first it was CCRs, now TVs

[speedway_navigator]

Roku’s Looming Problem? A Lot of Those Cheap Smart TVs Aren’t Any Good

The Roku OS has proliferated side by side with the explosive growth of low-priced smart TV brands like TCL and Hisense. But will poor user experience lead to backlash?

www.nexttv.com

 

[Reconrider]

I mean what do you expect when you buy cheap things?

Cheap doesn't mean better. Cheap means it was made cheaply.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Had one of those Roku "pucks" for exactly 24 hours. That's how long it took to overheat and fry the WiFi to the point the MAC address was all zeroes. Yeah, I had it in a cabinet that got warm, but still the device had no vent holes. Cooked itself to death.

Have a new low end Sony DBR-X800H smart TV. Works great so far my only complaints are:

1) The sound fails once in a while. Some incompatibility with HDMI/HDCP and the cable box. Resetting the TV or cable box or both fixes it
2) Annoying sibilance in the audio from the TV. Both with internal speaker and externally via the TosLink and optical D/A (Schitt Mobius). It affects voice as welll as music. Still fiddling with the limited audio options in this model to sort it out.
3) The GUIs' for all the streaming stuff is horse manure. There is no rhyme or reason, no customization. Good luck channel surfing.

 

[bharvey2]

I've been using a Roku TV for several years and just received a set of Roku speakers for Christmas. I haven't had any trouble with either of them. I The first LCD TV I bought was about 11-12 years ago. It set me back over $2K and weighed almost 100lbs. It was a Sharp Aquos LCD TV. All TVs these days seem cheap and flimsy compared to that one. I'd point out too that the speakers seem to be built wee and of high quality.

 

[MTS2000des]

You know, I bought a $229 TCL 50" Roku "4k" TV in 2019 for my bedroom. It gets several hours of use a day. It's never experienced any lockup or performance issues, and the panel itself is perfect, with no pixel failures. I wasn't expecting much but this has certainly outlasted it's warranty period by a year and is still running smoothly.
Compare that to the Samsung OLED 4K 65" set I bought in January of this year to replace an early (2014) LG 50" smart TV. The Samsung already has developed a small (a few pixels) but noticeable "brown" spot on the panel and I am fighting with Samsung to get them to replace the panel. It's almost looks like a small fly is stuck to the front but it is a bad set of pixels. They claim this is acceptable. So the idea of spending more money doesn't always pan out with today's consumer electronics that all come from the same sweat shops. The Samsung was a $1000 set.