#Toshiba tvap for linux android
Philips at the time of writing does not provide a way of accessing all of the key UK catch up services on its Android TV sets.
#Toshiba tvap for linux full
But brands that want to add full support for the UK’s catch up TV services have to add them via an external app - such as YouView, in Sony’s case. Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, GooglePlay Movies and TV are there, and all support 4K and HDR where available. On top of all this, it’s still more buggy and sluggish than its rivals.įortunately the latest v8.0 interface does improve the running speed and stability of the Android TV platform, as well as doing a better job of prioritising video services in its menus. Yet at the same time, Android TV doesn’t support some pretty basic stuff - including some key UK catch-up TV platforms. While it’s extremely content-rich, much of that content seems misplaced in a TV (rather than a phone) environment. It’s also less easy to customise than the other three platforms, and isn’t as clever at tracking your viewing habits and refining its recommendations accordingly. First, its interface feels overbearing and clumsy - not least because its homescreen is the only one of the four covered here that takes over the whole screen. Sported initially on Sony TVs but now also used on some Philips (Europe) and TCL (Europe) TVs, Google’s Android TV platform hasn’t historically fared well.įortunately, its latest iteration - v8.0 - delivers some pretty big improvements. LG has also added Apple Homekit, Airplay 2 and Apple TV support to select 2019 models, with 2020 models set to gain a similar suite of features. The terrestrial TV services are provided within Freeview Play, too. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Google, Now TV, Rakuten and all the terrestrial TV catch up services are present and correct, with HDR and 4K support (including, in this case, Dolby Vision) on offer where a service supports them. There’s also a great new screen this year that monitors all your connected devices, including IoT fridges, washing machines and so on, while LG is the only brand currently offering built in (as in, no external listening devices required) support for LG’s own ThinQ AI, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant voice control services. The system still looks gorgeous in the way all the icons just sit directly over the picture, while nifty animations help you track your position in the menus. It’s still built along the concept it introduced of putting colourful icon links to apps in a narrow bar along the bottom of the screen, only this year it’s started introducing a second tier of contextual direct content links. It was so good from the off, in fact, that it spawned copies galore - and hasn’t felt the need to change that much. Suddenly we had an interface that looked cute, ran slickly, and was so intuitive even the most technophobic TV user could handle it. When LG first introduced WebOS, it felt like the missing link in the Smart TV experience.