It may be about time to buy only dumb monitors, and buy the television tuner portion as a separate box, if you even still need one.

Of all the television sets I have owned since 1985, the native tuner included inside the device has been used maybe 2% of the time. The only advantage I have ever seen from buying a display screen as a television set is that it comes with speakers loud enough to hear from across a large room, and has as many as six different input ports. None of the screens I now own currently decode their own NTSC/ATSC/QAM signals.

My first "smart" TV was also my last, because LG made it obsolete within months of me buying it. Now it also functions only as a dumb screen, and is not allowed on my home network. Never again.

You don't need a smart television now. You don't even need a television. You need a monitor with HDMI inputs and speakers.

I went down this path a few years ago. You're right, but monitors of size X tend to be much more expensive than TVs of size X. At least they did a few years ago.

Monitors are less expensive at small sizes, I think. But otherwise I would agree.

And at this point, I would be willing to pay slightly more to not pack stuff into the case that I don't want, which may negatively impact the features that I do want.

And if you want a DisplayPort input in lieu of one of the HDMI sockets, that seems to add at least $30 to an otherwise identical monitor, even though DisplayPort is royalty-free. There does seem to be an attempt to segment the market to charge more for displays connected to a computer than for displays connected to a home entertainment appliance.

At larger sizes, I think the assumption is that if you don't have a TV tuner, you're attaching it to a computer, and if you do, you're not. And that breaks down at smaller sizes, where resolution and pixel pitch become an issue for computing, but less so for consoles and DVD players.

I use the tuner, but, on the other hand, some budget TVs don't even have them. But like the other guy said, I haven't seen a lot of great deals on 65" monitors.

For large sizes like that, I think you may be able to get good deals on a sort of larger dumb monitor that is used in airports to display flight information, and to a lesser extent rotating decks of static advertisements. They aren't typically sold direct to consumers. I'm not sure whether their pixel response times are good enough for regular entertainment video streams, though.

I haven't done much digging on this, since 40" is plenty for the longest line-of-sight possible in my house.

Yeah, that sounds pretty not-worth it to me.

Maybe...? It is certainly the case that many non-smart TVs are focused on the signage industry. They might be brighter and more saturated than a conventional TV. They might be less capable of displaying smooth motion. On the other hand, they're built to be somewhat more sturdy and with more professional features. They have additional mounting features, serial port controls, and the build quality to run 24/7.

I'm using an NEC E-series 55" commercial display as my TV and gaming monitor. It's not a great TV, but it is solid and it's way better than the one it replaced.

Do you have to configure it?

If it's never connected to the network....

I don't think so

This is vague; inferior panels vs what? Smart TVs? Monitors? Projectors?

I thought the meaning was clear. The good panels are put in smart TVs and not non-smart ones, so even if you have no interest in using smart features the smart TV may be a better choice.

Exactly. If you want an OLED TV, you get a smart TV whether you want that or not. I’d rather buy a dumb TV, but that’s becoming less of an option for higher end TVs.

Can't you turn a smart TV into a dumb TV?