Recently a relative who owned a 50″ Plasma TV asked me for advice on getting a new TV. Looking at the options all the TVs seem to be smart TVs (running Android with built in support for YouTube and Netflix) and most of them seem to be 4K resolution. 4K doesn’t provide much benefit now as most people don’t have BlueRay DVD players and discs, there aren’t a lot of 4K YouTube videos, and most streaming services don’t offer 4K resolution. But as 4K doesn’t cost much more it doesn’t make sense not to get it.
I gave my relative a list of good options from Kogan (the Australian company that has the cheapest consumer electronics) and they chose a 65″ 4K Smart TV from Kogan. That only cost $709 plus delivery which is reasonably affordable for something that will presumably last for a long time and be used by many people.
Netflix on a web browser won’t do more than FullHD resolution unless you use Edge on Windows 10. But Netflix on the smart tv has a row advertising 4K shows which indicates that 4K is supported. There are some 4K videos on YouTube but not a lot at this time.
Size
It turns out that 65″ is very big. It didn’t fit on the table that had been used for the 50″ Plasma TV.
Rtings.com has a good article about TV size vs distance [1]. According to their calculations if you want to sit 2 meters away from a TV and have a 30 degree field of view (recommended for “mixed” use) then a 45″ TV is ideal.
According to their calculations on pixel sizes, if you have a FullHD display (or the common modern case a FullHD signal displayed on a 4K monitor) that is between 1.8 and 2.5 meters away from you then a 45″ TV is the largest that will be useful. To take proper advantage of a monitor larger than 45″ at a distance of 2 meters you need a 4K signal. If you have a 4K signal then you can get best results by having a 45″ monitor less than 1.8 meters away from you. As most TV watching involves less than 3 people it shouldn’t be inconvenient to be less than 1.8 meters away from the TV.
The 65″ TV weighs 21Kg according to the specs, that isn’t a huge amount for something small, but for something a large and inconvenient as a 65″ TV it’s impossible for one person to safely move. Kogan sells 43″ TVs that weigh 6KG, that’s something that most adults could move with one hand. I think that a medium size TV that can be easily moved to a convenient location would probably give an equivalent viewing result to an extremely large TV that can’t be moved at all. I currently have a 40″ LCD TV, the only reason I have that is because a friend didn’t need it, the previous 32″ TV that I used was adequate for my needs. Most of my TV viewing is on a 28″ monitor, which I find adequate for 2 or 3 people. So I generally wouldn’t recommend a 65″ TV for anyone.
Android for TVs
Android wasn’t designed for TVs and doesn’t work that well on them. Having buttons on the remote for Netflix and YouTube is handy, but it would be nice if there were programmable buttons for other commonly used apps or a way to switch between the last few apps (like ALT-TAB on a PC).
One good feature of Android for TV is that it can display a set of rows of shows (similar to the Netflix method of displaying) where each row is from a different app. The apps I’ve installed on that TV which support the row view are Netflix, YouTube, YouTube Music, ABC iView (that’s Australian ABC), 7plus, 9now, and SBS on Demand. That’s nice, now we just need channel 10’s app to support that to have coverage for all Australian free TV stations in the Android TV interface.
Conclusion
It’s a nice TV and it generally works well. Android is OK for TV use but far from great. It is running Android version 9, maybe a newer version of Android works better on TVs.
It’s too large for reasonable people to use in a home. I’ve seen smaller TVs used for 20 people in an office in a video conference. It’s cheap enough that most people can afford it, but it’s easier and more convenient to have something smaller and lighter.
Useful info – I have been using a donated TV and making lots of use of the EPG. Turns out that it does not support HD – which is why it was given to me I guess. I started to look at Android TVs and consider the weight and size.
If you hole the Home button on the controller, it brings up the alt-tab switcher. Usually a bit slow, you can also kill apps from there on some versions (hold ‘ok’/’enter’ on the app) – others you have to do it from the settings menu.
4K is nice.
HDR is nicer.
Problem is that the smallest HDR TVs now bigger than 43″ and I’d actually have to demolish part of my living room to fit a bigger TV*. (Luckily I managed to buy a 43″ HDR TV before they decided that people who want HDR would want a bigger TV).
(* Previous owners built a nice “TV and hifi” nook out of bricks, I managed to expand the TV space to fit the 43″ TV, but any more will need ripping the whole thing out).