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How do I find a good dumb TV? Question
A lot of TVs on the market these days are "Smart TVs" which I don't want. I've had smart TVs in the past and found that I don't use any of their features. Further, the software is often laggy, buggy and gets in the way. Moreover there are concern about privacy and ads.
When shopping for a new TV, how do I find a non-smart TV? Are there specific manufacturers or stores that specialize in them, or at least provide a good selection with appropriate filters/categories?
I know that a few "budget" stores like Target, Bestbuy and Walmart can have token dumb TV options. These are usually a brand called ONN. These are good for their price, but they are very cheap TVs ($100-200) and the sound/picture quality is correspondingly poor. I have not seen any products that are similarly "dumb TVs" but have decent video quality.
A few things that I tried:
- Searching for "dumb TV" on Amazon provides very few results. A lot of them are still smart TVs, Amazon's search feature just sucks.
- B&H Video has categories for non-smart TVs, but they are usually "outdoor screens" that cost multiple thousands of dollars
- When I search for "commercial screens" many of them still have smart TV software, it's just less prominent in the product blurb
- When I search for large computer monitors, many end up being "gaming monitors" or "smart monitors" which have the same smart TV software
Have non-smart TVs become a lost technology now? How do you go about finding one?
I've also heard the theory that smart TVs are actually cheaper to sell, because the ads/anti-privacy features are an extra income stream for the manufacturer. That's fine, I'm willing to pay more (up to $1000) for a dumb TV even though it has fewer features. However, the more it costs, the more research I have to do to make sure it's really what I want, and I've noticed that more expensive dumb TVs are obscure and have few reviews, presumably because few people buy them.
1 answer
You haven't defined exactly what features are part of "smart" versus "dumb". What most people consider "smart TV" features require a network connection. No matter how smart a TV is, if you don't connect it to a network, then it won't present the smart features.
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