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Comment by uncledave | Hacker News Reader

This is why I can’t bring myself to change out my 32” Samsung dumb TV. Every time I look elsewhere I see products which are worse even if I gain 4K and some more inches.

Please someone just sell a 4K monitor in 43, 50 inch sizes with HDMI that actually works and decent speakers and I’ll buy it for 25% more than the equivalent sized smart tv.

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The standard response would be to buy a commercial display, but you are looking at more than 25% higher prices. On the other hand, commercial displays theoretically are designed to be run nearly 24/7/365 and thus more durable, and many far more features than your standard television. Many NEC commercial displays, for example, have an expansion slot for a Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Wouldn’t that be fun?

My "commercial display" series 55" 4k LG dumb tv from a few years ago (in Canada) was ~$150 cheaper than its featurewise-near-equivalent (except the smarts) Consumer-oriented smart TV at the time ($900 vs $1050 iirc).

However I don't know if that product series has been updated / still available, and it may have been Canada only. But I'm not sure "commercial displays" are actually more expensive -- it might depend on the type and intended use-case.

I hear ya. My 46" Samsung is from 2008. It stated to go wonky in 2013 and I googled and found I needed to literally cut a resistor off the board. It's been fine ever since. Fingers crossed.

The thinness really prevents decent speakers being part of the tv itself. You're essentially getting mobile device level speakers on a 40"+ screen. Then, they aren't even facing you. As much as I'd prefer a dumb TV, I'd also prefer a mute TV. Don't waste effort/money on putting something that nobody is seriously going to use.

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