My old Android TV is almost 10 years old and despite ADB modding it shows its age. So I took a look around and quickly found out how bad things have gotten in the Smart TV space.

Dumb TVs are out of the question because of their high prices - they’re for commercial use after all.

What I want is a nice big TV (around 65" to 75") with a real colorful, sharp display and an OS that does not annoy me with ads (I despise ads) and recommendations while still fulfilling my needs, which are

  • Crunchyroll
  • Prime
  • Ad-free Youtube client like smarttubenext
  • HDMI for console gaming
  • Absolutely no stuttering and frame rate issues when playing videos in apps
  • Preferably no stuttering menus
  • Reasonably priced

Anything else is completely uninteresting to me.

And yes, I know about the nvidia shield, but that thing is 5 years old and I don’t want to ride an already old horse that might be replaced very soon due to its age (even though there’s currently no signs of that on the horizon). I also don’t like using more than one remote…

I have no issue with modding it as long as that’s reasonably possible - just to get rid of most bloatware, annoyances, ads and such.

Any ideas?

  • janNatan@lemmy.ml
    0·
    3 months ago

    I bought a mini PC and plugged it into the TV. I use a “wireless mini keyboard with trackpad” to control it. My husband and I have been using it for years. Beelink’s mini Ryzen PCs are quite solid in my experience. I have Linux on mine. Firefox with ublock origin. No ads, like ever.

    • piyuv@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      Connect steam deck and you’ll have pc and console in one! Steam deck dock has usb a port which can connect to keyboards, it runs Linux

      • janNatan@lemmy.ml
        0·
        3 months ago

        Actually, I already do that. I have two two steam deck docks, one in the living room and one in the office. I still like having the dedicated device for streaming though. Especially since I tend to download movies/shows sometimes. Can’t be filling up the steam deck storage with non-games!

        I also sometimes use the deck in handheld mode while my husband watches TV.

        • piyuv@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 months ago

          The solution is to have two steam decks! When one is gaming, the other can be streaming

          You probably realized I love steam deck