That’s a tough one, I’ve had the same TV since I was 4 (17 now). It’s probably exactly what your friend is looking for (no internet connection, has ports for HDMI, SCART, and the red-white-yellow cables), but it’s pretty old so I don’t imagine it’s being sold anymore.

It’ll break at some point, despite my wishes, so I’ll end up dealing with this question soon enough

LG OLED for a main tv. Anything less is meh.

Sony Bravia. Because I just did this last year. My old TV was also a Bravia, and it lasted about 15 years. One big selling feature for me was that you can set it up as either a smart TV, or a ‘basic’ TV that doesn’t require an Internet connection and doesn’t pester you for one.

If you really like to watch television, the you can’t go wrong with the Carnivalé.

I’d buy an HDMI monitor instead of a TV, I guess. Why a new one though? There are tons of super cheap ones at goodwill stores.

LG OLED. You can find last year’s models at some price clubs. I’ve seen the 65” C4 for like $1100 which is great.

LG or Samsung, but the model matters too. If you’re on a budget, there are some solid TCL options

Whatever RTings recommends.

I wouldn’t get a television. I would get a monitor. No UI. No smart features. Just a black square that had HDMI inputs.

If you really want to watch OTA TV, you can buy box tuners that connect to the HDMI. Usually with DVR capability.

It will cost more. Like…a LOT more. But thats just what regular TVs used to cost back in the 90s. You wanted a bigscreen tv? $800 then, which would be like $2,000 now. And “big screen” was like 55 inch. Though it was a 4:3 ratio. So 55 inch then wold be more like 70 inch now in a 16:9 ratio.

For sure, never ever connect it to the internet.

Samsung equipment is pretty good, and to some degree the larger companies subsidize the cost of the TV with the assumption that you’ll connect it and give them data to sell. So while a large monitor might be more expensive, there’s a reason why. Unless your friend actually gets over the air TV stations, consider a large monitor, then Samsung and LG.

I dont see it mentioned here, but I went with a 75" Spectre earlier this year. I had a 40" Spectre that was given to me third- hand, and I only replaced it because it was too small for the new place I moved into. Spectre doesn’t seem to even offer smart TV, and I wanted to support that decision. The only potential downside that you may see is the lack of a 4k offering, but that wasn’t something I care about.

LG, the quality is really great, just have a few issues with CEC on my Nvidia Shield Pro.

I was kind of expecting the comments to be the way they are, which is nice.

Preferably a TV with no smart features.

Or just take the cheapest option and never connect it to the internet.

I bought a hisense tv last year, you can run advtv to cripple its ability to phone home and disable stuff, then install projectivy launcher to bypass all the other bullshit.

Sony also was an option for that.

I spent months on Rtings looking up ratings, pricing, checking out tv sub’s and i came to the conclusion that you have 2 options.

1. spend $1500+ and get a Sony TV, the model doesn’t really matter as they are all better than their counterparts. I wanted MiniLED- but they were about $2,000.

2. Go the budget route and get a Hisense/TCL TV for $600-800 and use the other $1000 you saved for a home theatre system/ 4k player, etc.

LG makes great OLED’s, but you do need to be aware of burn in if you watch lots of news channels. Also the pricing is much higher and the technology for Mini LED’s is getting much better every year.

Avoid ALL Samsung TV’s as they are poorly made and will break quickly like all other samsung products.

I have a TCL 6 series Mini LED and love it. It has Dolby Vision, little glare, and it’s bright AF (not sure of the NIT rating). I also have a hisense U75 series mini LED and the picture quality is fantastic. The OS is buggy and it freezes, crashes every month or so. But both my TCL and Hisense have buggy OS’s and freeze randomly, just the cost of a cheaper TV.

I didn’t have my TCL hooked up to the internet for a couple years and used my computer for everything. Then i realized my computer cannot process 4k with HDR, so i connected them to the internet and set up Plex and they both look fantastic with 4k HDR, HDR10, or Dolby Vision.

Their build in speakers are the worst i have ever heard, even the Hisense with it’s supposed 2.1 speaker setup, they both sound horrible and you WILL need a good AV home theatre setup, or at the very least, a good quality soundbar.