The Android TV home screenSmart TV’s are a fickle thing. With viewers watching a few hours on the tube a day, current panels will last over ten years. However, it’s very rare in the consumer electronics world for a device to be updated that long. A laptop released in 2006 can get the upgrade to Windows 10, but it probably won’t run very well unless the internal components have been replaced at some point.
Google has had its own fickle history in the living room. Google TV was released in 2010 on set top boxes and on TV’s themselves, and received mixed reviews. In 2013, Google released the Chromecast, a simple and cheap device to stream videos to your TV. Due to the Chromecast’s simplicity and price, it soon became very popular. In 2014, Google TV was officially killed (after being on life support for a few years), and the replacement Android TV was announced. Android TV includes native Google Cast support, as well as access to games and apps from the Google Play Store.
My previous TV was doing its job just fine, but while the 32-inch screen sufficed when I live in a dormitory, it became too small to have in my apartment when I had guests over for movie night. As far as “smarts”, my Xbox 360 (and then Xbox One) sufficed for Netflix, Hulu, and DVD’s. I soon found out that large screen non-smart TV’s don’t really exist, so I figured I’d get one with smarts.
This immediately led me to a TV running Android TV for one reason: native Chromecast support. Every other Smart TV platform is also going to have access to Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, but being able to easily look up a YouTube clip on my phone and have it play on the TV is magical.
I’ve been using Sharp’s LC-80UE30 TV for the past six months, and as the name implies it is an 80-inch model. Go big or go home and all that. The panel supports up to 4K resolution and a refresh rate up to 120hz. I don’t have any 4K content, but even old material (such as MASH) looks great thanks to the super high refresh rate.
The Android TV interface is designed around a “Leanback” experience and 10-feet viewing distances, so icons are nice and large. Truth be told, it reminds me a bit of the Xbox One’s interface, which makes sense. No matter what app you’re going to open, it doesn’t take long to navigate through all the icons and find what you’re going for.
Browsing content from my external hard drive using MXPlayer ProThe TV includes numerous built in applications: Netflix, Google Play Store, Play Music and Play Movies, YouTube, and a Sharp built media browser. The set includes two USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 ports, and it can recognize external hard drives up to 1TB. You can also take a larger hard drive and partition it into 1TB chunks, and each individual partition will be recognized by the TV. It does take a few minutes for the system to index the drive and see all your files, so keep that in mind when you’re watching something off a hard drive. If you don’t care for the design of Sharp’s media browser, third party apps such as MX Player and VLC can be installed to view media instead. For best results, use an external drive with it’s own power cable, and use as short a USB cable as you can find. Sharp’s media browser also supports streaming music and other media over DLNA, if you have a compatible device to send the media.
Since the TV has access to the Google Play Store, you can install any game or app that has incorporated a TV-style design. Purchases transfer over with no issue: I was able to install the paid version of MX Player and a couple games (more on those later) without having to pay any additional money. There are also a healthy amount of news providers, music services, and different sports options. This isn’t necessarily the fault of either this TV or Android TV as an OS, but Hulu’s Android TV app is hot garbage. The interface of the app works well enough, but every time I’d try to watch a show in the app, I’d watch an ad or two, then get only the audio from the episode I was watching. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling the Hulu app, the problem was still present. Fortunately, Casting from the Hulu app (or any app that has Cast support) works just fine.
The Play Store, showing some news providersThe remote the TV ships with is basic, but gets the job done. Despite the Android TV OS supporting voice input, the remote itself doesn’t have a microphone to take advantage of this feature. The only noteworthy buttons on the remote are all at the bottom: a dedicated Netflix key and three favorite keys. The Netflix key launches the Netflix app no matter what else you’re currently doing, but more often than not the Netflix app crashed when I opened it with this key, so I don’t use it anymore. The three favorite keys can only be programmed to open any of the built in apps. The Android TV remote app lets you control the TV from your phone, but only works when the TV is already on. The TV also supports universal remotes such as Logitech’s Harmony line.
The included remote. The Netflix button is almost useless.*The TV connects to the Internet over either Wi-Fi or through the Ethernet port on the rear. I use the Ethernet port just for added stability, and Google Cast still works even when the TV is using Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi. While it is often faster to send a video over Google Cast, you’re going to get the highest quality video by using the app on the TV itself.
For gaming needs, the TV supports Bluetooth accessories such as controllers, keyboards and mice. The processor isn’t going support graphically intense games, but I was able to play Grand Theft Auto San Andreas without any stuttering. I was able to connect a friend’s PlayStation 4 controller with no issues, though the controls themselves didn’t correspond to the buttons on the controller (there’s no A or B button). If you intend to game on your Android TV, The NVIDIA SHIELD Console is probably your best bet, since it has the hardware necessary for high demand games.
The Android TV Remote app.*Other odds and ends include 4 HDMI ports, pretty good built in speakers, a 3.5mm headphone jack for your own sound bar, two different positions for the feet (one with each foot closer to the middle of the TV, and one with the feet on the edge), and a cable jack.
Now onto the problem plaguing all Smart TV’s: updates. While Google announced some great new features for Android TV at their developer conference a few weeks ago, this TV will most likely never get those. The TV is still based on the Android Lollipop release, first rolled out in 2014. Apps themselves will continue to be updated with new features, and truth be told as long as the few apps I use and Google Cast still work, I’m not too worried about getting new features.
Basic things like Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices can be managed inside the Settings app, but more functional items like display/audio settings and parental controls are within the separate TV setup menu. Besides the brightness, I haven’t bothered touching any of these settings, but if you like to tweak things to be just right the option is there.
With shipping, the TV cost me around $3,900. It was a big purchase, but it’s something that I’ll keep around for a very long time. The 80-inch screen is comically large in my current apartment, but I didn’t buy it with my current setup in mind. I wanted something that would work five years from now when I could potentially be in a house with a lot of people over for movie nights. In the meantime, I’ve got a tape measure if I decide to switch apartments. If you’re looking to save either space or money, the 70-inch model (Sharp Aquos LC-70UE30) is available for $2,800 and the 60-inch model (Sharp Aquos LC-60UE30) is $1,300. As I alluded to before, the main appeal for this TV for me is the size. Android TV is definitely a nice bonus, and it’s not just exclusive to Sharp: Sony also makes TV’s with Android TV built in. If you aren’t in the market for a brand new TV, you can pick up the aforementioned NVIDIA Shield TV if you need powerful gaming hardware, or Google’s own Nexus Player if you just need a simple box.
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