Buy Westinghouse 50-inch Smart TV, 4K UHD Xumo TV w/ HDR10, Voice
Remote, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, Edgeless, Flat Screen LED
Television w/Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay, Wi-Fi & Mobile
Connectivity: LED & LCD TVs - desertcart.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY
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Review: I wanted a "dumb" TV but this "smart" TV is pretty good!
- The backlight on my 15-year-old 42" 1080p TV died and the
repair/replacement cost for the backlight was about the same
price as a new TV so I opted for a new TV. I did NOT want a
"smart" TV, I have an Apple TV device that gives me all the
streaming and related functions I need. So I looked around for a
"dumb" TV, 39"-43", 1080p or 4k, and... could barely find any at
all and those I did find were either stupidly expensive, had
extremely poor reviews, or didn't even have the minimum 2xHDMI
input ports that I need on a TV. I didn't want an desertcart
Fire, Google, or Roku. WebOS would have been OK. This one from
Westinghouse has Xumo and after learning a little about Xumo I
determined that if I needed to get a "smart" TV, the Xumo OS
wouldn't get in my way too much. This specific Westinghouse TV is
43", 4k, runs the Xumo OS, cost less than the TV I bought 15
years ago, and had all the features I needed such as 3xHDMI
inputs. When I first opened the box I saw some damage on the
upper bezel not far from the upper-left corner. The bezel was
pulled away slightly from the TV's display panel and there was a
bit of paint or anodizing scraped off that part of the black
bezel leaving a white spot. I suspect I got a unit returned by a
previous customer, which is NOT OK and had me a bit upset at the
time. However, I decided to set it up and test it because the
damage was very minor and would be invisible after a spot of
black touch-up paint. In the end, I liked the TV enough that I
didn't want to bother with the hassle of sending it back and now,
with that bit of black paint covering the damage, it really is
invisible unless you know exactly where to look and notice that
the bezel isn't flush with the screen at that one spot. Putting
it together was very easy: Pull it out of the box, attach the
legs (with 4 provided screws – but no extras included so don't
lose any), put it on the table, and plug everything in. Initial
setup with Xumo was very quick although it was a bit annoying to
have to wait while the Xumo system updated itself before I could
do much of anything else. The only thing that took real time was
stuff I didn't need to do: Set up my existing accounts with all
the different Xumo apps such as YouTube, NetFlix, etc. Then a few
minutes adjusting the picture quality (this has to be done with
each input independently, all 3 HDMI inputs plus the built-in
apps – just once for all apps), I used a reference image on my
Mac and using the TV's "custom" preset adjusted things until the
TV's display of the same reference image looked the same as on
the Mac. I have a sound bar. During setup, I learned that this TV
would output to the sound bar or to its own speakers but not both
simultaneously. That was too bad because with my old TV I could
use both at the same time and control the volume independently.
My old TV's speakers were terrible – really, really bad – so I
mainly used only the sound bar. I was very pleasantly surprised
by the sound from this Westinghouse TV: It's quite good. They
don't get very loud but I don't need them to be very loud, and
the sound quality, while not quite as nice as from my sound bar,
is excellent and in fact I get better stereo separation from the
TV's speakers than from the sound bar. When using the sound bar,
I can use either the sound bar's volume control or I can set the
sound bar to maximum volume and control the input volume using
the TV's volume control – that's nice. Over the last couple of
weeks, though, I've mostly kept the sound bar turned off and just
used the TV's speakers. I'm not saying they'll satisfy a real
audiophile or someone who wants deep bone-vibing bass, but
they're good enough for me for watching the news and the TV shows
and movies I've been watching. Again: Very pleasantly surprised
by the speakers, most TV speakers are terrible. I originally
planned to ignore the Xumo stuff because I have an Apple TV for
all my streaming and related needs. However, it is very
convenient to not have to switch inputs to a different HDMI port
and then turn on the Apple TV before using one of the apps. I
really didn't expect it but I like having the "smart" features
built into the TV itself! YouTube and the other apps I use all
work well, the only differences between running them in Xumo on
the TV and running them on the Apple TV is that they take much
longer to start up in Xumo on the TV than they do on the Apple TV
(only matters when first starting up the app or swapping between
apps), and in Xumo on the TV I don't have access to easy account
data and passwords from my Apple iCloud account keychain. Oh, and
the TV remote's "voice control" doesn't work to go back or
forward when watching something so I can't say, "Skip ahead 2
minutes" or "Go back 20 minutes" with the Xumo/TV remote the way
I can with the Apple TV remote. I'm a little concerned that the
Xumo stuff is going to slow down over time: If an Apple TV gets
old it is easily replaced – not free, obviously, but easy and
convenient to do. But if the Xumo stuff built into this
Westinghouse TV starts to get slow there is no replacing a
hardware module or something to add more RAM or SSD storage. I
also am a little concerned that Xumo might not even be a thing in
10 years, or my specific TV might not get the latest updates in
the future because Xumo will decide it's too old or something –
I'm not fretting about it but this is one of the reasons I wanted
to get a "dumb" TV. Overall, I am extremely pleased with the
performance of the hardware for the price I paid ($215) and while
it took a couple of days to get used to them I actually do like
the "smart" features from Xumo OS on the TV. My only complaint is
that the seller seems to have sent me a unit returned by a
previous customer with a bit of damage but that's not the fault
of Westinghouse and I could have done a return/exchange with
desertcart if it had been a more significant issue for me.
Review: Adequate - Good picture and sound. Not all features with
remote function as advertised. Bluetooth is a useful feature and
works well.
