[sebazzz]

You forget to mention that after a few years, if not earlier, your TV doesn't get any updates anymore and apps disappear or stop functioning and gets 50% useless (the "smart" part).

I cannot speak for the American market but mostly in the Netherlands a TV is essentially used as a big computer display, because most people have a settopbox that has COAX/Ethernet in -> HDMI out.

[petepete]

My Samsung TV got an update that added adverts into it UI. There's no option to disable it and Samsung's support team insist that the ads come from apps that I've installed, but they come from preinstalled apps I can't remove or disable.

I wrote a guide on blocking it. TL;DR DNS blacklist ads.samsung.com

https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...

[reificator]

The real question is why on earth would installing an application on your TV give it permissions to display ads outside of itself?

That's one of those corporate excuses that sounds good in the moment but really just makes the whole situation way worse.

[petepete]

This is exactly the problem. Samsung make the OS, they sell the space, they make the money. They just flatly deny they can do anything about it.

[phkahler]

I was recently looking for a 4K TV to use as a monitor and was reading good things about Samsung when one of the reviews mentioned this advertising stuff in a single sentence somewhere near the bottom. I googled it, but most "reviews" don't mention it. It seems you can't trust the devices or the online reviews any more. Nobody wants to make a product for me, it's all about them.

[petepete]

The problem is, most reviews happen just before or just after launch. My TV was fine for approximately half a year before an update added them without warning or an opportunity to downgrade.

I have been banned from Samsung TV's Instagram for warning potential buyers.