Thursday, 31 August 2017

The best Smart TV platforms in the world 2017

Best Smart TV Buying Guide: Welcome to TechRadar's round-up of the best smart TVs and smart TV platforms you can buy in 2017.

One of the biggest concerns when buying a new TV is its smart platform. Now that pretty much every TV we buy has some form of smart TV platform in it you want to make sure it works for you – hence why you're searching for the best.

The best smart TV platforms ensure they never get in the way of you and your content - these are still TVs after all, not giant wall-mounted tablets. They should be fast to start up, easy to keep updated and, if they're really good, help you locate new shows and movies to watch.

Where once it was about how many apps you had, the Internet connected television is now just as much about what OS is being used.

All smart TVs give access not only to top-tier services like Netflix and Amazon Instant, but to the various digital TV catch up services available, too. Separate apps are one thing, but increasingly the services formally offered by apps are being integrated into the user interface (take LG's webOS 3.5, for instance).

For better or worse, there's no one industry standard. Smart TV platforms tend to change every year or two among the big TV brands. Here in 2017 we've seen a new focus on operating systems, with the likes of LG, Samsung, Panasonic and Sony all opting for webOS, Tizen, Firefox and Android, respectively.

Let it be said that all of these platforms are usable, functional and most of the time downright enjoyable to use. But while they may look alike on the surface, under the hood there are a plethora of differences between them.

So, what's the best smart TV platform? We've ranked the the world's major connected TV platforms in descending order, putting just as much emphasis on ease of use as app selection, to help you as you buy into a whole new generation of online television. Plus, once you've found a smart TV platform, we've included five of our favourite TVs that use it – that way you'll have a good starting point when it comes time to find the right TV for you.

Just want to know to know the Best Smart TV on every platform? Here you go!

Android TV OS has now become a familiar sight on Sony sets. 

If you've never used it before, Android TV is organized into tiers, of which the upper-most is tutorials and ads (the sort of stuff you really don’t need to see that often). This is followed by rows of apps, games, inputs and settings. 

Overall, the Sony X900E is a great HDR TV that occupies a sweet spot between performance and price. UHD image clarity is excellent, color performance luscious and its HDR delivery adds just the right level of zing. 

With superb 4K image clarity, powerful SDR-to-HDR remastering, and a smooth direct LED backlight, Sony is offering something very different with the X900E.

Read our full review: Sony BRAVIA XBR-55X900E 

The 65EZ1002’s smart TV system is pretty to look at, easy to use, and effortless to customise - everything, in other words, that a smart TV interface ought to be.

It’s not the most content rich system in town, perhaps, but I don’t actually think that’s a bad thing. Most of the key TV-centric apps are there (Netflix in 4K HDR, Amazon in 4K HDR, the catch up TV services for the main terrestrial broadcasters via an integrated Freeview Play app), and it’s actually kind of nice not to wade through mountains of dross just to find all the good stuff. 

It’s worth adding that since the 65EZ1002 uses Freeview Play to provide its broadcaster catch-up TV services, you can search for shows you’ve missed via an intuitive electronic programme guide that scrolls back as far as seven days.

Read the full review: Panasonic TX-65EZ1002 OLED TV

It’s taken awhile to get there, but Samsung can now claim a really strong smart TV engine with its latest ‘Eden’ interface. For starters, it manages to deliver swift and logical access to a healthy amount of content from a home screen that takes over impressively little of your screen real estate. 

As well as letting you customize the row of icons on the home screen at will, the addition last year of a second tier of ‘contextual’ links that changes depending on what app you’ve got chosen in the main tier has transformed the system’s speed and simplicity. It’s good to see, too, that Samsung has tried harder this year to add live TV features to its Eden interface.

As for the TV itself, compared with rival OLED technology there are still occasional backlight distractions, and effective viewing angles remain limited. However, the Q9F also sets new HDR-friendly standards for brightness and color response, while its new panel structure and state of the art screen filters enable it to combat ambient light better than any other TV, making it uniquely watchable in a typical day to day living room environment. 

While it might not make the ‘OLED or QLED’ argument redundant, it certainly does a hell of a job of showcasing the latter’s strengths. 

Read the full review: Samsung Q9F QLED TV

LG’s webOS smart TV interface was the first one that really felt like it had been developed from the ground up for TV rather than smartphone or PC users: It’s graphically rich, incredibly straightforward and logical in its layout, easily customizable, slick to navigate and sensibly focussed on the sort of TV-centric apps most users actually want a TV to deliver.

These apps include (4K/HDR-capable) versions of Amazon and Netflix, Youtube, NowTV, plus all of the catch up services for the main terrestrial UK broadcasters courtesy of the Freeview Play service, which lets you search for shows you might have missed via an electronic program guide that scrolls back through time as well as forwards.

The latest version of webOS built into the OLED55C7 only really delivers a couple of relatively minor enhancements over previous versions: support for ‘360’ VR clips navigated by waving LG’s magic remote control around; and the option to use the number buttons on the remote control to directly access favorite apps. But there’s no need to fix something that isn’t broken.

Read the full review: LG OLED C7

The smart TV version of Roku both looks and acts like the platform used on streaming video devices like the Roku Ultra and Roku Premiere+: The Home section contains all the apps in your library, while My Feed tracks movies and TV shows you’re interested in and shows you where they can be found. We're also pretty big fans of Roku's universal search feature that rifles through 300+ apps to find movies and TV shows and displays them with the cheapest option first.

Overall, Roku TV is simple, efficient and straightforward enough for most people to pick up and use without a problem.

New for platform in 2017 is the ability to label inputs (labeling one input as Xbox or DVD Player instead of Input 1, etc…), some additional smartphone features and, for the first time, Dolby Vision support. Dolby Vision allows you to get the absolute most from the TV in terms of performance and while tracking down Dolby Vision content is a bit of a hassle, Roku does a good job highlighting all the available content in a new row in the 4K UHD Spotlight app.   

Read the full review: TCL P-Series 55P607

Sony Android TV

1. Sony: Android TV

It's official; Sony has the best smart TV platform for the year of 2017. The mere mention of the word Android in relation to a TV will automatically alienate half of all smartphone owners, but Sony is not alone in hoping that the other half will want to go Google in the living room.

Sharp and TP-Link's Philips have also joined Sony in embracing the Android TV OS from Google, so it's hardly an industry standard just yet, but Android TV is polished enough to put it in the running.

It's not just in TVs though, you'll find connected boxes, like the Nvidia Shield and Razer Forge TV sporting Google's TV OS too.

Unlike other new smart TV platforms, Android TV services are not built around icons along the bottom of the screen. Press the Home button on the remote and up pops a full-screen page that's dominated by a carousel of videos from YouTube and from Google Video.

Scan down and there's a row of Sony Select services (a mix of the main apps, such as Netflix and Amazon Instant, which naturally differ between Sony and another manufacturer like Philips), links to the Google Play Store, Google Play Music, Google Play Movies and TV, YouTube, Netflix and many more besides.

Further down is a list of the TV's inputs and settings; it's all fairly conservatively done.

Sony Android TVs are also unique in having some serious storage; 16GB is the default for 2017, which is far more than most smart TVs.

Owners of Android phones/tablets can use their device to control Android TVs via the TV SideView app, which comes complete with a plug-in for voice search, while Google Cast allows video and photos to be natively streamed to the TV (iOS users can download the AirBuddy app to Google Cast). Controllers from Logitech and Razer also promise console-less gaming.

However, aside from Android TV's interface exhaustive content that TVs from Sharp and Philips will match, there will soon be a Sony-only add-on. All UK Sony Android TVs now have built-in YouView services, too.

With Android TV and YouView, Sony has at last got smart TV right – thanks to Google.

Best for: content-grabbers

Five Sony TVs with Android TV:

Three Philips TVs with Android TV: 

Panasonic Firefox OS

2. Panasonic: My Home Screen 2.0

If you live in the UK, Panasonic's My Home Screen 2.0 is the best-looking and most easily customisable smart TV platform around.

Panasonic's smart TV interface has had a complete overhaul  (then known as Firefox OS) and the new interface has been renamed to My Home Screen 2.0, though it bears no resemblance to version 1.0 from 2014. 

Much like Samsung and LG, Panasonic has abandoned the concept of having a separate smart TV homepage in favor of pop-up icons. However, these colorful, circular and very large icons appear stretched across the middle of the screen in a dynamically responsive carousel.

It's simple stuff, with icons for my TV, apps, devices, inputs, and specific TV channels all presented. It's also by far the easiest smart TV interface to customize, with apps or services can be 'pinned' to the carousel in seconds.

There is also a Home page, but it's a lot less cluttered than in previous years, containing just 14 apps, though the range is still limited.

Up front is a link to Panasonic's apps market, alongside pre-loaded apps like Netflix, Amazon Instant, YouTube, AccuWeather, and links to the TV's internal features and services including a calendar, inputs, TV channels and a web browser provided by – you guessed it – Firefox.

However, it is a fairly basic browser.

Panasonic also has a UK-centric digital TV; the aging ace up its sleeve.

Just as Sony unleashed YouView to its Bravia TVs, the Viera instead got Freeview Play, which integrates catch-up TV services the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 into the core user interface.

Without Google Play, the My Home Screen 2.01 doesn't compare to Android TV on content, but Panasonic's OS is less prescriptive and much easier to customize. It's the best-looking, simplest smart TV interface yet.

Best for: your parents

Five Panasonic TVs with Firefox OS:

Best Smart TV

3. Samsung: Smart Hub and Tizen OS

It may still be called Smart Hub, but Samsung's smart TV platform for 2017 is completely new.

It's based around the Korean manufacturer's Tizen OS now being rolled-put on all of its gadgets. That may be so, but the layout of smart TV services bear more than a small than a passing resemblance to LG's webOS interface.

That's largely because icons, apps and shortcuts are all accessible via dynamic icons on a horizontal strip across the bottom of the screen.

Replacing the separate, rather boring grids of app icons from 2014, the Tizen interface monitors what you watch/use, suggests new sources, and allows some customization. A dynamically changing "Recent" box in the far-left corner cycles between recently used apps, TV channels etc.

A featured section in the centre promotes apps you haven't used lately, which can feel like irrelevant adverts, and they keep returning (Twitter on a TV?). This isn't based on your activity or habits, which is a shame.

However, the chance to customize the on-screen icons is the highlight; a sense of permanence is welcome when it comes to some AV inputs and key apps you use everyday.

This is all an effort to dodge clutter, and it mostly works well, though there are plenty of occasions when it's necessary to go hunting for a specific app. Thankfully that's made easier by a Smart Hub multimedia page that divvies-up content from apps and from your own USB sticks/home network.

In may no longer be front and centre, but there remains a Samsung Apps panel that lists all downloaded apps, too.

It may not have Freetime or Freeview Play, but what Samsung does boast is access to all UK catch-up TV apps; BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD, Demand 5 are all here, as is Netflix, Amazon Instant and YouTube. In fact, the only significant app that's missing from Smart Hub is Sky's Now TV.

In the US, there's Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, HBO Go / HBO Now, YouTube, Spotify and Vudu. (Want even more apps? Check out our 10 best Samsung Smart TV apps gallery.)

There are a few nice extras in the Tizen version of Smart Hub, too, such as a split-screen option for watching live TV while browsing an app, but Samsung's effort can't quote match Android TV or the Firefox OS.

Best for: Samsung phone owners

Five Samsung TVs with Tizen OS:

LG webOS

4. LG: WebOS

With the arrival of webOS in 2014 , LG's smart TV offering was completely refreshed. All LG smart TVs from 2014 and 2015 got webOS 2.0, and 2016 and 2017 saw the release of webOS 3.0.

That was then, but now you can expect to see webOS 3.5 here in 2017.

Much like Samsung's Smart Hub, webOS 3.5 is built around a taskbar that pops-up from the bottom of the screen. Apps, whether a content hub like Netflix or simply a HDMI input on the TV, are treated the same, with a dynamically changing roster across the bottom of the screen. The app icons pop-up, they jig about, they drop-down, and they change order.

It's fast – really fast – but locating something not on this Launcher Bar is actually very difficult. Nor is customising WebOS as easy as it could be.

Content-wise, it's pretty good, with a line-up that includes Netflix, Amazon Instant, Freeview Play, the BBC iPlayer, YouTube, the ITV Player, All 4 and Sky's Now TV.

For US folks there's your standard Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Google Play TV and Movies, as well as Hulu, VUDU, MLB.TV, and FandangoNow.

Unfortunately, as of webOS 3.5, Spotify is no longer available. 

There's a nice flicker panel for scrolling through 'live' sources and apps, and a Today panel across the middle of the screen that gives one-flick access to scrolling cover art for live TV programs and movies.

Dynamic, colourful, but often rather dizzying to use, WebOS is inconsistent in design and dynamics, and takes a while to get to know; all but the tech-savvy can find themselves baffled.

Best for: the tech-savvy

Five LG TVs with webOS:

Best Smart TV platforms

5. TCL, Sharp, Hisense, Haier: Roku TV

But while webOS and Android TV are established players in the TV space, there's a new kid on the block that wants to shake up the industry: Roku TV.

Announced back in 2014 for TCL TVs, Roku TV has quickly grown into the go-to pick for many of the low-cost TV manufacturers. In 2017, you can find Roku TV on some Haier, Hisense, Insignia, Sharp and TCL TV models with more partnerships in the works for next year.

We're already up to Roku OS 7.5 which brings live TV pausing to the table, alongside the dedicated 4K Channel for anyone with a UHD screen.

As a platform, Roku TV borrows the interface and feature set from the company's set-top boxes, the Roku 2, Roku 3, Roku 4 and Roku Streaming Stick.

What that means is that you'll find a robust universal search function that will scan over 30 different apps like Netflix, Google Play TV and Movies, Amazon, VUDU and more to find you the lowest price on the TV show or movie you want to watch, as well as around 4,500 channels of content to watch.

Add to that some neat features like a dedicated app that helps you keep track of upcoming movies and TV shows via the My Feed section and a private listening mode when you want to watch TV without disturbing the whole house, and you have all the trimmings of a very bright up-and-coming star.

Best for: the binge-watcher

Two TVs with Roku TV:

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