Any recomendations for an AndroidTv Television?

by Xarcell

I'm diving into the Google ecosystem. I recently bought Stadia and now I want to ditch my old Philips TV and Xbox for a 50 - 55" TV with AndroidTv built in. I would like to be able to purchase 32" basic models as well. I don't care to use all the android apps just a few. Here is what I need: 4K HDR for the 50-55", 720 or 1080 for 32", voice control, with the ability to use the following apps: netflix, youtube, google music, google movies, youtube music, and pluto. Not being to use all of these apps mentioned would be a dealbreaker. Amazon Video app support would be nice too, but I hear it currently doesn't work?

Is this possible or a even good idea? I looked at Hisense & Phillips models, but they had bad reviews. Seems like AndroidTv doesn't even work properly, but I'd be happy if I could just use the apps mentioned.

Just looking for advice & suggestions for current owners and users.

koshergoy

Just choose the best affordable image quality.

Any missing software functionality can be had in an AndroidTV STB of which there are many.

flicter22

Google is launching a new Chromecast that actually has Android TV so buy that and hook it up to the best value panel you find.

If you want to use stadia on Android TV that new device will probably get it first before other Android TVs.

I say this as someone that will probably get an LG webos tv next. Why? LG OLED is much cheaper than Sony OLED. Also Sony is terrible at updating software timely so I'd much rather get the display I want and override the built in webos with the new Google Android TV Chromecast.

Dibbix

I bought an AndroidTv (Sony Bravia) thinking it would work well with my home automation stuff. I was very wrong. I mostly use my chromecast and my phone now and rarely anything in the Androidtv.

You'll save a lot of money by getting a dumb TV and using a chromecast. Plus there's supposed to be a new model of chromecast coming out very soon that has full fledged AndroidTV software. Best guess for price is under $150 - just a guess tho

RZAx36

I have a sony xbr55x900f with androidtv and it works fairly well but a bit sluggish. If your interested in androidtv I would suggest you look into the Nvidia shield or the pro for many reasons. I'll just go into a few. The hardware inside the TVs is not very powerful and as such it only received 2 updates and will not receive another due to this. The shield on the other hand has been receiving updates regularly since its release in 2017. The shield is the most powerful androidtv device on the market and will be relevant for years to come. The pro is 64 bit and the tv is only 32 bit making the pro more versatile whit what apps you can install. Android is the core for androidtv and if something with android fails chances are that your tv will not function. As where if the shield goes bad simply buy another. The shield has a nice upscaling feature that allows you to upscale 720p and below up to a nearly 4k resolution. The tv doesn't. 1 thing that bothers me with the TV is that there in no settings button on the remote. You have to navigate to the home screen then to the gear icon to access the settings menu. when doing this while using or watching an app will cause the app to restart when returning. The shield has a dedicated settings button and the majority of apps will return to previous position. Lastly the TV doesn't have any task killer to fully close apps unless you have a keyboard attached. Sony told me there was no task killer on the latest version but my logitech keyboard has a multi window button that will open the task killer. The shield simply double press the home button to access the task killer. There are many more reasons why the shield is superior. I love androidtv and wanted the best experience I could from it so I bought a shield pro and I'm extremely pleased that I did!

BiggussDikkuss

There are two problems with cheap Android TV - smart TV’s.

a) Poor quality, slow cheap chipsets to run the Android TV OS.

b) Slow, to non existent Firmware support.

The only decent TV - chipsets for running Android TV are the newer MediaTek - MT5893, often found in recent modern Sony’s and the MT5887 & MT5670, you can find in Philips and others. The GPU’s to look for in TV‘s chipsets are the new ”G” series ARM’s like the G71 and G51.

Even the MT5596 with an ARM Mali-T820 GPU is pretty decent.

Do a Google search for “display specifications” + MT5893 or MT5887 and you will soon see TV models packaging them.

New streaming devices like the Air TV Mini & Verizon Stream TV as well as the upcoming TiVo Stream 4K have ARM-G31 GPU’s in them.Consequently they are snappy budget Android TV streaming devices.