I will never buy a curved TV again

I was so excited when it came time for me to buy my first TV, and I unfortunately let that excitement get away from me a little bit.I ended up with the opportunity to get a fairly new curved Samsung TV for an absolute bargain.Back then, the technology was still new, and I got swept up in all the marketing jargon.

I didn't know that it would end up making watching TV in my living room so incredibly frustrating.Add How-To Geek on Google Add as Preferred Source Follow on Google Discover There were tons of reasons why my curved TV irritated me.The worst part of all, however, was that I wasn't getting any of the claimed benefits either.

I ended up eventually swapping it out for a flat screen, one that was actually a little bit smaller, and I have never looked back.Curved TVs just don't make sense for most people The list of cons far outweighs any pros When I bought my curved TV, I got it at a really great price for how new it was and how big it was.It was a great size for my living room and in good condition.

I knew that the format meant that I would be making some trade-offs, but I thought that they would be pretty easy to live with.My naïveté cost me, though, and I had to put up with its flaws for an annoyingly long period of time before I eventually replaced it.No matter how cheap I find one now, I will never make the same mistake again.

The biggest reason that the curved display annoyed me was the issues with the viewing angle.These are pretty common complaints when it comes to curved TVs.They feature a really narrow sweet spot, and if you sit anywhere outside of that sweet spot, you get a noticeably distorted image.

This makes them particularly awful if you have a group of people trying to watch something.I also basically had to watch TV in as dark a room as possible.Because of the curve in the display, ambient light would stretch across the entirety of the display.

If I had the curtains in the living room open, it was nigh impossible to see anything on the screen.Even lamps in the room made things difficult.While I'm not the biggest fan of wall-mounting a TV, it's another disadvantage of the curved platform.

It just looks really awkward.I didn't really feel like I was experiencing any of the claimed advantages either I guess I needed a bigger screen The whole point of curved TVs is that they were supposed to make things more immersive.The curve was meant to make it feel like the image was wrapping around you.

Even when I made the room dark and sat in the direct center of the TV, I still didn't really feel like I was experiencing the level of immersion that manufacturers said I was supposed to feel.This wasn't something that I was imagining either.The claim that curved TVs offered better levels of immersion was mostly a marketing gimmick.

For the curve in the display to have any effect, you would either have to sit ridiculously close to the screen or have a massive TV.For the average person, sitting an average distance away from their TV, even a 75-inch screen, would be too small to really have any advantage.With my 55-inch curved TV, once I started watching something, my brain would basically tune the curve of the screen out, and it felt like a normal flat screen.

Even manufacturers have all given up on curved TVs Curved displays do still have their place, though Close While you might see quite a few curved TVs on used marketplaces, you likely haven't seen a new one on display or advertised in quite a while.That is because manufacturers have essentially ditched the format.No matter how cheap the TV, I will stay far away, and you're probably best off doing the same.

Buyers like myself have realized that the format failed to provide any real benefit to the viewing experience; curved displays were just too expensive to make sense to TV manufacturers.Bending LED and OLED panels was difficult and expensive.It made mass production fairly difficult, and because demand stayed low, most manufacturers simply decided to ditch the curve.

Where curved displays do make sense, however, is in your monitor.With monitors being so close to your eyes, the curve really does work.While I will never buy a curved TV again, I love my curved monitor, and it makes watching movies and playing games that much more entertaining.

Buying that used curved TV is a big mistake Manufacturers used to discuss curved TVs like they were the next big innovation and that they would take over the market.They have mostly become relics, except on the used market, where you can still find quite a few for sale.While some might seem appealing and priced well, know that you're going to be fighting lighting and viewing angles constantly.

A flat TV screen just makes more sense in almost every use case.