[off-topic] TV or not TV, that is the question

[gavinwc]

Hi People,

Season's greeting to you all, even non-Christians and atheists like me :-)

This is a very pedestrian question from someone who has been quietly
lurking for nigh-on 25 years now with very little to say over that time,
but I respect your collective experience for a source of good advice -

Problem: I abhor any "smart" device, phones, fridges, TVs, etc. But, we
have decided to be decadent and get a new TV. Our existing dumb TV is long
in the tooth and faulty, but I have long augment its features with
streaming services via a raspberry-pi/kodi setup. All I really want to do
is upgrade that sort of system, maybe substituting the pi box with a more
powerful mini-PC like an Intel NUC, or something similar so I can also lie
back and do a bit of web browsing occasionally.

But, where are all the "dumb" TVs these days!?

I know this dilemma is the stuff of many wasted bytes and pixels online,
but my searching for solutions is proving very time-consuming with many web
pages outdated. I know I can supposedly not activate the TV's smart
features, and have done that in the past, but other family members soon
couldn't cope and activated them anyway. Besides that, I don't trust that a
deactivated smart TV is just sitting there as a fully passive receiving
device of free-to-air broadcasts.

At this stage, because I'm also looking to do some computing operations,
I'm looking at a cheap IntelNUC mini-PC mated to a BIG UHD monitor (eg,
Dell 43"), but such a setup lacks a TV tuner for free-to-air reception.
External TV tuner dongles also seem to be a dying thing these days and web
pages are mostly outdated. What to do?

Best regards,
Gavin Chester
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