John M. Hammer
18 de marzo de 2026
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 Amazon 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 Amazon if it had been a more significant issue for me.Ver másVer menos
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