Smart TVs

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).