Smart TV for a dumb person

Most of the TV watch now is streamed through a Roku box.  I'm thinking of getting a new TV and want to know if there are any types/brands i should avoid or features I should be looking for.

Although it's hard to find one, I suggest getting a dumb TV and keeping the external box.  The seamless interface that a smart TV offers is nice, but having both hardwares in one box is asking for obsolescence.  

Having said that, I have a TCL/Roku TV and it has been fantastic.  But to my point above, there was one firmware update that caused a glitch and rendered the entire thing useless for a week or so until they got it fixed.  I couldn't even watch a DVD.  If I had a separate Roku box, I could have still used the TV for other things (air channels, DVDs, etc) until they got it fixed.

You're not exactly close to me (central PA), but I'm actually selling mine.  55", HDR, 4KUHD, TCL/Roku, 2 years old.  There is nothing wrong with it, I just switched to a projector.  If you happen to find yourself in the area, come gimme some money for it.  It even has a wall mount system already attached.

Instead of buy a dumb tv, just dont pay extra for a smart tv. A fire tv stick is cheap. Finding a good dumb tv is like looking for a new good car with crank windows.

Even if you get a smart TV, you can continue to use the external Roku via an HDMI port.

I got a Vizio smart TV and found out that it has a weird proprietary interface that is honestly a PITA-  so I use an external Roku stick on it and skip the smart TV stuff  

We like a lot of things about our $200 Samsung smart TV better than we did the Roku stick we were using before, but it's also got some ridiculous issues.

It falls off the network frequently, and the "troubleshoot" option is maddeningly slower and less reliable than rebooting, which we do multiple times a day.

You get the Netflix app startup noise happening randomly while watching other apps, or while the TV is "off" (it's never really off).

It's still so much nicer to use that I call it an upgrade, but I doubt we'd do another Samsung without looking at other makes. Would consider trying a higher-model Roku device, or if they're near as cheap, one of their TVs. Not being large TV people in relative terms, the thing was so cheap it didn't make sense to try to find a comparable dumb one and pay more for a dongle.

RossD said:

Instead of buy a dumb tv, just dont pay extra for a smart tv. A fire tv stick is cheap. Finding a good dumb tv is like looking for a new good car with crank windows.

They are surprisingly close in price.  There is also something to be said for the reliability of crank windows, but I get your point.

But you have to be careful.  Just like with a cell phone, if you are getting it something for cheap or nothing, it's being paid for by ads, bloatware, and other things.  Some time you should actually read the user agreement for the Firestick.  That's one of the reasons I like the Roku platform.  My Samsung smart blu-ray is jam packed full of every possible subscription app on the planet.   Sure, Roku still probes your brainwaves, but at least they do it gently instead of a 3/8" drill bit like some of them.

I have a Vizio V505-G9 that I bought late last year. It has a bunch of apps built in. The TV itself is great but like what OHSCrifle said, the interface sucks.

Conversely, I also got a Roku Streaming Stick+ at the same time. I think I got a bad one because it overheats frequently despite performing all of the "fixes" I found online. If I want to watch more than a few shows in a row, I have to restart it because it locks up.

The TV apps have never locked up or failed. YMMV and all that.

We recently got an LG OLED 55".  It wasn't cheap, but the picture quality is astounding.  The interface is decent, not as good as our Apple TV but not aggravating.  It's so good that some family who was here is returning a tv they just bought to go get one of these.