I used to work in their SSD vertical on the software side. For what it's worth, SSD/memory business unit is their pride. They never used to cut corners and do rigorous testing to ensure their customers aren't screwed over. Even when a bad batch of SSDs were shipped by mistake, they would recall/refund all of them proactively. When ever a new model is released, they would first ship limited units to a set of SSD enthusiasts including gamers in Korea. One such time, there was a BSOD reported by a single tester in some edge case - > they sent a lot of team members in person to chase and fix that issue.
So I really doubt they would do anything stupid to get some quick bucks at the cost of reputation.
On the other hand, their smart tv division is absolute garbage and employees themselves wouldn't buy Samsung TVs.
A better contrast is the night and day difference between Samsung SSDs and Samsung SD cards. The former are among best in class and the latter are among the worst in class and notorious for dying mighty fast in Raspberry Pis and DSLRs (going read-only). (Best SD cards are probably from Sandisk.)
Is this anecdotal? I had two sandisk cards die in a Samsung Galaxy phone in succession. I've never had a problem since I switched to using Samsung SD cards.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Sandisk Extreme, in particular. It’s not anecdotal but “common knowledge” in certain circles. I believe the more recent Samsung SD cards are better, but the older ones were basically notorious.
I'm using a Samsung SD card on my OrangePi Zero for more than a year 7/24/365, and it's very stable so far.
However, nothing is as durable as SanDisk and Sony high end (Extreme Pro in SanDisk terminology) cards. My old CF is still kicking and a pair of 64GB cards in my mirrorless doesn't care what I pump into them (all of them are SanDisk).
A serious question. I use a “Smart TV” without any internet connectivity whatsoever. Never let it connect to my WiFi, neither did I connect Ethernet. This way I am happily enjoying a high quality “dumb TV” that I always wanted.
Are all the complainers in HN really letting their TV connect to Internet (inspire of knowing all the crap TV manufacturers have been pulling all these years?!)
My TV required connectivity during setup and then removed the config afterwards. About a week later I noticed the "home screen" showing adverts and somehow the Android TV had "auto-magically" reconnected. Had to change the WiFi password to avoid reconnecting.
That reaffirmed my stance on Smart TVs remaining dumb in my house. Netflix through the Xbox only!
My LG TV is always connected to the Internet and I don't use it as a dumb device at all, its only use it to watch local Netflix-like service and Youtube.
I don't complain, though. Its smart capabilities are absolutely sufficient to me.
I have a smart tv and I don't like the fact that it connects to the internet...but would it be any better if I had a dumb tv and a fire stick? Honest question...I don't really know the difference.
Fire stick is probably not any better than using the apps on TV. I bought a used Mac mini, and connected it to my “dumb” TV via HDMI. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse for my TV. Netflix, YouTube, and anything available on a web browser is now available on my TV. In addition, I can use AirPlay to stream photos or music from my iPhone. This setup has been lovely.
It's better in the sense that if it starts pulling shit that goes one step too far for you, throwing a FireTV stick away is less of a sacrifice than junking the entire TV. That's my main reason for wanting to keep things separate.
> Are all the complainers in HN really letting their TV connect to Internet (inspire of knowing all the crap TV manufacturers have been pulling all these years?!)
Why are people complaining about Smart TVs in a thread about SSD?
Because the parent commenter said Samsung Smart TVs are so garbage that even their own employees don’t prefer to buy it. Hence my comment that you can always buy a smart TV and use it as a dumb one by never allowing it to connect to the internet.
....how? There are literally hundreds of devices that will offer YouTube playback and music for as little as £30-40.
Whether it's a good idea or not is a different matter entirely, but the notion that you "have no choice" is just silly. Is someone forcing you to watch YouTube through your TV?
Is there a difference in your tv spying on you and those devices spying on you? I don’t mean this to sound confrontational or rhetorical, I really don’t know.
You can sometimes build your own Linux with Kodi with those devices. On the plus side, you're then not limited to use streaming services Netflix and can grab media from any place.
I do too. I bought a used Mac Mini online (any computer with a HDMI port will suffice). You get your browser on Tv. Hook up a wireless keyboard and mouse to your computer, and you can have your privacy friendly Internet TV experience.
In meant in terms of durability and quality. We used to by a lot of Samsung electronics (along with TVs) through employee discounts and the failure rates among the TVs are always high. So much so that we used to joke about that there is a "if condition" that some how causes the pcb to fail in first month after first year (TVs used to have 1 year warranty).
My perception of Sony is that they sell higher quality products. Sometimes only slightly higher, maybe not enough to offset the price premium if there is one, but I assume all their higher end stuff is top notch.
> but I assume all their higher end stuff is top notch.
From my unscientific sample, yes.
The Sony Master series of OLED TV's (e.g. A9) are IMHO, most likely the best TV you can buy at the moment.
I've seen them side-by-side next to high-end Panasonic kit, and whilst the Panasonics put on a good show compared to your average TV, the high-end Sony's are noticeably better.
The Sony firmware also seems to behave more consistently with HDMI auto-switching than the Panasonics. Sometimes you ended up having to switch manually on the Panasonic because whatever automagic was meant to happen didn't happen.
Samsung will give updates for a maximum of 5 years. So all the security holes or missing root certificates (for HTTPS connections) of the integrated browser stagnate after that.
Then you have to use a raspberry PI or some other mini computer to get the same use out of it. And then why use a "smart" TV in the first place?
I want all the smarts to be outside my display device. If my TV is acting smarter than what’s needed to do the HDCP handshake, I’m not going to be happy.
The latest series has an issue with stuttering when watching live TV, hundreds of pages of complaints on their own and other forums, and Samsung has officially replied that yes, the issue exists, but they won't fix it. I know at least 3 people who have bought Samsung TVs in the last year and they all returned them due to this very issue.
Sony and LG flagship devices also have the same problems. I've a bravia and our office has an LG c9 tv - the softwdre on them both is unusable. The problem is there's no other real choice in the high quality TV market, and the experiences are still better than before; having one remote for Netflix, prime, live tv and a sound system via ARC is such a huge improvement too.
Do they? I've had an LG CX for almost a year now and haven't had a single issue with it, the interface and all the apps are certainly super fast and I wouldn't bother switching to a dedicated device, everything built into the TV works fine. And it definitely doesn't stutter like the Samsungs do. Maybe the C9 had some faults in the firmware, but it's 2 generations behind now. What do you mean by "software is unusable"? In what sense?
Samsung’s pride and butter is their SSD group? I find that hard to believe… they provide a range of products, including cars (they dominate the SKorean auto market), as well as financial services (in S Korea).
In America, they have TVs, and cell phones. I find it very hard to believe SSDs are their pride and butter
Samsung does not dominate the South Korean car market. They own an important supplier in Harman and they're doing their best to sell automotive grade SKUs of their Exynos SoCs, but they don't act significantly as an OEM or anything.
So I really doubt they would do anything stupid to get some quick bucks at the cost of reputation.
On the other hand, their smart tv division is absolute garbage and employees themselves wouldn't buy Samsung TVs.