My experience
I have Samsung QE55Q6FNATXXH TV. It is a 55 inch Qled tv.
Specifications can be found on www.samsung.com
At the same time my parents get a new TV too, some cheap 4k 49″ JVC
We both have TVs for half a year.
First impression
There is no huge difference in the picture, but the Samsung tv has a better one. It is normal, it is more expensive.
Both TVs handle youtube videos perfectly. 4k demo files from youtube are awesome.
Samsung remote is much better and elegant, but the voice commands are totally unusable. The device can’t understand 80% of my voice. There is an easy workaround. I’m using the google assistant integration and voice commands thru the google app! I don’t have cable TV, so I don’t know if its functionality is usable over google assistant.
I haven’t tested the JVC with the google integration.
Samsung TV have much better cable management, the UI is much faster.
Looks like more money = better product.
Here comes the problems
Samsung is using their own TIZEN OS. Unfortunately apps for tizen are not a lot, compared to JVC android apps.
Samsung doesn’t have 3rd party player (like VLC for the android based TVs (the JVC is andoid based).
The main problems hare are
- Lack of audio/video codecs support from Samsung
- Lack of subtitles support and options
This problem can easy by fixed by using app like PLEX, see https://www.plex.tv/.
The main problem here is that PLEX works over the network. You can’t plug external HDD and watch movie with plex ,you have to use the native player.
So, the solution is to use PLEX and have movies stored on your PC. Your PC should also have plex server installed and running.
Android based TVs have so many players, I won’t even list them, you can google it.
So far, so good.
More Problems
The problem with streams over the network is that the video is decompressed using the TV hardware.
Let’s watch high bitrate 4k videos or … not
I will use demo files from http://jell.yfish.us/
Short story: everything higher than 45 Mbps is unwatchable.
Wait … what?
Yes, correct, you can’t watch high bitrate 4k videos.
According to samsung specifications – https://developer.samsung.com/tv/develop/specifications/media-specifications/2018-tv-video-specifications i should be able to watch 80 Mbps HEVC videos. Hmmmm … I can’t. I contacted the samsung support for my country (BG) and they told me that this is not their problem, they are only fixing the hardware stuff.
OK. Probably demo files (used by everyone) are broken. I tested with other videos and result is the same – my fucking expensive TV can’t play 45+ Mbps videos. What the fuck!?
So, I have to move my desktop PC near the TV and watch movies with the HDMI cable 🙁
Apps or the lack of apps
I mean …. I have ‘smart’ tv without any fancy apps. Why am I locked to this awful tizen….
Why samsung didn’t made a double boot – android or tizen.
Literally there are sites with all tizen tv apps listed in single page. Single page can have all tizen apps + descriptions!
The JVC have so many apps that I probably need 10 minutes of scrolling to get to the end of the list.
Ah, not, the twitch app is gone, see https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/bgdf59/samsung_twitch_tv_servers_took_away_app/
Power consumption
Ehm…according to the specifications – https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/2018-qled-tv-q6fn-series my TV should use 0.5W on standby.
Standby Power Consumption 0.5
But actually it uses around 13. This is 25 times more! I contacted the support about this issue and they told me that there is nothing that can be done.
Fuck me. Stupid fucking TV. I plugged the tv in smart socket. When the tv is not used I’m turning of the socket. 3.6 not good, not bad. The downside here is that you have to turn on the socket and then turn on the tv.
The TV uses 13-18W when it is off. After a few minutes the power consumption drops to ~0.6
Lets get back to the 4k videos
There are 120, 140, 200, 400 Mbps demo videos.
Lets try ’em all.
You know, usually the wired connection is faster than wi-fi. The problem is that the TV have 100Mbps lan card. I will repeat it – 100 Mbps. So, I can’t stream 120Mbps videos, its ok. The TV doesn’t support suck videos. FYI my 5 years old laptop have 1G lan card. You can find 1G PCI cards for less than 10E in ebay.
Bottom line
The qled tv is far away from a “smart tv”. The lack of apps is awful. Lack of codecs is also awful.
But the picture … its awesome!
If you are about to get the qled tv – you should also get a tv box or a pc/laptop.