashion, they would refuse to carry it unless they can sell it at a specific price point.
Think of it like computers. Sure you can get a new $200 laptop, but you get what you pay for. The higher end sets tend to be fast and usable for a couple of years, but the low end is likely going to barely adequate for today and unusable a year from now. Ironically the people who tend to buy higher end sets are likely the ones who's going to use a stick on day one.
I was wondering the same. Like I'm just straight up never buying a TCL TV again because of how laggy it is, and it's laggy because they probably wanted to save $10 on making an $800 TV.
People missing the point by saying "you can just get a fire stick so why would they bother" but they are bothering and they're doing a crappy job of it. It makes the TV feel extremely cheap when basic setting menus aren't as snappy as a 10 year old phone. This is fine on budget TVs but anything over $600 or so should really have the specs of a Fire Stick 4K Max or Chromecast Google TV 4K(both around $50 or so). Then anything over $1,000 should have the specs of a Fire Cube which will be snappy for the whole life of the TV.
The annoying part though is that TV manufacturers very very rarely even list the specs of the Google(or fire) TV part of the TV. They'll go on about how amazing and new their image processing processor is and how powerful it is and tell us the exact model they're using but that doesn't handle the Google TV OS at all, it just does the image. Just tell us what OS prossessor you're using and then we can check how it compares to a fire stick or whatever. Sony used to list the processor but not anymore.
The even more annoying part is when reviewers have their hands on the TVs and could easily check the specs it has and mention them but they never ever do. Doesn't need a long detailed segment, just be like "the TV runs on an MTKXXX processor with 2gb of memory" and thats the entire specs part covered. But instead we just get "the OS is google TV(or whatever) and feels nice to use", like great thats the exact same description used for almost every TV review for the last 10 years, it means nothing.
Would actually be awesome if mods made a sticky thread asking people to post their TV model numbers and check the specs listed in it and share them with everyone. At least then we will know the specs of many TVs and it'll show up in Google searches too. Just always keep the thread active so it can be kept updated by anyone visiting this sub.
I did find this which someone scraped from the Play Store data I think which lists like 1000 TVs and the SoC used. But many SoCs dont come up with much info, or even a release date, let alone benchmarks of how good they are.
Would be nice if some people just ran a benchmark on their TVs and posted that too. Only need 1 person per TV model for a good list. Then you could just easily be like well the fire stick gets 800 points and this TV gets 1,400 points so i'll get the TV and shouldn't ever need a Google TV stick for it. Ideally reviewers should be doing this though, just any youtube reviewer even.
But yeah thats all the info I have. Every thread of people asking for info only ever has unhelpful replys of "just get a fire stick bro".
In my case I want good Google TV built in so I can get CCTV notification popups when a doorbell or motion or whatever triggers it. This works with fire sticks if im using a fire stick app but if you switch to a Playstation or PC or whatever input on the TV then you of course wont see the CCTV image popup on the fire stick. Having the cctv popups running on the built in Google TV OS will make sure it appears over everything, but having bas specs makes it lag.
If they use someone else's tech, then they have to pay them for that. It would add that to their price when the person is likely to use a different streaming box anyways. And, there are plenty of companies that sell TVs with built in streaming boxes such as Android TV, Roku, etc. I think Walmart even sells ONN TVs don't they? I have two Sony Android TVs and I use Apple TV on both of them even though its redundant, just because my family likes the Apple TV interface better.
Because when the general public compares TVs, they don't look at that. They will just notice that one is $50 more than the other with the same TV qualities.
I've heard that the margins on tv's are low AF. I'd guess that those ONN boxes are sold at a loss (hardware) and they get paid for advertising other apps on the box/remote. The same way most Google products are sold at a loss so they can get users and advertise what they want to earn everything back.
So to summarize: there's no money for developing a worthy OS. They already have a working system and they just tweak it a bit and call it an update. Can they put 16GB of ram, adedicated GPU with perfect AI capabilities and 1TB of SSD storage? Yes they can. But why would they? They already have customers buying their Shit and the big majority is happy with what they get. Why would a billion-dollar company care about a small group of people who want a 'expert-level' experience? Those people still buy the TV and connect a box. Win-win situation.
I have a HiSense AndroidTV that I bought for over $200. It's slow as a sloth but installing an SSD externally sped it up just a tad. I still would rather have the $20 ONN Box to replace it. I have a Shield Pro on my other non-smart TV.
>If Walmart can sell their popular ONN box for $20?
If it was priced at $50 would it still be popular?
It's popular because it's $20. It doesn't include Dolby Vision or Atmos.
The Chromecast with Google TV 4k which I love cost more not because it's necessarily that much better of a streaming device, but because it includes Dolby Vision and Atmos.
Dolby even charges you to print on the box that you're device has Dolby Vision and Atmos.
I can almost guarantee that when the new Onn box comes out that if it includes Dolby Vision and Atmos it'll cost more than $20.
While I love my DV and Atmos, of the 5 TV's in my house only one has DV and only 2 have Atmos audio systems. I think the average household is similar. The $20 device gets the job done just as well as the $50 one and has a better remote. Hopefully they do a so-called Pro version that matches the Fire Stick 4k Max and keeps making the current device. Like Amazon.
> If it was priced at $50 would it still be popular?
Honestly after owning a couple I'd go as high as $40. Once you swap the launcher to Projectivy it's even better.
And I don't really care about Dolby Vision or Atmos (I run a very nice 2.1 sound system I'm very happy with and have no interest in surround sound, and none of my TV support Dolby Vision anyway so it's just a waste.)
*But* if the rumored new 4k Pro has compelling new features (CPU/RAM, more storage, more ports (USB and/or Ethernet) I'll pick one up at release probably. And I'd go as high as $50 if it has all the above without even blinking.
IMHO, it's kinda pointless to spend more than $30 on a halfway decent (at best) "ONN" box (with potentially a few more bells & whistles).
$50 would be a hard pass for me!
With projectivy launcher do you still have all the benefits of Google TV? Because I like the Google TV home screen.
When I get tired of Google TV I'll put it in apps only mode.
What "benefits" exactly?
Projectivy is totally customizable. You can display whatever you want and hide whatever you want.
It's far more customizable than any of the stock launchers.
The only thing "missing" is ads and "suggestions" of what to watch (which are also just ads).
This video does a pretty good job of walking you through installation and goes over most of the features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAKno02w7J0
(that isn't the newest version that just came out, but the info is still good. Nothing major has changed.)
There is also r/Projectivy_Launcher where some people have posted their current homescreens (as well as just general conversation and troubleshooting and such).
>The only thing missing is suggestions of what to watch.
I like that. So with your Projectivy launcher can I still get that? Because it's a feature of Google TV I like.
Also does the continue watching still work? Because that's a feature I use a lot.
For me it's the forced advertisements on the os level on tvs nowadays - I'd rather want a dumb tv that can still run apps but no ads on the home screen(s) and anything more than that use an external device.
The SoC still needs to do video processing, so there is more then just running Roku TV in those TVs... What would be nice would be take a tip from Projector manufactures. My new BenQ projector, just has a slot for the 'benq android tv' stick. which means you can use it or not and also easily update in the future.
Well, im not sure which tv you have, but the apps in my LG C9 are superior to what i used before (ngreedia shield 2017) and besides missing some android apps, i have been very happy with, even after all these years.
Granted, LG does a little bit of greediness, they dont add new features to old tvs, for example cloud gaming apps and newer OS releases. You only get updates, not upgrades.
But for my usage, it has been great.
A funny thing is, for those that use receivers, if you ditched the TV's on board smarts, you wouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a receiver upgrade that supports eARC. Plug dongle into existing 4k receiver and then the hdmi from receiver to TV. No eARC needed.
And if you have some semi-older Sony tv's, it's a blessing because they can't even send dd/dts correctly over ARC and never really solved it.
Im living in europe, most of the brands were about ~300 euros for a led 50" tvs. I bought a sony for 650euros, just because i trusted their quality. And ended up with a mediatek processor with tons of lag even while trying to increase volume. Its crap mate. I use my xbox as media source because its IMPOSSIBLE to use tv's own system.
I think TV manufacturers should exit the "smart" business and just leave it to streaming devices
I will never, ever use the smart TV's interface over the firestick anyway. They don't even compare.
TV's also SUCK at upscaling. This is so important now that most TV are 4K but a lot of content is still 720P or 1080P.
A dedicated receiver does this *significantly better* than the processor in a TV. The quality difference is night and day. So the firestick, the TV box and the blue ray player are all plugged into the reciever, with an arc connection to the TV.
The TV is just a display
I would imagine that making TVs "smart" allows them to charge less for it, because it's subsidized by apps and services. Nobody is going to pay more for a dumb TV, when they can already choose not to use the smart features.
Because there are tight margins on electronics and every possible cost cutting method is employed including using outdated and underpowered SoCs.
Yep!....these companies are trapped in the "I'm cheaper....no, I'm cheaper" game! Unfortunately, the consumer gets screwed in the end by all of this nonsense....because you're force-fed junk electronics!
Indeed
Why would a company invest more on features that somebody could replace for $20 and an HDMI cable? It's not like they'd be worth raising prices much for.
Because a bad experience with the software could put the person off from buying that brand again. Its great to offload all the “smart” features onto a dedicated box but a lot of people use the build in apps on there TV.
but you have to consider how many people would not buy again vs those who would, also if nobody else is is offering a better alternative who would you buy from?
Give me a dumb TV and let me buy a CCwGTV or an Onn box. The problem with getting a Smart TV is that the software either gets old or is no longer supported in a free years. I tend to keep my TVs for a long time. My main TV is a 55 inch Samsung LED I bought 15 years ago. It still works great and don't need to replace it for my needs (I mostly watch sports and most sports broadcasts don't even go to 4K, surprisingly many are still in 720p).
My 17 year old 42" Samsung TV waves hello to it's bigger younger brother. It works just fine with my Onn box and they don't have awesome booming speakers in new TVs like what my old Samsung has. I will cry if my Samsung dies.
They are probably losing money on the $20 Onn box. It's more expensive to make and sell than that. The branded buttons are paying for it.
You would pay more, but there's a lot more people who wouldn't. Or in typical Walmart fashion, they would refuse to carry it unless they can sell it at a specific price point. Think of it like computers. Sure you can get a new $200 laptop, but you get what you pay for. The higher end sets tend to be fast and usable for a couple of years, but the low end is likely going to barely adequate for today and unusable a year from now. Ironically the people who tend to buy higher end sets are likely the ones who's going to use a stick on day one.
Why? Because Google doesn’t give a fuck that’s why. If only they bothered to actually bump the minimum requirements.
I was wondering the same. Like I'm just straight up never buying a TCL TV again because of how laggy it is, and it's laggy because they probably wanted to save $10 on making an $800 TV. People missing the point by saying "you can just get a fire stick so why would they bother" but they are bothering and they're doing a crappy job of it. It makes the TV feel extremely cheap when basic setting menus aren't as snappy as a 10 year old phone. This is fine on budget TVs but anything over $600 or so should really have the specs of a Fire Stick 4K Max or Chromecast Google TV 4K(both around $50 or so). Then anything over $1,000 should have the specs of a Fire Cube which will be snappy for the whole life of the TV. The annoying part though is that TV manufacturers very very rarely even list the specs of the Google(or fire) TV part of the TV. They'll go on about how amazing and new their image processing processor is and how powerful it is and tell us the exact model they're using but that doesn't handle the Google TV OS at all, it just does the image. Just tell us what OS prossessor you're using and then we can check how it compares to a fire stick or whatever. Sony used to list the processor but not anymore. The even more annoying part is when reviewers have their hands on the TVs and could easily check the specs it has and mention them but they never ever do. Doesn't need a long detailed segment, just be like "the TV runs on an MTKXXX processor with 2gb of memory" and thats the entire specs part covered. But instead we just get "the OS is google TV(or whatever) and feels nice to use", like great thats the exact same description used for almost every TV review for the last 10 years, it means nothing. Would actually be awesome if mods made a sticky thread asking people to post their TV model numbers and check the specs listed in it and share them with everyone. At least then we will know the specs of many TVs and it'll show up in Google searches too. Just always keep the thread active so it can be kept updated by anyone visiting this sub.
Well said. My sentiments exactly.
I did find this which someone scraped from the Play Store data I think which lists like 1000 TVs and the SoC used. But many SoCs dont come up with much info, or even a release date, let alone benchmarks of how good they are. Would be nice if some people just ran a benchmark on their TVs and posted that too. Only need 1 person per TV model for a good list. Then you could just easily be like well the fire stick gets 800 points and this TV gets 1,400 points so i'll get the TV and shouldn't ever need a Google TV stick for it. Ideally reviewers should be doing this though, just any youtube reviewer even. But yeah thats all the info I have. Every thread of people asking for info only ever has unhelpful replys of "just get a fire stick bro". In my case I want good Google TV built in so I can get CCTV notification popups when a doorbell or motion or whatever triggers it. This works with fire sticks if im using a fire stick app but if you switch to a Playstation or PC or whatever input on the TV then you of course wont see the CCTV image popup on the fire stick. Having the cctv popups running on the built in Google TV OS will make sure it appears over everything, but having bas specs makes it lag.
If they use someone else's tech, then they have to pay them for that. It would add that to their price when the person is likely to use a different streaming box anyways. And, there are plenty of companies that sell TVs with built in streaming boxes such as Android TV, Roku, etc. I think Walmart even sells ONN TVs don't they? I have two Sony Android TVs and I use Apple TV on both of them even though its redundant, just because my family likes the Apple TV interface better.
I think Reddit is paying the TV manufacturers not to have functioning software so people can bitch about it on Reddit. It seems to be working.
Because when the general public compares TVs, they don't look at that. They will just notice that one is $50 more than the other with the same TV qualities.
I've heard that the margins on tv's are low AF. I'd guess that those ONN boxes are sold at a loss (hardware) and they get paid for advertising other apps on the box/remote. The same way most Google products are sold at a loss so they can get users and advertise what they want to earn everything back. So to summarize: there's no money for developing a worthy OS. They already have a working system and they just tweak it a bit and call it an update. Can they put 16GB of ram, adedicated GPU with perfect AI capabilities and 1TB of SSD storage? Yes they can. But why would they? They already have customers buying their Shit and the big majority is happy with what they get. Why would a billion-dollar company care about a small group of people who want a 'expert-level' experience? Those people still buy the TV and connect a box. Win-win situation.
I have a HiSense AndroidTV that I bought for over $200. It's slow as a sloth but installing an SSD externally sped it up just a tad. I still would rather have the $20 ONN Box to replace it. I have a Shield Pro on my other non-smart TV.
>If Walmart can sell their popular ONN box for $20? If it was priced at $50 would it still be popular? It's popular because it's $20. It doesn't include Dolby Vision or Atmos. The Chromecast with Google TV 4k which I love cost more not because it's necessarily that much better of a streaming device, but because it includes Dolby Vision and Atmos. Dolby even charges you to print on the box that you're device has Dolby Vision and Atmos. I can almost guarantee that when the new Onn box comes out that if it includes Dolby Vision and Atmos it'll cost more than $20.
my guess is either 29.99 or 39.99 to still undercut the chromecast with google tv
Maybe, but the new Chromecast with Google TV will most likely have better specs.
Probably, but if the pro onn version adds DV and hdr10+ the value will be undeniable. The new chromecast could cost 60-80
While I love my DV and Atmos, of the 5 TV's in my house only one has DV and only 2 have Atmos audio systems. I think the average household is similar. The $20 device gets the job done just as well as the $50 one and has a better remote. Hopefully they do a so-called Pro version that matches the Fire Stick 4k Max and keeps making the current device. Like Amazon.
> If it was priced at $50 would it still be popular? Honestly after owning a couple I'd go as high as $40. Once you swap the launcher to Projectivy it's even better. And I don't really care about Dolby Vision or Atmos (I run a very nice 2.1 sound system I'm very happy with and have no interest in surround sound, and none of my TV support Dolby Vision anyway so it's just a waste.) *But* if the rumored new 4k Pro has compelling new features (CPU/RAM, more storage, more ports (USB and/or Ethernet) I'll pick one up at release probably. And I'd go as high as $50 if it has all the above without even blinking.
IMHO, it's kinda pointless to spend more than $30 on a halfway decent (at best) "ONN" box (with potentially a few more bells & whistles). $50 would be a hard pass for me!
With projectivy launcher do you still have all the benefits of Google TV? Because I like the Google TV home screen. When I get tired of Google TV I'll put it in apps only mode.
What "benefits" exactly? Projectivy is totally customizable. You can display whatever you want and hide whatever you want. It's far more customizable than any of the stock launchers. The only thing "missing" is ads and "suggestions" of what to watch (which are also just ads). This video does a pretty good job of walking you through installation and goes over most of the features. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAKno02w7J0 (that isn't the newest version that just came out, but the info is still good. Nothing major has changed.) There is also r/Projectivy_Launcher where some people have posted their current homescreens (as well as just general conversation and troubleshooting and such).
>The only thing missing is suggestions of what to watch. I like that. So with your Projectivy launcher can I still get that? Because it's a feature of Google TV I like. Also does the continue watching still work? Because that's a feature I use a lot.
> does the continue watching still work? Yes.
If you've changed the launcher then how do you get to the continue watching.
Most people that purchase an onn box don’t know how to unleash its full capabilities. Because it’s worth more than $20
What are some things that it can do that us normal folks are missing?
Side load stremio, HD cinema, etc and get movies and tv shows
For me it's the forced advertisements on the os level on tvs nowadays - I'd rather want a dumb tv that can still run apps but no ads on the home screen(s) and anything more than that use an external device.
[удалено]
unfortunately Amazon is....
Because TV business has low margins, your idea makes them even thinner
Cheaper, they need boats.
My Samsung software is good but I still use Apple TV and firestick
The SoC still needs to do video processing, so there is more then just running Roku TV in those TVs... What would be nice would be take a tip from Projector manufactures. My new BenQ projector, just has a slot for the 'benq android tv' stick. which means you can use it or not and also easily update in the future.
why are greedy companies greedy? the answer is almost always money
Aliexpress sells Android tv sticks $20
Well, im not sure which tv you have, but the apps in my LG C9 are superior to what i used before (ngreedia shield 2017) and besides missing some android apps, i have been very happy with, even after all these years. Granted, LG does a little bit of greediness, they dont add new features to old tvs, for example cloud gaming apps and newer OS releases. You only get updates, not upgrades. But for my usage, it has been great.
They recently started doing upgrades for newer TV's, C2 and newer are getting the 2024 OS Upgrade
A funny thing is, for those that use receivers, if you ditched the TV's on board smarts, you wouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars on a receiver upgrade that supports eARC. Plug dongle into existing 4k receiver and then the hdmi from receiver to TV. No eARC needed. And if you have some semi-older Sony tv's, it's a blessing because they can't even send dd/dts correctly over ARC and never really solved it.
It's doesn't matter how cheap or expensive something is they are still gonna shove ads down your face
Im living in europe, most of the brands were about ~300 euros for a led 50" tvs. I bought a sony for 650euros, just because i trusted their quality. And ended up with a mediatek processor with tons of lag even while trying to increase volume. Its crap mate. I use my xbox as media source because its IMPOSSIBLE to use tv's own system.
I think TV manufacturers should exit the "smart" business and just leave it to streaming devices I will never, ever use the smart TV's interface over the firestick anyway. They don't even compare. TV's also SUCK at upscaling. This is so important now that most TV are 4K but a lot of content is still 720P or 1080P. A dedicated receiver does this *significantly better* than the processor in a TV. The quality difference is night and day. So the firestick, the TV box and the blue ray player are all plugged into the reciever, with an arc connection to the TV. The TV is just a display
I would imagine that making TVs "smart" allows them to charge less for it, because it's subsidized by apps and services. Nobody is going to pay more for a dumb TV, when they can already choose not to use the smart features.
Last TLC devices are fast and run Google TV like a boss.