Some features that LG is introducing to high-end TVs this year seem to better serve LG’s business interests than those users’ needs. Take the new remote. Formerly known as the Magic Remote, LG is calling the 2025 edition the AI Remote.
The new remote doesn’t have a dedicated button for switching input modes, as previous remotes from LG and countless other remotes do.
By overlooking other obviously helpful controls (play/pause, fast forward/rewind, and numbers) while including buttons dedicated to things like LG’s free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels and Amazon Alexa, LG missed an opportunity to update its remote in a way centered on how people frequently use TVs.
LG and Samsung are incorporating Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot into 2025 TVs.
Samsung, which is also adding Copilot to some of its smart monitors, said in its announcement that Copilot will help with “personalized content recommendations.” Samsung has also said that Copilot will help its TVs understand strings of commands, like increasing the volume and changing the channel.
Always knew TVs were way too convenient to not be fucked with by tech companies. The idea that a TV could lag would be a joke decades ago
Just make my monitor, monitor-maker.
Some features that LG is introducing to high-end TVs this year seem to better serve LG’s business interests than those users’ needs.
lol this is what every company has done since the concept of a company has existed. The cognitive dissonance of techbros trumpeting free-market capitalism and complaining about anti-consumer practices is enough to vaporize the solar system.
Maybe not this specific author, but that seems to be a prevailing sentiment.
LG missed an opportunity to update its remote in a way centered on how people frequently use TVs.
these journalists just churn out braindead lies to mystify capital. “missed an opportunity”? this is clearly hostile design to force users into revenue generating pathways but this empty-headed clown can only frame anything that hurts the user as an unintentional blunder
I wonder if there’s a viable business model in lobotomizing “smart” TVs. Like, a local shop that breaks warranty, removes the phone innards, and rewires everything to work with buttons.
If they can do it with cars too, I am down.
Do you know what’s better than interrupting viewing by talking to an ai to raise the volume? Just pressing the “volume +” button.
AI is so fucking dumb. I’m keeping my tv from 2011 until it dies. It’s smart as a brick and that’s just how I like it.
Yep same with me, got a dumb tv and it’s great, you turn it on and it accepts the feeds you send it…it doesn’t try to advertise 9 billion things at me.
Yup. Every now and again I’m watching a film on my 32” fossil of a tv and I think “wouldn’t it be nice to have a big swanky 4k uhd display”, but then I remember my tv is almost old enough to drive, it owes me nothing (its a fairly cheap Toshiba to begin with), it has zero way of connecting to the internet so it doesn’t spy on me or try sell me shit, the menus are very simple, the remote doesn’t have a Netflix button, but what the tv does have is: that it works, and it works reliably. So many of my friends have had 5 tvs in the space I’ve had this one. Also it still has a decent picture (especially if the room is darker), the audio isn’t the best but I have proper speakers linked to it for the times I care, the hdmi ports all still work great (as do the hilarious old ports on it scart?!)
It’s perfect. And to be honest - I don’t watch much TV and don’t want to watch more so what would I be spending the money on.
scart
retroRGB would like to know your location
I imagine those folks would rather a CRT tbf
they’re not entirely opposed to upscalers (though the upscaler usually has the scart input and outputs something normal like hdmi)
don’t buy a TV, buy a commercial display.
Seriously once the “old” TVs I have break the replacement is going to be big monitor because all I need this to do is display content from devices I plug into it and nothing else
stay on top of your firmware updates and that’ll be sooner than latter
Never update anytjing that works well without a very good known and specific reason for doing so, especially if there’s not a security or critical failure reason.
Do not be tempted by additional features. If you decide to update anyway, delay it and wait to hear if complaints arise from others first.
Once they completely solve the burn in problem with OLED, assuming they haven’t already, I honestly genuinely don’t know where they actually are gonna go from here. Even for gaming (VR not withstanding): 4k HDR+ @120hz is already more than what 99% of the market could ever genuinely want (let alone need) and if you genuinely are that top 1% of prosumers you are almost certainly more invested in a dedicated desktop monitor than a giant TV. For movie/tv watching experiences we’re already well past what most content can even handle since nearly everything even at the highest budgets in Hollywood is mastered with a 2k digital intermediary before they upscale it and I don’t see that changing anytime in the near future. I’m not sure if it did, with how far ahead TV is of the source content, it would even matter.
Nobody needs 8k. I don’t even mean most consumers don’t need 8k. I mean even most prosumers or video professionals don’t need 8k, let alone 16k which the new HDMI 2.2 spec supports. Its a dead end.
Genuinely: whatever level of media consumer you are I don’t think you’ll be able to tell much difference if any between a panel released this year and a panel 10 years from now. Its all just quality of life updates and gimmicks from here on out.
10k nits is the brightness of the sun (or sky? something like that), and current colorspace is garbage, cyans and greens especially.
(i just want the 5th remaster of the good, the bad and the ugly to sear my eyes and give me a tan irl)
They could go for abandoning RGB in favor of ROYGBIV. Excuse for a fresh wave of remasters too.
Pushing for more and better color is really the next space outside of some really weird innovations that would probably not make it “TV” anymore. Color is simpler but will require a lot of breakthroughs in specific light emission and packing those lights into the TV. Most monitors lack the ability to display violets some yellows and blue greens.
There are also a lot of colors on the dark end of the spectrum that can’t be displayed on a monitor at all, and I don’t really know what a technology to allow them would even look like.
True unaided holography might do it for me.
I’m a fan of regular 3D too, but I know most people couldn’t care less
The next thing is going to be 8mm analogue film home projectors, I’m telling you you can’t beat those colors or that motion clarity
burn in problem with OLED
This was the only thing I was waiting to hear news on at CES. Dunno if any advancements have been made in that regard yet.
Once they completely solve the burn in problem with OLED, assuming they haven’t already, I honestly genuinely don’t know where they actually
They haven’t and they can’t. Those who say they have are either misinformed or lying. Wait for microled or stick with IPS.
Personally I want some novel display technology that isn’t light blasted directly into my eyeballs. Or more options for interesting display technologies at least.
Laser Phosphor Displays look interesting, functionally like a CRT except it’s a laser striking the phosphor screen instead of electrons. Probably the closest I could ever see to a new production CRT.
Field-emission displays also look interesting, basically a tiny matrix of micro electron guns producing phosphor “pixels” instead of scanning the image one line at time. SED’s are pretty similar, also very cool.
To use the AI Remote to change the TV’s input—a common task for people using their sets to play video games, watch Blu-rays or DVDs, connect their PC, et cetera—you have to long-press the Home Hub button. Single-pressing that button brings up a dashboard of webOS (the operating system for LG TVs) apps. That functionality isn’t immediately apparent to someone picking up the remote for the first time and detracts from the remote’s convenience.
LG is hoping they can trick people into using the webOS apps instead of what they actually wanted to do with their TV. Which won’t work, both become people will just figure out how to get it to do the thing they wanted and then get annoyed with the hoops, but also because the built-in LG apps suck. The content in them is 99% garbage, it’s the streaming equivalent of those old UHF channels from the 90’s.
Palm rolling in its grave. Such a great os that just chopped up and sold :(
Ya I have an LG TV and the remote & OS are terrible. Sorta wish there was a way to jailbreak it or something.
