I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on last year’s necessary TV upgrade, but one of my few requirements was Android TV support. Obviously, I’m a fan of Android’s open approach to software (I wouldn’t be here otherwise), and I didn’t want to end up in the more limited ecosystems of Tizen or WebOS that don’t support some of the lesser-known media apps I really enjoy. Likewise, given that I’d been using a Chromecast with Google TV on my old set, I wanted to try and avoid the intrusive, gargantuan ad banner that plagues Google TV devices.
Other than that, my requirements were pretty simple: no fancy hardware for gaming or video upscaling, and I don’t watch enough TV to justify expensive OLED, so a 4K LCD with some HDR capabilities would suit. But really, I just wanted an interface responsive enough to quickly load the few TV apps I actually use and then get out of the way. I thought having the more “basic” Android TV software baked in would be a wise choice and save me an HDMI slot over a separate Android TV box. A few miles down the road, I’m not so sure that was such a brilliant idea.