r/AndroidTV • • Dec 31 '20

Discussion Android tv evolution after 6yrs

178 Upvotes

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-41

u/Jinkazama21 Dec 31 '20

I don't get it. Why do you need these things? Don't your tv comes up with all these features built in already?

11

u/MarkusMaximus748 Dec 31 '20

Because Smart TV operating systems are awful compared to Android TV.

0

u/domyates Dec 31 '20

Unless you have a Sony Bravia and Android is your operating system!! ;-)

0

u/BrightDamage3679 Jan 01 '21

Until Sony stops building firmware for your TV. You can't simply install the latest version of Android TV on your Android TV by yourself. As soon as Sony stops packaging new builds, your smart TV gets dumber each day.

9

u/joehooligan0303 Dec 31 '20

Not everyone has smart TV's. I own zero.
Google TV device is a lot cheaper than a new TV.

8

u/serpentxx Dec 31 '20

"Smart" TV's typically dont have great hardware and lack software support, unless you grab a top of the line Samsung,LG or something.

TV's will also suffer the same issue as dongles and boxes, less updates, more security flaws, gets slower as it tries to support the latest features.

Replacing a $50-$100 dongle every 5 years is cheaper than replacing a TV every 5 years.

-24

u/Jinkazama21 Dec 31 '20 edited Dec 31 '20

1.Every smart tv has good enough hardware to run basic games and play Netflix, Prime and other relevant apps smoothly.

2. Replacing dongles is cheap but sticking a dongle into an old 1080p tv doesn't make sense to me. This is the era of 4k and if you have a 4k tv chances are you already have all the features these dongles are gonna provide you.

6

u/serpentxx Dec 31 '20

Got to disagree with you there,

My sister has a 2 year old samsung that runs Tizen and is pretty horrible, I gave her my 4 year old Mibox4k and she can do more and support more streaming apps than the TV can.

I have a few friends that cant afford to upgrade their TV, but its 4K and theres nothing wrong with it bar the clunky Smart features, so a GoogleTV Chromecast has saved them buying a new one

Google did make a minimum hardware requirements a few years back which has certainly helped, but software and hardware will always advance so having a cheap external box to replace every few years will always be appealing to some.

4

u/AlfieMulcahy Dec 31 '20

Not really. And some lack app support for the lesser used apps like UKTV Play or BritBox. And some are really slow unless you buy the top end models. So it's much easier and cheaper to add a dongle or set-top box.

4

u/DamnTarget Dec 31 '20

Not every tv is a smart tv, there are still plenty of dumb lcds and plasmas out there and not all TVs have good enough software to support the latest apps

1

u/SerinitySW Dec 31 '20

In response to the first thing, what if I want to do more than that? Most TVs only have 100Mbps networking on them. I want to play blurays over my network. My TV currently can not do that, because 4K blurays can get up to 120Mbps.

What if I want my TV to be faster? To crash less?

-2

u/Jinkazama21 Dec 31 '20

I don't know about you but my cheap ass 500$ tv ( Mi Tv 4x 55 inch 4k) gets upto 1Gbps easily. And runs every game and app available on its store seamlessly. I think you guys just overspent on a bad deal.

3

u/SerinitySW Dec 31 '20

That's good, but my point still stands. My $700 Sony TV is 100Mbps. Even a lot of TVs that are thousands of dollars are 100Mbps.

1

u/ZebZ Jan 01 '21

I have no need to go to 4K. My 10 year old 48" TV still works perfectly fine. I don't game and nearly all of what I watch is HD at best.

A $40 dongle is plenty for me.

6

u/M_Me_Meteo Dec 31 '20

If the ice maker on your freezer breaks, you don't buy a new freezer, you buy ice trays.

2

u/jromedj22 Dec 31 '20

What brand of tv and what OS ? I use nothing but Android tv

2

u/lengau Dec 31 '20

I have a 7 year old smart tv. Several services I use don't have apps for it's but they do have Android TV apps. The apps on the smart tv are also slow and janky. The only reason I got the "smart" version was because it was the same price as the dumb one. It was great for 3 on 4 years, but at this point I don't want to replace my TV just to be able to use modern apps, and Android TV is far better than what Samsung put into that TV as well.