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Comment by brabel | Hacker News Reader

I had a 75-inch TV I inherited, it was on the higher end and the TV UI was supper snappy. Then, I broke it accidentally and got only 1/4 of the money from insurance. Because I barely watch TV, I thought I would just buy a TV of the same size, but on the lower end... both TVs were Samsung anyway. What a huge difference. The image quality is a little worse, barely noticeable after you get used to it. But the UI is agonizingly slow. Every time I turn the TV on it starts showing some channel fairly quickly, but then after several seconds the image gets black because it's loading the stupid UI... and I can't find a way for it to NOT do that! The higher end TV, needless to say, didn't do that. So now, I know what you're paying for when you get a TV for $4,000 instead of $1,000: slightly better image , but a proper computer to run the stupidly heavy UI (probably made using some heavy JS framework, I suppose).

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Plug a new chromecast into one of the HDMI ports and use that and only that and weld the setting shut so that you never have to deal with the TV’s default UI ever again.

Though you still have to turn off the frame generation on the TV.

I use an Amazon FireTV Stick on my old non-smart LG TV. And the advantage is that the FireTV has a simple cute little remote control device. There is a nifty Setting in the Amazon FireTV UI to allow its remote to turn on/off the TV too.

So it's been a long time since I had to wrestle with the TV's built-in OS.

I just use the pleasant UI of the FireTV Stick to watch Netflix, Prime, Disney+, etc. on that decade+ old TV. That FireTV becomes sluggish if I keep multiple apps open, so I have learnt to exit out of an app before switching to the new one.

I may get a new FireTV stick this year, rather than splurging for a new TV, since the old TV is still doing well.

As the Americans say: If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

I have this setup, and the Firestick UI is horribly slow. Sometimes it takes 30 seconds or more for it to give any response to a button press. It's worst when I'm trying to watch something on Amazon Prime, to the point that I hardly watch that anymore because the UI is so annoying.

This sounds like either your FireTV stick is too old or your TV is.

My LG TV is more than a decade old (non-smart LED TV), the FireTV stick is around 6 years old.

But apart from the FireTV stick (whose remote controls the TV too) taking 15 seconds for a cold start (the TV tends to go to deep sleep mode after idle for long time or when switched off via remote), or 5 seconds for a warm start, the FireTV GUI is quite snappy thereafter (I can briskly move the cursor/selection across icons/thumbnails, menus and apps), till I switch it off again. Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Discovery+, Apple TV - they all work well on this old setup.

You may want to uninstall some apps on the FireTV stick to give it some breathing space when it runs.

Try the FireTV stick on a PC monitor having HDMI input. If you face same issues there, then it may be time to buy a new FireTV stick or Chromecast, or splurge for a new smart TV.

I advocate for AppleTV but the principle is similar.

Which of the two devices/companies is getting enshittified quicker?

The chromecast is much cheaper, so that’s a straight win.

I haven't used AppleTV in a while but I assume it's very similar. The latest chromecast devices have very low latency and have worked well for me.

With a $3000 price difference you can buy a frigging gaming pc and attach it to the tv instead.

> The higher end TV, needless to say, didn't do that

Actually it is very much needed to say that. Manufacturers get away with crappy unbearably slow UIs even on expensive TVs because it's not something that gets enough consideration by reviewers or indeed buyers.

> So now, I know what you're paying for when you get a TV for $4,000 instead of $1,000

lol, it's not money. It's like windows 7 vs 11. each new generation of TVs have more intrusive bloated UIs.

Wait people on hackernews actually use the embedded software on "Smart" TVs? That stuff is terrible not to mention a privacy nightmare.

I thought that smart tv native usage was for gen. pop. only. Its been an ongoing conversation on this site for years at this point.

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