Samsung g8 monitor, ive been pining to upgrade my 1080p monitor and thought id go full hug with oled, 4k and higher frame rate (170hz apposed to my previous 144hz),
first cardinal sin: polystyrene packaging.
Second: its apparently smart which I'm taking to mean they added pointless software to it so to extract long term profit from users, have brand deals with streaming company's and to artificially age a product.
I can see a smart TVs making sense, its essentially the evolution of the TV, in general, they started with big antennas and now they have smaller internal antennas, changes to broadcasting has allowed for this.
But a monitor something that has always relied on a secondary system to function now has smart features, why the fuck call it a monitor? Its surely a tv at that point.
Although my disappointment goes further than just the smart aspect, I'd be okay if there was a non intrusive app store, but no the controls have 4 dedicated buttons I will never use, prime video, netflix, Disney plus and Samsung TV plus. If I were to ever use these services I would do so through my PC, or if I had a games console (media centre) I would use that, which then posses the question of what's the point? Did they have old android PCBs laying about the factory and thought fuck it,..
Next issue is how Samsung want me to connect to the internet, its easy to press no to connecting, the issue come from hardware maintenance which is especially important with oled. Oleds degrade quite fast, if I left the monitor on for a day with windows desktop white theme constantly displaying I may run into burn in, so most oled monitors/TVs have corrective software that'll run on command or scheduled, most of these monitors also report its history of corrective operations but Samsung demands I download an app on my phone to view this information.
Why can't tech just be one thing, now everything has to be some kind of Swiss army knife.
Edit: thought I'd look at this app (SmartThings) to see how good/bad it is, download the app and permissions aren't too bad although I dont like that Samsung wants my location, anyway ive two option: top right sign in, centre get started, I click get started and get pulled from the app to my browser met with a message
"Browser not supported
Samsung account can only be used with the following browsers:
- Samsung Internet
- Chrome
- Firefox
- QQ Browser
- UC Browser
- Sogou Browser
- 360 Browser
- Safari
- Chromium
- Brave
- Microsoft Edge"
I am using chromium on android... This is just ridiculous. Plus a redflag to Samsung needing me to be connected to the internet whilst using the application which uses Bluetooth to connect to the monitor.
Another edit: multi screen is locked, I can't use two inputs simultaneously to create a split screen unless I connect to the internet. Ridiculous. I had this capability back in 2016 with my old lg ultra wide and now my hardware functionality is locked because I am choosing to stay offline.
Who can I go to in the UK for anti consumer practice's?
I can't help but wonder why you bought this monitor since you're clearly not interested in many of its features?
Price, it was the cheapest ultra wide oled I was able to find. Reviews I watched focused on technical details and skimmed over the things like inclusion of buttons for streaming services
The smart TV stuff I could look passed maybe even see as a good thing if done right but then noticing that a smart TV wants me to install a separate application onto my smart phone to view information that should already be featured on the monitor is a joke.
And the reason for that is that it's subsidized by all the garbage.
Not at all, I bought heavily discounted, its the most expressive monitor compared to others using the same panel (outside of discount) bought open unused.