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LaughterOnWater's Reviews
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 
Customer Rating
4 out of 5
4
Decent For Thrifty Cord-Cutters
on August 14, 2016
Posted by: LaughterOnWater
Verified Purchase:Yes
We are keeping this Insignia 1080p 39" Roku TV bought for $199 plus tax, but there are some caveats you should know about before you buy one.
The device was shooed out the market door without a lot of thought for design other than economy. They barely satisfied the question "What's the minimum we can get away with in a TV and expect people to pay about twice the price of a Roku 3?" Barely... This device is sufficient for most cord cutters. This is only technically a TV because it does have analog/cable capability, but the remote is clearly not designed for use as a cable or analog television source. Otherwise, it's more of an HDMI monitor with a roku inside.
We're cord-cutters, so we'll be using it for various channels on Roku and as a monitor for our BluRay/DVD player which has its own remote.
I vacillate between giving this 3 or 4 stars. It is an average machine, designed for those who don't want to pay a lot, but for the price-point, it's hard to at least not give it four stars. It loses a star because of the remote and no ethernet connection -- wifi-only.
Pros:
1. Reasonable color, even when you view the screen at an oblique angle. So if you're doing your sit-ups on the floor, and the screen is on a wall, the color is not mutated because you're outside the screen's normal viewing angle.
2. Roku is built in. It takes about half an hour to set up all your channels the way you want them, and the first time it starts up, it can be minutes as it updates, etc. But it's not nearly as bad after the original setup.
3. The screen is big. 1080p.
4. There is only one power LED. It's red. It blinks in response to IR control input. Thankfully, it's not blue and it's not way too bright, so it's not a wake trigger for people with sleep issues in a completely dark room. Finally, a TV that doesn't keep you awake with a plethora of blinking beacon-style LED's even when it's entirely powered off.
5. Sleep timer. The original Roku 3 didn't have one. This can be useful if you fall asleep and find yourself having streamed through most of a season of Star Trek on Amazon overnight without actually having been awake to watch it. That can mean less bandwidth waste and less power waste if you choose to use it.
6. You don't have to keep the Insignia-Roku screen saver. You can set it to Power-Saver, which turns the monitor off entirely without powering down the roku power entirely. That can make powering up seem faster, a bit like turning off the television, even though your original Roku 3 stays on permanently.
7. You can change the default Insignia-Roku theme to the original Roku theme that changes seasonally or a custom Roku theme.
7. Up to 3 external HDMI devices. This is great if you have HDMI devices.
8. Amazingly light for the size of the screen. Easy to move, but be careful that your most playful cat doesn't tip the screen over.
9. Not an energy hog.
10. When everything is connected, on and running, the interface is sufficiently fast for a reasonable experience. Typical streaming does not seem adversely affected by WiFi-only connection, except on some channels like Newsy.
Cons:
1. WiFi-only Ethernet connection. This device should have included an Ethernet connection. Ethernet will always be faster, and waiting for YouTube, Acorn-TV or Amazon to load -- every time, even with the router only 10 feet away -- can be just annoying. My original Roku 3 loads faster, even though it's on the other side of the house because it's connected via Ethernet.
2. The device typically takes almost a minute to turn on, and WiFi can take almost as long to handshake. Sometimes you'll see "Cannot connect to the internet" when you first turn on the device and try to go to a channel. Patience may be required.
3. There are no buttons on the TV. There's not even a power button. NOTHING. If you lose the remote, you've lost entire control of your TV. This was a flagrant flaw, designed only to cut corners on cost. There should be rudimentary control buttons on the TV. It's not like there isn't room. I shouldn't have to unplug it to turn it off manually. If you have a smart phone, you will be able to turn it on or off using an app, but you won't be able to quickly set the sleep timer.
4. No Component RGB RCA connectors. This device connects only to Cable/Antenna, HDMI devices and RCA Analog (Yellow video, Red and White Audio). If you own a legacy DVD player with RGB connectors (Red, Green and Blue RCA Video connectors, Red and White Audio), be prepared to use the worse yellow connector instead at 480p with very muddy color instead of your crisper 720p RGB. It looks like garbage on this 38.5" 1080p screen. You'll be forced to buy a cheap bluray player with HDMI so you can watch your legacy DVD collection. VHS will always look crummy, so you'll have to live with it if you actually still own a legacy VHS player.
5. The color saturation is about what you would expect for an inexpensive TV. In other words, black isn't dark flat black when the screen has a lot of black on it (Default screen saver), but when most of the screen is covered with color, you'll be pleased with the results.
6. Poor Remote -- If you only use Roku on this device, then this is the only remote you need. However, if you use it as a cable TV, the experience is unsatisfactory. Roku and Insignia should have come up with a remote that had the following:
a. A larger remote with a normal assignment of numeric and other keys for a regular smart-TV remote.
b. Assignable channel buttons instead of paid buttons for Netflix, hulu, sling and Google Play. Yes, the services have been around for many years, but when they change -- and they will -- these pre-assigned buttons may become useless. I don't use any of these services on Roku. The only reason why Amazon isn't there is because they make a competing product, but it should be there, because I'm betting most Roku users do have amazon prime. Give us a firmware update so we can make these buttons programmable to our desired channels.
c. They stopped making the RF remote because IR remotes are cheaper. I preferred the RF remote that came with my original Roku 3.
d. The "Sleep" button is exactly where the "OK" button was on the original Roku 3 remote. It will take a while for you to get used to the new position of the "OK" button. I've got mixed feelings about this because the "OK" button should have been in the center of the arrow buttons on the original Roku 3, and a sleep button is a reasonable addition.
e. Volume control and mute on the side? Come on, this isn't a phone. It's a remote. Put a volume control where we expect it to be.
I have not tested the TV antenna or cable. Athens is just over the horizon from Atlanta. We get no signal from there, nor Charlotte. Cable pretty much has this market cornered because nobody thinks it's worth putting up a repeater antenna for a university town addicted to cable, even for the public broadcasting stations. We have cable internet but I refuse to rent cable television because the price keeps going up every year for less value.
Bottom line, if you're a cord cutter and you don't want to pay a lot, this device might be for you. If you have to watch cable TV, you'll need to be an alternative television remote and find the code to set it for this Insignia device.
I would provisionally recommend this device to a friend. So long as they are aware of the caveats posted above and they're fine with that, the TV deserves a recommendation at a price of $200 or less.
My Best Buy number: 2006660455
My Best Buy number: 2006660455
I would recommend this to a friend!
+462points
517of 572voted this as helpful.
 
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LaughterOnWater's Answers
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 

A lot of people complain about the remote. Is it a deal killer for anyone or just a pain in the rump?

If you're planning on using this as a cord-cutter (no cable, no aerial antenna) the roku remote should suffice. If you rely heavily on cable, where a numeric keypad is important, you'll want to buy and code an alternative remote.
7 years, 7 months ago
by
LaughterOnWater
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 

How wide is the base?

The base stand is actually two legs attached by screws to the TV whose combined distance from one side to the other is 26.5 inches wide, from the center-bottom of the TV. The stand is 9 inches deep, with the front three inches of the legs protruding out in front of the screen to increase stability. The legs cause the TV to stand 2 inches above whatever surface it is resting on.

The television itself is about 34.5 inches wide. With the stand, the top of the TV will be 22 inches from the top of whatever surface upon which it rests.

You could allow this to sit comfortably on a sturdy cabinet that's at least 28 inches wide and 18 inches deep, with a standard table height of 29 inches or taller. Don't use a rolling cabinet. The TV is probably too light for that. If you put this on something taller than 3 feet, 6 inches, you might want to consider getting a wall mount instead. It will be safer.
7 years, 7 months ago
by
LaughterOnWater
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 

Where do I turn up the volume? I am interested in getting a Roku tv and I looked on the remote and didn't see any volume buttons

The volume rocker and mute buttons are on the right side of the remote, as if it were a phone.
They lost a star from me because they didn't include a more useful, intuitive remote.
7 years, 7 months ago
by
LaughterOnWater
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 

what is the difference between there platforms, I am looking at a 39 inch insignia Roku smart hdtv and a 39 inch regular smart tv, idk which one I should get, so what are all of the pros and cons of both tvs, what are the differences?

A Roku TV has a wider array of available "channels" than ordinary smart TV's.
For instance, if you're interested in AcornTV (BBC videos), you're pretty much out of luck with most other smart TV's.

And when they do offer AcornTV, the interface is garbage. For instance, Amazon FireTV's implementation of AcornTV is actually worse than useless.

That said, if you're looking for something to surf the web on your television, Smart TV's have Roku beat. There is no web browser on Roku, but this is by design. A web browser makes it too easy for hackers to get into a smart TV. The lesson is, don't surf the web on your smart TV. Norton doesn't make a product to protect them.
7 years, 7 months ago
by
LaughterOnWater
 
This 39-inch Insignia smart LED Roku TV with wide-angle viewing offers fast and reliable connectivity for streaming your favorite movies, music and radio. LED lighting ensures a crystal-clear picture, and the personalized home screen offers intuitive navigation to save time. Easily block questionable content with the V-chip built into this Insignia smart LED Roku TV.
 

Can you connect via Bluetooth to you smartphone with this tv?

No. This TV has no Bluetooth capability.
There is a roku app that can be connected to this TV via WiFi so you can use your phone as a remote.
It can easily do most of the functions of the physical remote.
Keep in mind that you are pretty much stuck if you don't have WiFi and you've lost the remote.

You can also buy an alternative Infrared remote and code it to this TV so you can use the numeric keypad to get your cable or antenna TV to work.
7 years, 7 months ago
by
LaughterOnWater