Samsung finds itself in a hole. And keeps digging.
by Volker Weber
SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. is quietly adding more advertisements to its Internet-connected televisions as it seeks new revenue sources for its struggling TV business.
The world’s largest maker of TVs by shipments added new tile ads to the main menu bar of its premium TVs in the U.S. in June 2015 and is planning to expand the program to Europe in coming months, people familiar with the matter said.
When I discovered that my Samsung Smart TV was installing crapware, I should have taken it back to the store. Since I didn't, it is a constant reminder to never buy anything with a Samsung logo.
Comments
If "never buy anything" includes tablets (which I presume it does), what's your tablet brand of preference running Android?
I do not recommend buying Android tablets, since there are hardly any apps designed to work on tablets. View any review for the Pixel and you see what I mean. If you just want to watch Youtube videos, any cheap Android tablet will do.
I relabeled ours Samsung Dumb TV and attached an Amazon Fire TV to increase its IQ.
Michael, I should add that I have two favorite tablets for watching media. One runs on Android: the Lenovo Yoga Tab 3 Pro. It does have its shares of software issues but it provides a very usable DLP projector. The other one is the iPad Pro. Both have great speakers.
1. Smart TV is pretty stupid across all brands. Period. We recently bought a LG TV and have been amazed about the inability of sorting channels...
Leads to https://github.com/planetexpress69/ChannelSorter-OSX
2. Only Samsung device we own is a fridge. It's surprisingly good!
Coincidence, coincidence. I'm just upgrading the firmware of our Samsung TV, because it resetted itself continously while watching tv. After a short research on that issue, I came to the conclusion that this is a software malfunction: it is unable to reach the update servers that have been shut down due to product discontinuation.
Luckily there is an update available for our model - if not, you'll need to disable network access for the TV to get rid of that annoyance.
After paying over 4000 € for a TV I was very upset with the crap Samsung is pulling. This will be my last Samsung TV I buy. Nice way to alienate your user base! I did give the TV a fixed address and block that in my firewall so at least I am not getting any new updates :o)
Surely it won't be long before there are ad-blocker apps for smart TV's :-) And then even smarter TV's to unblock the ad-blockers.
Better get myself a new fridge before they start connecting them to the IoT too...
For tablets, China is gaining ground on the market with the Windows 10/Android dual boot tablets with reasonably higher specs at the same price than what is available in Europe. The Cube iWork and Teclast brands are two examples of this.
