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?
I really wouldn’t write off the Shield completely. It’s a few years old, but it works really well. My TVs are all disconnected from my network, and each has a Shield attached. The Shield can stream 4k HDR from Jellyfin, play ad-free YouTube with SmartTubeNext, and handles remote game streaming at 4k/60 with Sunshine/Moonlight. It’s really a versatile little box.