Budget Smart TV recommendations?

Generally very disappointed with the lifetime of new TVs. My first B/W portable manufactured in Swaziland, is still working (1976)

My latest FHD HiSense, purchased in November 2017, (4 year warranty) packed up in July this year! Shows the disgusting steep downtrend in quality.

But to HiSense's credit, they honoured their warranty without any arguments and just replaced the motherboard. which is the total insides!

I would not go for a smaller TV than 40 Inch and a DVB-T2 tuner is a requirement as well. (32" is fine for kitchen and bedroom duty but not for main lounge viewing).

Smart direct connectivity to the Internet I suppose is becoming a must but is problematic on many fronts.

HiSense, Skywoth (and everyone else) do not really manufacture in SA, just assemble.

SS lives on its brand name. Their support is not that much better than anyone else's.

All these new TVs have almost no protection against power problems, so an almost must additional purchase seems to be some or other external UPS protection.

The HiSense failure was on the power side. The capacitors and even the transformers used seem to be borderline ready to fail stuff, way too marginally specc'ed. When the board was changed in my TV, You could clearly see that the capacitors on the power feed had taken severe strain.
 
Last edited:
flopnel said:
Hi. I read somewhere that you can't use DSTVNOW app on Skyworth ? Anybody know ?
Click to expand...

Maybe on the older ones as there were plenty of certification issues.

If Netflix works on Skyworth now I don’t see why DSTVNow wouldn’t.
 
The Samsung 32" arrived today - I agree it's a little small for the lounge so we're going to move it to the bedroom for my parents and keep the existing TV there with the Andriod Smart Box connected. Will get an HDMI adapter so that it can make two ports from the one port so don't need to unplug DSTV every time they wanna watch Netflix. Hoping this TV will last, UPS for TVs is overkill for us so just gonna hope they keep working! The old Samsung flatscreen is a ton heavier but has good sound and picture and goes back to 2011 I think, working perfectly. The new Samsung 32" 5300 felt so light I was shocked! IF you recommend any kinds of mounting brackets with an extendable arm that I can install for my praents in their befroom for the 32", let me know!
 
FelixDaHousecat said:
The Samsung 32" arrived today - I agree it's a little small for the lounge so we're going to move it to the bedroom for my parents and keep the existing TV there with the Andriod Smart Box connected. Will get an HDMI adapter so that it can make two ports from the one port so don't need to unplug DSTV every time they wanna watch Netflix. Hoping this TV will last, UPS for TVs is overkill for us so just gonna hope they keep working! The old Samsung flatscreen is a ton heavier but has good sound and picture and goes back to 2011 I think, working perfectly. The new Samsung 32" 5300 felt so light I was shocked! IF you recommend any kinds of mounting brackets with an extendable arm that I can install for my praents in their befroom for the 32", let me know!
Click to expand...
Ja that is the other thing. Most of the flat-screen TVs these days have terrible sound systems. The 39" Hisense sounds like it is working through a tin - have to feed sound into something else for reasonable quality.
And yes that is the other problem with the smaller than 40" TVs -- only one HDMI port.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X