Introduction
I have two TVs side-by-side in my living room, but recently one of them stopped turning on.
The broken TV was a 32-inch Panasonic high-definition model, and I had owned it for five years.
It seems to break down rather quickly,¥24,700 in 2018Since I bought it at such a low price, I feel like it's worth about the money.
I had been using it quite heavily, and the screen had been gradually getting dimmer, so I think there were signs of it malfunctioning.
I'm not particularly picky about picture quality, and I've resigned myself to the fact that even if I bought a good TV, it would probably just get dirty or broken by my kids anyway.
So, this time too, I searched on Amazon for something in a similar low price range.
The TV I purchased this time isThis is a 32-inch smart TV made by TCL (Android TV).。
Product overview
The product I purchased this time, the "TCL 32S516E," is a 32-inch high-definition smart TV made by the Chinese company TCL.
Similar to my previous TV, recording is done by saving the program to an external hard drive for my PC.
The price as of March 2023 is ¥27,800.And it's not that expensive.
The most significant feature of this product is that it's a smart TV, meaning the TV itself has an operating system.
Since it can connect directly to Wi-Fi, it's essentially like a large tablet that can watch TV programs.
Even without Wi-Fi, you can connect directly using a LAN cable.
The connectors are standard, and I don't feel any particular shortcomings.
Advantages, disadvantages, and problems
I will be writing about my evaluation of the smart TV I recently purchased, including its advantages and disadvantages.
merit
I used to plug a Fire TV Stick into the HDMI port of my old TV and watch tons of YouTube and Amazon Prime Video.
However, since this device has its own operating system, it can do almost the same things even without a Fire Stick.
The remote control looks like this.
You can access the Google Play Store from the home screen and install apps directly, allowing you to use a wide variety of apps.
It's more convenient than the Fire TV Stick because you can smoothly switch to web content even while watching digital terrestrial broadcasts.
Also, since one remote control can handle everything, there's no need to introduce a Fire TV Stick, which I think will make things much neater.
For those currently using Fire TV, the advantage is that it can be integrated solely into the TV.
Disadvantages
This is just a drawback compared to the TV I used before, but the recording function is somewhat lacking.
My previous TV had this feature, but this one doesn't have the ability to automatically distinguish between commercials and programs and divide them into chapters during recording, so I have to fast-forward through the commercials myself.
However, there's a skip button every 15 seconds, so it's not too much trouble.
Also, and this is subjective, I felt the screen's colors were slightly muted.
I tried adjusting various video settings, but I couldn't reproduce the color scheme I was used to.
Conversely, this might be the only thing that can be clearly called a disadvantage.
The only remaining question is how long it will last.
trouble
Actually, we went through a lot of difficulties when we were starting up the TV business.
Even though it was connected to the TV antenna, it wouldn't automatically search for and register channels, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong.
結論としては、テレビ本体のシステムソフトウェア自体を最新にアップデートして再起動することでもろもろ上手く行きました。
I think it's important to think of it more like a PC or tablet than a TV, and to have the mindset that if a problem occurs, you should just restart it.
Also, the external HDD for recording was not recognized easily, but after restarting the unit and reconnecting the USB cable, it worked.
In the end, it was just a minor issue.
In conclusion
All things considered, accessing the internet is faster and smoother than when the Fire TV Stick is plugged into the HDMI port, so I'm very happy with how it works.
Since my whole family uses it heavily every day for recording videos and such, I don't know how long it will last.
However, since it wasn't a particularly expensive purchase, I'd be happy if it lasted about five years.
Since it can connect to Wi-Fi, if you're not particular about watching terrestrial TV, I think you can place it anywhere for video playback.
In this day and age, with so much content available on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video, I think it would be interesting to install these devices in various locations.
Incidentally, the reason there are no photos of the TV itself is because I had already set it up in my cluttered living room, and I hesitated to take pictures.
Summary of lifestyle-related articles
Rakuten Market: 【中古】TCL 32型 ハイビジョン スマートテレビ(Android TV) 32S515 Amazon Prime V