What Display Daily thinks: I have been waiting some time for another voice to talk about TV interfaces so that it wouldn’t just come across as a personal gripe. The reviewer below pans Panasonic and lauds LG, Samsung, and Roku. I would say that LG and Samsung have confusing, not so great, and outdated setups, menus, and user interfaces, too, but a lot more money and design savvy. I wouldn’t include Roku in that list because it has been able to approach the user from a different perspective, and has conquered the design of the perfect remote. Doesn’t seem fair to everyone else.
LG, Samsung, and Panasonic, like all other TV vendors, are coming at the user head on with their own implementations of user experience. Even when the implementations are good, the variety of remote controls, and hardware setup screens ends up being frustrating and annoying and archaic.
Roku actually touts the simplicity of its remote as part of the package. And it is standardized across all of its devices. You want to know why Roku is so good? The remote. You don’t notice the screens, their boxiness, and the fact that they look like they were designed in Powerpoint. The remote is your interface. The rest is at its service.
Every TV manufacturer can learn from that. It’s all because you can’t throw all your expectations of configuration and customization at the user. Even Apple has struggled with the problem of addressing TV watchers, the company’s TV Plus is not a great experience and its improvements have been incrementally meh. It just tries too hard to appear cool and sophisticated, but sometimes, most times, all anyone wants is to just watch TV. You get the feeling that Apple is too good for someone to plop on a couch to use their software. Maybe that’s why the company spent so much marketing budget trying to push the Vision Pro for users sitting on a couch and wanting to watch TV. Makes total sense.
It isn’t rocket science. And it doesn’t need a committee to design a good interface. Heck, give me a couch, some decent sandwich material, and a big screen, and I’ll show you myself. From remote to menus. Make it easier to just watch TV.
A Great 4K OLED TV and an Appalling Platform
Tech Radar has a review that deserves some attention. It’s about the Panasonic MZ2000. The TV itself delivers phenomenal picture and sound quality, which had the reviewer thinking it could be the perfect TV. However, the smart TV platform and menus proved to be a major letdown.
The reviewer noticed that navigating the MZ2000’s menus had noticeable lag between commands and on-screen actions. The settings menus in particular looked dated and ugly compared to the high-end status of the television. The reviewer described the network settings and connections menus as something that looked straight out of Windows 98. It’s not hard to see how he arrived at that conclusion.
As a result, the MZ2000’s smart TV experience felt completely out of touch for a premium 4K OLED model. The focus on customization options was good in theory, but clumsy execution made actually using those features frustrating. However, the reviewer also said, rival LG OLED TVs running webOS provide smooth, quick menus and an intuitive smart platform. Samsung and Roku TV operating systems were also called out as being more user-friendly and accessible compared to Panasonic’s dated menus. That isn’t necessarily everyone’s experience but maybe right in comparison to the Panasonic interface.
The reviewer clearly thought the MZ2000’s smart interface was agonizing to use and really held back the television despite its otherwise stellar performance. The interface prevented the MZ2000 from being the perfect premium TV it could be. That’s a heck of a statement to make. The make or break on a TV purchase is not the colors, brightness, or screen size, but the fact that given all those are satisfactory, it’s not a great experience to turn it on and find something to watch.
