I’ve had my current TV for about a year now, and do you know how many times I’ve used its built-in tuner? None. I’ve not even plugged in the aerial. I’ve not used any of the built-in apps, either, and the built-in speakers have emitted a sound only a handful of times, and only because the connected sound system didn’t automatically switch on as it should have.
In many ways, it’s great that TVs do so much, but outside of picture quality, they’re the best at very little, and I’m one of the lucky few who has separate devices for live TV (Sky Stream), streaming (Apple TV 4K) and sound (Sony HT-A9).
I’m well aware that puts me in a privileged position but I’m far from the only one, and to those of us who’ve forked out for extra kit, it can feel a little galling to also then have to pay for TV features that we will never use – and that even get in the way sometimes. I would love to be able to buy a TV with none of those things. Getting rid of the speakers would be the most useful part, as that would allow for the TV to be significantly slimmer.
“Just buy a monitor”; I can hear you say. But, of course, monitors aren’t generally manufactured at living room sizes. They also usually lack the sort of picture processing necessary for a great movie performance. Displaying movies as well as possible involves specific processing for things such as contrast and motion handling, and monitors generally don’t approach these things in the same way because they’re not intended for that purpose.
So it really is a TV that’s designed to be a TV, but without the tuner, speakers and smart platform that I’m after. Sadly, though, I have little hope of ever being able to buy such a thing. While there are certainly others in the same boat, we’re a small market, and no manufacturer is going to spend the time and effort designing, manufacturing and shipping a model just for us. If they did, its niche appeal would likely make it more expensive than those TVs that do have the features we don’t want, which would sort of defeat the whole purpose.
That’s a shame, of course, but let’s face it – it’s not a huge inconvenience to work around those extraneous features. And who knows, perhaps one day a manufacturer will produce a TV that is so good at all of those things that separate devices are no longer worth adding. I can’t say I’m holding my breath, though.
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