I had a chance to use several TV's and bellow I'm trying to describe them from an enduser perspective without any influence from any manufacturer.
Note that I have used only a few releases (often from the cheap range) and software versions could differ a lot between different versions.
Philips. As far as I know this should be in fact Funai with a sticker "Philips". Both companies are coming from Japan.
Software is raw. Don't expect fancy features just basic ones. Closed source, market and software. Fairy powerful in terms of customization... but you need to know undocumented things and this is not possible if you are not working for them.
Very cheap TV's with 4k (UHD) displays. But cheap has often hidden cost. Those cheap TV's should not be used as monitors - you would get 4k at 60 Hz refresh rate but brightness might not be even on all the surface, black color is in fact gray, maximum brightness is poor and light sources are wearing quickly.
Except that TV like every else.
Operating system is proprietary without sources, alternatives, etc. and this is bad. Newer versions are android based (this is both good and bad as androidTV can be slow but has good support).
I would love to disable cable-TV permanently (DVB-T, etc.) but this is not possible. Televison view is the default you start from (you could press "netflix" button to enter netflix instead) so this is a waste of time for me (as I am not watching tv).
Remote control is just nice.
Cheap but not bad.
HW: 2/5
SW: 2/5
Price: 5/5
Remote: 4/5
LG. With WebOS. I love it. Would be even better if you would be able to gain root access easily (but then people would break it). Solid software and good hardware.
Remote is really nice. Good apps market. Supports magic remote.
You could hide most of the cable TV things is not used.
Solid hardware and hardware. Nice remote and support for magic remote.
HW: 4/5
SW: 4/5
Price: 4/5
Remote: 5/5
Panasonic.
Nice OS focused on cable TV. The model I have seen is a bit slow and not user friendly. I would expect that TV quickly reacts to a keypress. And that after an option is chosen it would allow getting quickly back to the previous step... but instead it brings you to the beginning of lists.
Slow, lacks some user-friendly features. Has some apps and is not bad.
Acceptable software and hardware.
HW: 3/5
SW: 3/5
Price: 3/5
Remote: 3/5
Manta. I have seen a some nice (in terms of hardware) without smart features. And cheap.
I have seen cheap with poor backlight, terrible colors and viewing angles, bad features. Newer models are androidTV based (good due to good market and support, bad as it is slow).
If buying look at the colors, backlight (often not even across the screen), white and black (which are gray and gray).
You get what you pay for.
HW: 1/5
SW: 1/5 (older models), ?/5 (newer androidTV based models)
Price: 5/5
Remote: 3/5
Samsung. I know there are "samsung boys" who just love samsung. But I am not such a person.
Hardware is OK in general. Software not bad. Remote is a disaster (I really really have the e-manual).
They have Orsay OS / Tizen OS. Apps supported are not that bad. But samsung controls your device. And not much things are customizable.
You would very often run things you didn't want (ex. ads, e-manual, other crap) and you cannot avoid that.
Acceptable software, acceptable hardware, very poor remote.
HW: 3/5 (most models have some problems specific to that model; expect life time of 2-5 years, then it would probably break)
SW: 2/5
Price: 1/5
Remote: 1/5
I hope to get other (cheap) TV's to review at some point.
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