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Hello all. I'm visiting my mum and her TV looks to be on a shoogly peg so we're off to Currys* to look for a new one tomorrow. I have almost zero knowledge of TVs other than having used a few in air bnb's with atrocious user interfaces and a quick look at the curry's website indicates all the TVs are 'smart'. My mum's not in the best of health and does not have the patience to learn a new OS or wade through pages of streaming services. Are there any brands to go for that priotise ease-of-use over features?
A bonus would be a screen that works in bright sunlight.
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*Perhaps not the optimum place to go for a new TV, but for good reasons it's where we're going.
'easy to use' tvs aren't really a thing any more, but what you can get is simpler, more accessible remotes that can be programmed to work with your TV and gets rid of a lot of the extraneous buttons. If the TV allows you to set up favourite channels then a simple remote that just has volume up/down and channel up/down can be used in conjunction with that to take away a lot of clutter.
I've got couple of Samsungs and an LG. The Samsungs are definitely easier to use. Best thing would be go in and delete all the apps once you have set it up which would reduce confusion.Â
CEX / Cash Converters?
Cello do a range of non-smart TVs. I don't have any experience of them personally (Amazon reviews seem OK) but it may give you some options to research and see if they fit your needs.
We replaced MIL's TV with a smart TV, but didn't set any of it up, so it was OK - we just had to get as big as we could and as cheap (poor eyesight). She'd had Sky for a long time and wouldn't cancel it, and after seeing the Sky remote covered in thick dust I said, how are you watching Sky, can you show me. The up and down was used on the standard remote, so the normal channels were enough. We used to have to go round and press the HDMI button on the TV at times as she'd forget (bonkers really). We cancelled it and saved her a fortune.Â
I don't think this is going to help, but I find having as similar model as possible to the elderly person I have to support remotely really helps as you can bring the interface up at your end and talk them through it.
I would also go through the settings and prune as much smart stuff as possible, eg. on LG's you can switch off the option of it bringing up the 'home screen' when you turn it on. If when you hit power it goes to good old BBC1, not a home screen full of apps, then it's not really visibly 'smart'.
Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Off to Currys we go!
Off to Currys we go!
Don't! Go to John Lewis or Richer Sounds.
Much better customer service and more knowledgeable staff.
Also, they both offer free 5 year guarantees on most of their TV's.
Not Samsung. I wish to christ I'd never replaced my decent old-ish Samsung with another Samsung. The menu page is utter garbage - filled with adverts and "Whats on" thumbnails of moronic shit like Love Island. Terrible to customise and just when you have it how you want it (as far as it will let you), they send an update and reset it to more shit.
Hisense are really good now. Freely TV gives you all the normal channels.Â
We got one that was the same as ours so we could talk my mum through any issues on the phone when she rang with an issue or memory lapse.
We could chat and go through the menu s etc.
It did help alot.
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We went through this with my in-laws & found the Toshiba user interface and remote to be far simpler to use than either LG or Samsung. Sony was inexplicably maddening with buttons, menus and sub menus seemingly placed by blunderbuss from afar.Â
Once you get it all set up, have a google for "hotel mode" for that tv and see if it can be locked down in a way that prevents the picture format from being defaulted to some bizarre ratio, the picture control meddled with and the volume limited to below that of Concorde on departure.Â
My mum's not in the best of health and does not have the patience to learn a new OS or wade through pages of streaming services. Are there any brands to go for that priotise ease-of-use over features?
You'll find if she wants to watch any streaming stuff at all, there'll be an account to set up, even if it's free. My Mum nearly had a breakdown when she had her old Freeview box replaced. I set the whole thing up but then she found that everything she'd saved was obviously gone, couldn't remember any of the iPlayer, ITVX etc passwords.
It took me sitting there for a couple of hours to go through it all, reset stuff and get the channels sorted. Although I did manage to block GB News so it wasn't all bad.
That said, with it all set up, she knows the sequence of buttons to press now so she's pretty much sorted. For whatever reason, she's very good with fixed pattern and muscle memory. She doesn't "know" her PIN for example but she knows the pattern of buttons to press and it's the same with the TV.