My Android TV broke this year and I won’t be buying a new one for a while

I bought the 50-inch Sony Bravia W950D Android TV five years ago. To say it was an excellent TV for its time is an understatement. Sony’s Triluminos LCD was one of the best on the market at the time. The set even included a connected soundbar, and being an Android TV, it naturally brought the power of the Google Play Store and extensive library of TV apps, including Plex, Kodi, YouTube, Netflix and the works. At the time, the TV cost around $1,400 here in India, and since I got a decent discount on it, I was pretty happy with the whole deal. It was my first real one SmartTV experience after upgrading a 27-inch BenQ to monitor which I used with a Fire TV Stick for streaming and Klipsch Pro Media speakers for audio.

When the Sony TV came into my life, I thought I was all in with Android TVs for life. Five years later, the TV broke and I’m convinced I don’t want Android TV anymore. At least in the near future, given the state of affairs.

In the time I spent with Sony’s once top-notch LCD display, it suffered multiple hardware problems. Within two years the motherboard broke. Replacing it cost me an arm and a leg, but I was so committed to the Android TV experience that I went ahead and got the thing fixed without creating a huge stink about the whole ordeal.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and the panel gave up for good. Since Sony no longer produces the set, the TV is now obsolete and hangs lifeless on my wall, reminding me of the good few years I spent with it, but the many, many frustrating years that followed.

It is important to understand that the lifespan of a smart TV in your living room is not what you think. It’s not like Grandma’s old box set that’s helped her through most of her life and part of yours. An LCD TV can provide 50,000 viewing hours, i.e. its lifespan lasts between four and five years (if it’s on all the time), while a LED panel can last up to six years. OLEDs are believed to have longer life thanks to newer technology and better hardware, but my problem with my old Sony TV or any current Android TV on the market isn’t the longevity of the screen technology. It’s something completely different; it’s the horrible software update experience.

When I bought the Sony TV, it was included android marshmallow out of the box. Within a year it was updated to Nougat, and I was pretty kicked that Sony kept up with Google’s annual Android TV releases. The next update didn’t come for a while, meaning I didn’t get Android 8 on my Sony TV until 2020, the year Google released Android 11 for TVs.

At the time, I saw the gradual decline of the Sony TV as the user interface became unbearably slow, app crashes became more frequent, and other random software bugs went unresolved. This was really not what I expected from an expensive smart TV. No doubt the picture quality remained intact until the TV’s last breath, but the software experience was subpar, to say the least.

Even today, in 2022, Android TV makers aren’t committed to lengthy software updates on their most coveted televisions. Whether it’s Sony at the top of the pyramid or other brands like Xiaomi, TCL or Hisense, it’s almost impossible to find information on how many updates these smart TVs get when you buy them. The reason is that hardly any Android TV maker promises a fixed number of software updates. I only remember OnePlus commit up to three years of updates to its Android TVs in 2019. But the flagship brands, as well as other low-cost Android TV manufacturers, have remained largely silent on updates.

Related: The best smart TVs to buy in 2022

As if an absolute lack of commitment isn’t bad enough, these brands don’t provide adequate and timely updates in the first place. My expensive Sony TV has only received two updates in its five-year life. Some newer sets may get three updates, if you’re lucky, at what snail’s pace the brand that makes them decides to roll them out. That’s probably not enough.

Unlike a smartphone, a TV is a long-term technical investment. It’s a big gadget that no one buys every year or two. In fact, I’m pretty sure people don’t buy a new smart TV until their existing one stops working. If you invest more than a thousand dollars in a television, you can expect at least a four to five year update commitment to match the life of the panel. Without it, these TVs become an absolute pain to use.

When my Android TV’s UI started crawling to its knees, the only thing that saved me was a Fire TV stick. This cheap streaming dongle gave my multi-thousand dollar TV a second life. Spent the last few years with a streaming stick plugged into the back of my Sony TV, giving me a smooth interface, everything I needed streaming appsvoice input capabilities and an upgrade promise that I knew wouldn’t squeeze my wallet.

There are several reasons to recommend Android streaming boxes over Android TVs. First, they are not that expensive and therefore easier to replace when their lifespan is exhausted. Secondly, the devices I mentioned above get much more Android updates than actual Android TV devices. This is how the 4K Chromecast runs with Google TV Android 12 with an October-level security patch now. The Nvidia Shield TV is the epitome of longevity. Heck, the 2015 Shield TV now runs Android 11 as well. That’s an example of a powerful Android TV set-top box here that’s older than my Android TV, but still feels newer.

I also have a 55-inch LG B9 OLED, which I’ve been using for the past three years. It’s constantly getting software updates, probably because LG makes its own webOS, and the UI hasn’t slowed down since I got it. I sincerely appreciate that LG even provides a handy one online source to maintain software updates and changelogs for all of its major TV models. While the TV, the screen, magic remoteand everything else about it is great, it doesn’t have a huge library of apps or the ability to do that sideload stuff.

However, if and when I want the power of the full Google Play Store on my LG TV, I’ll just grab an Android TV stick or box instead of a full-fledged TV with Android TV. I’d hate to not have Sony’s gorgeous screen up my woman’s hole, but until Android TV OEMs fix the update issue, I’ll stay away.