New TV - good enough to replace my appleTV ... or not?

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I just replaced my 13-year-old 55" Samsung TV with a 65" LG C3.

It’s better.

…

And … also:

  • it runs all of the streaming services I use, and,
  • it even has AppleTV+ built in, and
  • it has an Apple Music app, and,
  • it does airplay (including mirroring my mac screen directly to it)

So, I don’t really need an appleTV any more.

I’m sharing this because I didn’t realise TV tech had moved along so much, wrt apple’s services.

That said, I’ve set it up so I still use my appleTv - I’m used to it, and it works very well.

And … now, it looks and sounds a whole lot better!

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I’m not an expert in the field whatsoever, but I keep using AppleTV because of the privacy protection. It’s pretty clear in press reporting just how much of your life can be tracked by your connected TV. I’m not super worried, per se, but I don’t necessarily need to make it easier, either.

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Good point. One of the things that irked me about the LG is that the home screen is full (FULL!) of guff that I don’t want, and the app icons are small.

Some of the stuff was advertising, which I managed to switch off after spelunking into the deepest parts of the LG’s settings. I also turned off advertising tracking.

With that all done, I would have been happy with the LG home screen … but the apple TV is much clearer, cleaner and easier for me.

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Majority of the TVs skimp down on the processing and networking components when running the built in software (like WebOS or Google/Android TV). I have noticed difference in two specific areas:

  • Apple TV will give you gigabit speeds and on WiFi will easily provide 300 Mbps (if your WiFi/Internet set up can handle that much speed). Built in connection (even a wired one on my Sony Bravia, was carried at 100 Mbps).
  • Built-in processor may struggle with very high bit-rate stuff being streamed from a local media server.

Both of these can be mitigated by using an external box like an Nvidia Shield or Powerful Roku but as the other reply mentioned, Apple TV is the most privacy friendly option. I never hook up my TVs to the Internet directly to avoid tracking.

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5

Exactly the reason I only attach my Samsung to the internet is to upgrade the firmware!

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