From the article: OLED and MicroLED are the future
Now if I could just a “dumb” TV that doesn’t have a bunch of built in apps, which apparently is now a huge ask. I just want my TV to display whatever HDMI port is currently selected. Not nag me about connecting it to WiFi every time I turn it on.
and not spy on me
But then how would they get that sweet sweet metric data they can resell? Think of the megacorps!
Look into commercial displays. They are meant for store fronts and guest areas. These screens are typically built a bit more robust than consumer TVs. They may only have one of each input ports, may lack soundboard and built-in tuners, but they have sleeker designs and lack smartTV bloatware. You may need more peripheral equipment for the screen to function as a home use TV. Just do a little research and see if this works for your setup.
I might look into this for a table to play Pathfinder and D&D on. I’ve been looking for a cheap, durable, no frills display to build a table around.
I think there are expensive models that come without any software shit. However I simply “gave up” and don’t connect the TV to any network. It doesn’t see a network cable and won’t get my wifi credentials. Therefore it neither needs nor receives updates. Everything “smart” is done by an attached Kodi box and a FireTV stick, which I both can exchange when their time is up.
This might not be a solution that fits your needs, but personally this is why I buy computer monitors instead of TVs now
I just disabled the “smart” features on my Samsung S95B and set it to run the last used “app.” Which is just the last used input.
It’s not perfect, but combined with HDMI CEC I almost never need to go into the ugly menu. I don’t mind the smart menus of the older TVs when it was a separate part of the TV you could ignore. But the integration in these new TVs where inputs are treated like another smart app and you have to go past apps to get to picture settings is just bad design.
Not to mention serving ads for each manufacturer’s own streaming apps on a device someone spent a lot of money on us completely unethical. But at least disabling the Internet features took care of that issue.
Yikes! So you mean you just can’t switch inputs without the smart TV side anymore? Time to avoid the Samsungs then…
You can switch inputs. But it forces you to go through the home screen to do so. And to make things worse, game consoles are relegated to a different section of the home screen (there’s gaming and media).
It’s an awful user experience initially. But once I disabled a lot of it and just got a Roku, it’s a great TV. But I wasn’t going to spend the extra nearly $1k to get the Sony QD-OLED, and I have beef with LG since they made me wait nearly four months trying to get a refrigerator repaired or replaced under warranty (and it was a no cool problem… Not like a broken ice maker or something). So I stay away from LG.
Can they please just bring back actual buttons instead of invisible tap points where you can’t tell where the fuck they are?
No. You’ll suffer the invisible tap points because they can advertise that feature and ship more units.
How do you fuck up televisions? It’s the simplest thing and these corporations just need to fucking meddle.
wow, this whole comments thread is just like reddit. love it, keep the faith ya’ll!!
LCD TVs can still improve via faster refresh rates, strolling backlights, and smaller local dimming zones. If the last part can be made small enough, then it would be very hard to tell the difference between an LCD screen and a emissive display. These facts shouldn’t be ignored by display companies.
Dimming zones creat halo affects when there white next to black. Source: typing on my 12.9 iPad lcd with dimming zones.
The smaller the dimming zones, the lesser this effect becomes. Theoretically, you can have dimming zones of just 1 pixel in size. People have even “succeeded” in doing this by bonding two LCD panels together, with one acting as the local dimming solution.
The problem is that we are reaching a point where it is cheaper to achieve the same or better results with OLED or microLED than by dumping even more money into improving LCD.
We are already at a point where OLED provides a straight up better value than LCD in higher end price brackets as long as peak brightness is not your #1 priority.
I’m going to have see a display that truly solves the burn-in problem before making that proclamation.
I have been reading about MicroLEDs for years now, never bought any OLED because of the burn-in. I’m curious when MicroLEDs will actually hit the mass-market and at what price-point and also how they will scale for smaller screens.
I’ve had my QD-OLED for a little while now and it has had quite a bit of static images on it without any trouble. From what I read before I bought it, OLEDs in general really don’t have a burn-in issue like the early models did.
From what I can tell they’re better than even plasma was at the end. And you’d have trouble actively trying to get permanent burn in on some later model plasmas. I used to service TVs and appliances. In most cases outside of using a plasma display for digital signage, I’d be able to run a swiping pattern for a little bit to get rid of the image retention. The only exception I really had for a plasma that was used in a residence was an older couple who didn’t have a widescreen source and only watched shows in 4:3 aspect ratio. They finally got the HD channels from their TV provider and realized they had the bars on the sides burned in (really the screen aged unevenly).
I am going to skip LCD tvs altogether. Right now I am still using my first hd tv, a Plasma TV from 2008, and when I replace it, it will likely be with an OLED.
OLED’s are just the way to go.
Fair enough. LCD is very old technology at this point, dating back to the 1960s.
Of course, LEDs aren’t exactly new either, but microscopic LEDs bright enough to be used as pixels certainly are.
That’s great, it means LCD TVs have hit maturation point.
I’d love to have an OLED tv. I just need a good reason to get one. The tv I have now works just fine (unfortunately).
Man I’m still rocking my Samsung plasma TV from 2011. No need to heat the house with the amount that TV gives off but still works great.
I have an old Viera 50 inch Plasma, it chews like 240W while running but has not skipped a beat in the 13 years we’ve had it
I really hope microLED takes off in the near future. It’s basically OLED on steroids, all of its advantages without the risk of screen burn-in. It’s just too expensive right now…
I bought a QLED LCD 8k Samsung in 2019 and tbh it’s an incredible display because of its high nit count, local dimming zones and AI upscaler.
I’m a bit out of the loop, can these new technologies go to that resolution yet?
That’s incredible! Is there a noticeable difference between 4k and 8k? What do you use it for?
Primarily gaming but also anything looks astounding on it above 1080p, lower resolutions than that though aren’t upscaled great but I never watch content that low res anyway. Refuse to. Mines using LED backlights too, since then Samsung have released Neo-QLED that is even better and brighter than mine.
Honestly on my TV lights look real, headlights on cars, the sun, torches, flames all look like it’s just a pane of glass in front of me. Almost blinds you, never had that experience with a TV previously. To me it’s better than cinema screens.
Brightness in terms of nits is really important, and something the OLED diehard fans don’t seem to appreciate. I get the blacks too with the local dimming yeah not as good as OLED but close enough for me not to care.
I knew about OLED but I wanted the pinnacle of a tried and tested technology over something new.
That’s pretty cool. Thanks for the extensive reply!
Do they still get burn in? that was my only problem with non-LCD TVs.
No, they still get burn in. They also aren’t very bright out of the box, and they get dimmer over time. They’re also more expensive than LCDs despite having a limited lifespan. I’ve never been a fan of OLEDs for these reasons and my theory is that manufacturers want to sell them because they have a limited life span so they can sell more.
MicroLED I’m super pumped for though. No clue when we can actually expect to buy them though.
Aren’t MicroLED displays LCDs?
No, you’re thinking of LCDs with miniLED backlighting
