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Getting Closer to the Perfect TV

posts 2017-05-15

In 2015, Pieter Siekerman wrote a blog post describing what the perfect TV should be:

For two years now I’ve closely watched various TV manufacturers trying to find their way in the changing landscape of TV platforms and I just don’t get it.

In September, (and again this week), I ordered the Hisense H43M3000 despite it being a relatively unknown brand in the UK and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was given the price of ~£300. This is the closest I've come to the perfect TV thus far, but it still has a long way to go based on Peter's list.

First of all and most importantly, it should not be a TV platform.

Unfortunately, it is. It has built-in apps but no app store to download other apps. It's slow to load anything including switching inputs, which is infuriating. The remote is a hot mess of useless buttons including app-specific buttons like Netflix, YouTube and Wuaki which can't be changed to open a different app.

A large number of HDMI ports

The TV has 4 HDMI ports but annoyingly only two of them support UHD/4K/HDR/whatever. I assume this is a cost-saving measure but if they removed the TV tuner or the "common interface" slot, whatever the hell that is, this would cover it. It does have a SCART socket, component, and 3 USB ports but I'd prefer to replace all of those with HDMI if I could. I can rename the inputs though which is the best feature of this TV by a long shot.

The display should be great

The display is so nice I bought another one to replace my aging HDTV from ~5 year ago. Even with non-4K content, everything looks fantastic.

There are a number of other points on Peter's list which I care less about than the ones listed above and there's still a long way to go before I can buy the perfect TV. However, if you're looking for a good value 4K TV this is a pretty good option. Just buy yourself a Fire TV box to go with it so you can avoid thier "smart" software.

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