Yeah I have a couple of recent Samsung OLEDs and they're fine without an internet connection despite reports that they wouldn't be. If I press one of the annoying streaming service buttons on the remote it'll give me a setup popup which needs to be dismissed, otherwise they work fine, albeit without any built in streaming support.
I'd read reports that Q-Symphony (audio from the TV speakers and soundbar simultaneously) wouldn't work, but it does.
I stuck an OSMC (https://osmc.tv/) box to the back of both of them so they can play stuff from my NAS. They're not the cheapest solution and I realise Kodi/XBMC on which they're based isn't everyone's jam (I grew up with XBMC on an Xbox so it is very much mine) - but they play everything, have wifi, HDMI-CEC, integrated RF remote, and work out of the box.
Model numbers if anyone cares: Samsung QE65S95C, Samsung QE77S95F. I believe S95, S90 and S85 (at least up to F) are all very similar so they should all work but ofc ymmv.
This OSMC box looks interesting, but does it allow to run arbitrary programs like a plain Linux box? What I have in mind here are things such as VacuumTube (YoutubeTV front end), a Web browser to stream from various online sources, etc. I found KODI (as running on Linux) far too restrictive when it comes to streaming from the Internet, and the add ons to be terrible. (In particular the YouTube add-on requires an API key registered with Google, which makes it a far worse proposition than using VacuumTube anonymously.)
Yeah that OSMC box is just running Debian with their stuff coming from its own package repo. You can get a root shell. I realise I could have built something myself (and have in the past) but it's absolutely worth the money to me to get everything in a tiny package and working perfectly from day one.
I wouldn't recommend Kodi for streaming, it kinda works but the experience isn't great. I use it exclusively for playing stuff from my server full of legally acquired public domain videos (ahem).
I do watch YouTube videos on it, but I use TubeArchivist (basically a fancy wrapper for yt-dlp) to pull them onto the server first, and a script to organise them into nicely-named directories.
Thanks for mentioning VacuumTube, it sounds useful.
I’m using a Minix Z100 running Gnome and Kodi. I use a simple Bluetooth keyboard, the interface is clunky but it does the job. I use Samba to also share files to VNC running on iOS and Android on the same network.
I tried using fancier solutions but anything that browses content without involving directories always break for some specific content in unpredictable ways.
That has been my experience as well. So far nothing has come close to the flexibility of Gnome (upscaled) with an airmouse. I am keeping an eye on the Plasma Bigscreen project however (10-foot UI for Plasma).
An alternative could be some x86 Android TV build like Lineage, but I have not seen very convincing demonstrations that this is truly viable.
I'd read reports that Q-Symphony (audio from the TV speakers and soundbar simultaneously) wouldn't work, but it does.
I stuck an OSMC (https://osmc.tv/) box to the back of both of them so they can play stuff from my NAS. They're not the cheapest solution and I realise Kodi/XBMC on which they're based isn't everyone's jam (I grew up with XBMC on an Xbox so it is very much mine) - but they play everything, have wifi, HDMI-CEC, integrated RF remote, and work out of the box.
Model numbers if anyone cares: Samsung QE65S95C, Samsung QE77S95F. I believe S95, S90 and S85 (at least up to F) are all very similar so they should all work but ofc ymmv.