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Android TV? your experience

asheenlevrai

Hi :)

 

I recently purchased an entry-level android TV (Sharp Aquos 50BL2EA) because it was discounted in my region and because the Harman/Kardon audio system was good enough for me not to feel the need to buy an extra sound bar. I also like to look of the unit.

In addition, it was an opportunity for me to discover Android TV (I only had experienced WebOS so far).

 

Several months in, I like the functionalities of Android TV. I like what it can do. But I am overall disappointed.

 - The TV responds poorly. I need to press several time on the remote buttons and the TV frequently turns back ON shortly after I pressed the power button to turn it OFF.

 - The systems hangs at times or seems unresponsive

 - Full boot (not resuming from sleep) takes long (30-60 sec)

 - Apps crash frequently (YouTube, VLC, ...) for no obvious reasons. This is particularly inconvenient when it occurs in the middle of watching a movie. (I use a gigabit Ethernet connection)

 

Now, I don't know if this is due to the fact that this is an Android TV or to the fact that this is a cheap Android TV or just because it is a Sharp Aquos 50BL2EA Android TV.

 

I would thus like to collect here the feedback from those of you that own (high-end) android TVs and figure out if it would be worth getting a better model or if it is safer to just stay away from Android TV as an OS.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Best,

-a-

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8 minutes ago, asheenlevrai said:

Now, I don't know if this is due to the fact that this is an Android TV or to the fact that this is a cheap Android TV or just because it is a Sharp Aquos 50BL2EA Android TV

All the things you mentioned are simply because it was cheap. NVIDIA's Shield TV also runs Android TV as its OS and doesn't suffer from any of those issues, except for slow boot from full shutdown.

 

PS. I do have a Philips Android TV, but it's also slow and kinda laggy and all, so I use Shield TV instead for all my media-consumption. The TV itself only acts as a big display for the Shield TV, nothing more.

Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and commonly thrust into somebody’s pocket.

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I have a nice Sony Android TV. Changing from, let's say the HDMI port, to the android tv interface does take about 4-5 seconds. It's slow. Turning it on takes about the same amount of time. It takes longer if it's a full power cycle, as in the power is fully cut from the tv. It doesn't lag or become unresponsive in the menus however the Google Assistant feature is so slow that I never use it because I feel like I can just manually type in the search faster with the remote. I haven't had any issues with apps crashing.

 

My biggest pet peeve with it is the sleep timers. In order to turn on one, I have to exit the app and go back to the home menu, then navigate to the sleep timer button, then choose sleep timer option before I get the option to set it. It's ridiculous that there isn't a button on my remote, which has like 50 buttons on it, that's dedicated for a sleep timer, or that I even have to exit the app to use it. I remember my previous tv, Samsung, had a button on the remote and it showed up in the lower third of the tv while whatever was running played in the upper 2/3.

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