Ever since its invention in 1927, television has undoubtedly served as the single most important source of entertainment for billions around the world. Quite honestly, it has practically become an integral part of our lifestyles, bringing together families at the end of a long day as they cheer on their favorite team during the soccer match, double over something Homer Simpson said or empty that bag of popcorn while watching Lord of the Rings or Scandal(for the ladies). However, recent times have seen a shift in this trend with families starting to drift apart. The popularity of smart gadgets especially among the youngsters has a lot of blame to take for that.
Nowadays, people like to control their technology and require it to perform a lot of functions. The TV, with its monotonous functionality, has lost its appeal, and is slowly fading away from the living room it once ruled. Fortunately, Smart TVs are here to save the day!
What is a Smart TV?
To keep up with smarter gadgets, the Smart TV is simply a ‘smarter’ version of the regular television. In other words it is basically an amalgamation of many functionalities which you’d expect to find in your smartphone/tablet/laptop etc.
Nowadays, Smart TVs come with an integrated webcam, a microphone, an LED HD screen, an OS, a processor and RAM to run the OS, and an easy user-interface to enable a hassle free operation. All these allow you to video conference with your loved ones through Skype and watch movies through Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Youtube, LoveFilm to name a few. Check out more at The Smart TV- What You Need To Know.
The Top 3
When in the market or shopping online for a Smart TV, you are definitely bound to become confused with the plethora of choices being offered. Instinctively, you might rush and opt for the most renowned brands such as Samsung, LG or Sony, but that would not be the wisest thing to do. Even though these famous companies have been phenomenal in providing us with televisions of great quality, making a Smart TV is not just about the hardware; it requires a precise combination of the hardware with great software. Only a few companies have been able to perfect this combination, and only those are worthy of your attention and money.
The following three choices are among those you should look for when out shopping for a Smart TV, they are some of the best Smart TV’s available as @ May 29th,2014. More focus on the OS.
1: Panasonic Smart Viera
Hardware-wise, no company can beat LG or Samsung as far as televisions are concerned. However, Panasonic has really spruced up their Smart TV sets with a user interface that is by far the best in the market; it offers multiple home screens, with each home screen sporting a different collection of channels. You can utilize this function to divide up channels according to the individual preferences of family members using the TV set. So for instance, if you want to watch your own stuff, all you need to do is go to your home screen and find all your favorite channels enlisted right there in front of you. Though this does not add anything exciting to your TV watching experience, it sure makes switching channels very convenient.
A mighty excellent landmark for Panasonic is their attempt to incorporate the ‘cast’ technology in their TVs. Now, through the smartphone app remote called Viera Remote 2, you can share content from your phone on the Smart TV by just ‘swiping’ it onto the TV, we’ve all seen the commercials. This is made possible thanks to the Swipe and Share 2.0 software incorporated in the remote.
2: Smart Hub by Samsung
Samsung has been pioneer in the television industry, serving countless happy customers since 1938. Now with the Smart TV idea looming in the air, how could it stay behind and thus launched ‘Smart Hub’, a system for a Smart TV which not only focuses on content, but also on the user experience, making Samsung the leader in Smart TV market as well. The Smart Hub basically has five pre-defined home screens, split according to categories; TV, VOD, Social Media, App’s by Samsung, and your own media through external drives. Within these categories, the Hub incorporates services like Netflix, ITV Player, Five, 4OD, Absolute Radio, Facebook, DailyMotion, Twitter, Viewster, Lovefilm, Vimeo etcetera.
Apart from the amazing interface, Samsung has incorporated the S Recommendation technology within its Smart TVs. This feature basically monitors your viewing preferences, both through your own digital drives and on-line, and presents you with recommendations accordingly. This is a very useful tool to have for those who don’t like searching for content that suits their interests.
To create a link between your smartphone and tablet, Samsung Smart TVs enable you to share whatever you are viewing on the smaller gadgets with the big TV screen using the AllShare Play application available on the appstore.
3: Smart TV by LG
LG has taken a slightly different approach to its Smart TV technology, focusing more on networking than on apps, which has paid off wonderfully. With the LG Smart TV, you can view the content present on your laptop, HDD, USB, networked desktop PC, smartphone, and tablet on your TV without having to do anything; once the Smart TV is connected to your home network, it will automatically allow you to access the media on your connected devices without requiring any further instructions. Once connected, all you have to do is browse through your collection with your Smart TV remote and enjoy all the media on your big screen TV. This makes LG’s Smart TV a front-runner in the Smart TV market.
