Large Screen TVs are getting thinner and cheaper. Last
week I visited my friend's home in ZhongShan, China PRC. He has a large
basement floor for entertainment for a 120" HD projector and HI-FI
equipment. He will have a 65" smart TV on the ground floor.
My 50" smart TV looks small compared to my friend's.
I bought my new 50" TV 2 weeks ago and I have not fully tested it yet. At
of present, the Android system on smart TV seems to have some limitations
comparing to Desktop systems. There are 2 important ones that I guess most
people may not be aware before they do their purchases.
1. For China brand smart TVs such as skyworth and Hisense
etc., they have disabled the google play app. You can install it on your smart
TV but it will not function. You need to use the China make apps instead of
google's.
2. The browsers designed for Android are all mobile based.
Their browser screen display resolution is less than 800 * 600. If you want to
make use of your 2K+ resolution for 1920 * 1080 (i.e. see more contents of the
web page), you may be disappointed! That means even you have a large screen,
you are limited to the display of a phone screen because Android was designed
for phone so as its browsers.
To overcome problem 1, you can buy a non-China make one
such as Jap or US.
To overcome problem 2, you can use a PC/notebook connected
to your large TV with HDMI cable. If your PC/notebook does not have an HDMI
outlet, you can add a VGA/HMDI converter.
I tried it out with my notebooks. My TV has 2 connections:
1 with a Toshiba (black) notebook with HMDI. Another 1 (silver)has a VGA outlet
connected with a VGA/HDMI converter. Both work fine on the large TV with good
browser contents. So don't throw your old notebook away. For additional
comfort, you can add wireless mouse and keyboard and sit back. I do that so
that I don't need to wear glasses on small screen even though I have
presbyopia. (my sitting room is messy as I am cleaning up my stuff).
