Question Help with buying a Smart TV

[gta1216]

A friend of mine is looking for a cheap smart TV for her kids' playroom. She doesn't know much about smart TV and was asking me if I know. I bought a Samsung smart TV many years ago, but I only use it for YouTube or Apple TV, so I don't know much either.

Most of the smart TVs I see nowadays comes with Roku TV, Fire TV, Android TV, etc. I read that Roku TV requires you to setup the TV with a credit card. Since the TV is mainly for her kids, she doesn't want to link her credit card to anything in case the kids accidentally subscribed to any programming. She said its probably mainly for playing games and occasional YouTube. Since my TV is many years old, it didn't come with Roku TV (I have no clue what OS it came with), and wasn't required include my credit card info when setting it up. So I couldn't really help her.

I appreciate it if anyone can comment on the difference between the different smart TVs, and which OS doesn't require credit to setup. That is, if it's even true that a credit card is required to setup Roku TV.

 

[hang-the-9]

Get a used one off craigslist, will be half the cost of a new one. Any setup for streaming should have a way to require a password to buy things. Maybe the first thing is to find out exactly why she wants a smart TV to be used for. I have an LG with just the standard OS they have, did not have to do anything with it. I had a Roku TV and that did not need a credit card to configure, unless of course you want to add in a new service and need to activate it. Not sure where you read you need a credit card, here is the info from Rokup about setting up a TV https://support.roku.com/article/115004035608