I have an Amazon Fire TV. Not the stick; the TV literally has Fire OS built into it. I got it back a while ago... maybe around 7 years at this point? Either way, the TV has been unbearably slow for years at this point. I love the TV itself; the color and sound are good for the unbelievable price I got it for on Prime Day all those years ago, but the actual TV software interface is basically unusable. Just trying to click from one box on the home grid to another has multiple seconds of lag. It is just infuriating when you want to watch something fast.
Now that TV can be considered 'old', but my brother has a Samsung TV from 2021. Again, this isn't an expensive TV, but also it has been plagued by software that is just soul-crushingly slow. There is just no excuse for this. It's gotten to the point to where I wish Smart TVs didn't exist and we just used external boxes.
I almost only use the Apple TV for watching stuff. A big reason is the Apple ecosystem support for my AirPods, but it is just fast. One of my Apple TVs is years old and guess what? It's lightning fast, and I expect it to continue to be lightning fast for probably another decade. Of course, paying $130–150 for an Apple TV might seem insane, but to me, the price is well worth it. The Apple TV is an amazing box, but that is a blog for another time. Literally any external box, from Roku to a Google TV, is better.
Heck! Even using a Fire Stick is better because then you can just replace it with a newer model as time goes on. The TV? You are going to have to get a whole new TV if you don't want to suffer through the software that holds it hostage.
I guess TV manufacturers really make decent money on the ads they show on their TV software (which is another huge annoyance for me personally), because why even bother making a Smart TV? I find most people just pick out TVs from stores like Best Buy or Costco because they want to see the TV. If they like it, they can get a TV box on the way out; a cheap Roku is worth the same as a trip or two for some coffee or fast food. But no, TV manufacturers put all this work and hardware into a TV so it can run their OS, only for it to become too slow to even run that OS in a couple of years unless you pay for the top-spec TV with a better processor. So, they are basically creating mandatory e-waste in 5 years' time, is my guess.
Even if you like your TV OS, it might get an update that makes you hate it. Like LG webOS was a beloved TV OS—a reason to almost buy the LG over anything else. But LG put Copilot on everyone's TV and they were pissed. Which is fair; I didn't ask for this on my TV. I paid for this TV, so I own it. Why are you messing with it?
All I want a TV to be is a screen with some speakers and the ability to just manage multiple inputs to that screen. I need it to be nothing else. I can pay for a box that can do everything I want and for it to do it better. But I guess this is a dream now.