Some people like the concept of having fewer boxes to plug in. That means fewer cords, fewer remotes, etc. Personally I would love to have a TV running a decent OS (as long as it still boots instantly).
Unfortunately TV manufactures do such a shitty job with the software. Both in terms of quality/performance/usability, and now with privacy issues and injected ads.
Exactly. If it was an option to get a smart tv that was actually competent then it wouldn't be such an easy decision to avoid them like the plague.
Though even then, I'm always going to have devices plugged into my TV. A combination of my PS3 and PC can access any of the content I might want to watch.
In theory: Nothing extra to buy and decide about. Fewer chords, boxes, remotes etc. Better integrated and unified UX between live TV/recorded TV/streaming TV/downloaded TV etc.
In practice. Very little.
I'm still waiting for someone to do smart TV right with good software (Hell, just pay a couple of the XBMC devs to port the latest version to your TV) and an open platform with support for third party and DIY software.
The TV that I wanted was not available without the smart functions. In fact, most new TVs aren't. It's not like I chose to pay extra for the smart stuff.
Its worth noting that a TV is already a combination device (though, mostly, a sensible one): display + TV tuner.
In many cases, you can get a similar display separately, branded as a "Monitor" or "Commercial Display" or something similar, with HDMI inputs, etc., but no TV tuner and no smart features.
If you are using locally-stored media, internet sources and/or a cable box as your content sources, you probably don't need a TV tuner built into your display any more than you need "Smart" features built into it.
I purposely bought a Philips smart TV this year as the only stuff I really watch is Netflix, iPlayer, YouTube and my own ripped content. This TV advertised apps for all of that and DLNA support, so I figured I wouldn't need any other boxes. I have used XBMC before and that worked great, except there is still no Netflix support, so I figured I'd try something with it built in.
Netflix works perfectly, and I really can't complain about it. The interface is very user friendly and it is very responsive. I guess it's pretty much the same as you get on an Apple TV or Amazon whatever-its-called box, but it's nice to have it built in.
YouTube works pretty well. It's sometimes a bit slow to skip to the next video, but being able to use my phone or laptop as a remote to queue up content is pretty nice.
iPlayer is pretty hopeless. If I play a SD video it plays in the wrong aspect ratio, and HD video just keeps buffering (Netflix 720p is fine though...). The interface is nice though.
DLNA started off well, the browser is pretty basic but even over wifi I was able to stream 1080p which was impressive. Then some videos I tried just crashed the player randomly after 10 minutes, so I gave up on that.
I've now got a Raspberry Pi with XBMC/Kodi running. It's a bit slow (seems to be inefficiencies of the software, as even idle in the menu it uses 80% of the CPU), but 1080p movies play back fine even over wifi. I use that in place of the DLNA on my TV and use get_iplayer to fix that. They both support HDMI CEC which means I can use just the TV remote to control the Raspberry Pi without any addons.
There are a few other things I should mention too:
The whole interface of the TV is HTML and Javascript (it runs Opera 9 under the hood) and it isn't very optimised. This means even simple things such as pressing the 'Source' button to view the source list (you can't just press it to switch, you need to press this then select the new source from the menu) takes 30 seconds to load.
I specifically bought this TV and an amplifier (both Philips) that support HDMI ARC, this means that audio can be sent from the TV (or peripherals) to the amplifier via just the HDMI cable. When it works it works great, but most of the time for whatever reason it just doesn't. I ended up buying a $3 optical S/PDIF cable from eBay which works as expected (i.e. it just works) and achieves the same end goal. If I'd known it would have been this flakey, I would have just gone that route in the first place and I could have got a cheaper amplifier.
The TV also has Skype built in, and an optional camera for $100. I'm glad I didn't buy that at the same time as the TV...
So what's the purpose of a smart TV? I have no idea. I would prefer a 'dumb' TV, but it seems pretty much everything is a smart TV now.
Edit:
I also looked into building my own interface for it. The 'Smart TV' home screen has ads on it loaded over HTTP, so I setup my router to sent that traffic to my own server and served up a JavaScript redirect. It worked well, but I never got around to taking it further. According to the spec [0] the TV supports 1080p60 x264 at 25 Mbit/s.
How in the world can this be any better than Rasberry Pi (or some equivalent) + dumb TV?
I see an opening for a 'TV Smartify' business selling customized Rasberry Pi's (or some equivalent) that you attach to your TV, plug in with HDMI/power/network, and go. Include a custom OS ready to go, a HDMI cable, wireless Keyboard/Mouse, customer case, and a power supply and sell it upmarked as a convenience (since the target market would be those who wouldn't even know what a Rasberry Pi was).
This means even simple things such as pressing the 'Source' button to view the source list (you can't just press it to switch, you need to press this then select the new source from the menu) takes 30 seconds to load.
Is that an exaggeration? 30 seconds is far beyond what I would consider unusable, and a TV which takes that long to switch between sources would be quickly returned.
No, I've used a Samsung Smart TV a few times and this is hardly hyperbole. When you "start" the TV it's in some sort of lite mode, actually going to one of the menus requires booting up the secondary operating system which can take a few minutes. Every menu is painfully slow to navigate, the interfaces are displayed at a few frames a second, and the wifi built in is beyond useless. Trouble is, it's almost impossible to buy a dumb TV as far as I can tell. You're stuck with a stupidly buggy, outdated and vulnerable system that snoops on you if you connect it to a network. Fantastic stuff.
My Sony KDL-46HX853 also has poor performance for the Source button. When turning the TV on from "standby" it displays a "Please wait" when you press the source button within the first few seconds (I haven't timed it, but it's long enough to be annoying). Apart from that, stepping through the sources is problematic, with it being laggy to respond, pausing on certain sources, and causing you to overshoot.
The next time I buy a TV, I'll try out the Source selection in a showroom first.
"Loading time" needs to be considered unacceptable by industry. It's really blatant. I was at a Subaru dealership, ready to plunk down on a brand new 2015 Impreza, when the guy told me they all have the touchscreen infotainment setup. I asked him to show it to me. We sat in the car, he turned the key, and the first thing that showed up on the screen was... a loading bar. I walked out and bought a 2011 Mazda.
Making me wait when I didn't have to before isn't acceptable. I don't have to wait with my "dumb" TV. I don't have to wait with my non-infotainment car radio. Whatever benefits you think your new product has, introducing load times makes it instantly unacceptable to me.
I found this funny because the fourth generation Mazda MX-5 (Miata) is being released this year and just the fact that it has an infotainment system jutting out of the top of the dash is causing a lot of criticism.
It's tricky because the US gov't is mandating backup cameras soon. I'm not opposed to that, per se, but car manufacturers have taken it as an opportunity to shove touchscreens into every car. Since they need some sort of screen for the camera anyway, why not slap in this infotainment system we spent all this money on?
But yeah, I'll never own a car with a TV screen in the dash. I'll stick to the used market if I have to. I've heard some manufacturers are sticking a small screen in the rear view mirror using some see-through mirror trick. That seems like a much better solution than what they did to the Miata.
Edit: Actually do you have some links to that criticism? Is it in the press? I'm super interested in the new Miata, but the screen really is a deal killer and I wonder if enough negative press would cause them to reconsider or change it for future years.
To be fair it's only being criticized heavily by Miata enthusiasts on sites like Miata.net or Jalopnik - those that want a pure sports car experience. They only account for a tiny fraction of the people who actually purchase the car.
It's not really the idea of the infotainment system that's the problem, it's the implementation. As you said, the rear view mirror would have been better received by those who understand back up cameras will be mandated but still don't want a big "iPad" on the dash. As for Mazda's infotainment system - I believe it's the same system as used on the Mazda 3 and 6 so you can look reviews on those vehicles.
You'll be able stream BBC iPlayer (as well as lots of other stuff) directly to your TV instead of having to download using get_iplayer. Nobody but me uses it yet so be prepared to find some bugs - but it should be fairly usable.
Could someone please touch on the advantages of a smart TV offerings over my setup?