A Smart TV …well actually no!!!

For the past couple of months we have been discussing replacing our TV in the lounge with a new shiny “Smart” one.

I had looked around, read some reviews and we (Mrs S my head of everything)  had decided on a size that would be appropriate for the position in the room. As someone who was totally unimpressed with 3D in it’s present form and prophesied it’s demise 4 years ago when the industry was dumping it on us, the choice was simple, a Smart HD TV, no 4K that is too far off in the real world.

Waiting until after Christmas, I was delighted to see that a Panasonic which ticked all the boxes was on a promotion at Currys. I have always been a big fan of Panasonic TV’s so this was a deal that could not be allowed to pass by. On Tuesday 30^th Mrs S and I went to our local Currys and eventually left with a new 50” TV and an LG soundbar, after listening to 3 different soundbars demonstrated by the salesman using Bluetooth from his Smartphone- cool..ish!

We unpacked the new TV and I set it up: picture needed a bit of tweaking, Wi Fi eventually set up and I moved on to the Soundbar…which refused to talk to the TV remote. It appeared that LG will talk to every other manufacturer’s products, except Panasonic. Miffed- level 3!!! The WiFi signal on the TV was very weak, despite a strong signal in the room on my laptop and a 50+Mbps DL speed. Getting a message saying poor Wifi signal was not what I expected. Miffed level 5 !!! The following morning I went back to Currys and after trying a Powerline to get a wired Internet connection to the set, that refused to work in the lounge. We gave one more try with Iplayer on WiFi– it took 5 mins to load. Miffed- level 10!!! And so it was that we embarked on the amazing Christmas game  – getting everything back into the box.

Fair do’s to Currys – everything was taken back, no quibble and after some help from a very customer service focussed manager,  at 4.30 on New Years eve we came home with a (more expensive) but superb Samsung Smart TV…well almost smart…

The TV set up without hassle, picture looked great and in contrast to the Panasonic the WiFi connected to Iplayer etc within seconds and played flawlessly. Having read the manuals yes (I RTFM)  the Samsung soundbar refused to work from just the TV remote control. On New Years Day I stumbled across a way of getting the TV and soundbar in unison…yeah…well not quite! The WiFi was great so I went to setup BT Sport -nooop!! It requires Microsoft Silverlight, that wont run on the Samsung TV

Like all similar TVs the software that runs them could be updated via WiFi. Despite ours being “up to date”, we noticed that whilst the TV Freeview signal, that I had set up in perfect audio (lip) sync was fine, when switching to other sources ie Iplayer, timeshift or DVD the sync was either wrong there or would be wrong when we went back to the TV. In technical terms a PIA!

A call to Samsung support, revealed that new software was released the day we purchased the set (they knew…) but that could only be installed by downloading to a USB stick. Done! It works most of the time but is by no means 100% perfect so another hour must be set aside to chat with the tech team at Samsung.

Now I consider that I am fairly savvy with technology but cannot help thinking that for many people, they would be totally lost in a world of Smart Connect, Anynet+, ARC, firmware upgrades, advanced menus, Bluetooth compatability et. al. Grumpy Old Git mode? Well yes because I can remember when the only thing you needed to concern yourself with when you got a new telly, was a mat to go under the vase that went on top of it. Them woz the days!!! And they have the audacity to call them SMART

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