I have a small confession I need to make, I hope this is a safe space but I have been without a TV for seven months.
It’s a bit of a juxtaposition being the editor of a technology publication and not having an integral piece of tech, in fact, it feels slightly illegal.
But fellow Gizmodians, I would like to point out that this wasn’t purely on purpose.
I had a small 32-inch Sanyo TV in my bedroom for the past year just for gaming. I didn’t use it for watching TV as I lost the remote control a while back and the sound stopped working.
I was watching shows on my laptop, like most people do, and that would suffice especially for easy-to-watch shows like Below Deck and the Real Housewives franchise.
As you can see below, this is my old room, with my old set up. I had to dig through the archives for this piccy but we found something.
Now, you could be wondering, ‘Athina, why didn’t you buy a new one?’ What a great question!
The answer will disappoint you and maybe not surprise you, I just couldn’t be bothered. It was pure apathy that kept me using this TV.
Until, one fateful day in November 2023 when I was excited to play Hitman 3 after a long day at work and my TV wouldn’t turn on.
As soon as I pressed the on button and nothing happened, I knew we had reached the end of our time together.
So I organised an eWaste pickup and bid adieu to my faithful 2013-ish secondhand Sanyo TV.
For the next month I was lost, there was a gaping hole not only in my bedroom but in my heart, my gaming needs weren’t being fulfilled and replaying LA Noire on my Switch Lite could only get me so far.
Thankfully my laptop never let me down so I was never without TV content. Now I have a TV in my room, after 7 long months of not having one but during this absence of a big black mirror in my room (and life) I learned a few things.
You don’t need a TV
Yes TVs are basically a part of everyone’s home and a part of many people’s unwinding routine but I found that my laptop would suffice.
Sure I wasn’t getting clear quality and 4K OLED-esq pictures but for the content I was watching I was happy with what I had. Yes there was no way I could hook up my Xbox to my laptop but it was good enough to feed my content watching needs.
In saying that, I missed having a TV
I had moments of missing bae, I missed having a massive screen showing my eyeballs some action scenes in crystal clear quality.
I missed having a TV for gaming, let’s be real here. It sucked not having a TV to game with.
I didn’t have a TV through all of summer, so that wasn’t too bad because I spent most of my weekends near a beach (or pub). But during those colder, rainy days, I was itching to turn my Xbox on.
It wasn’t good for movie-watching
Over the Christmas break, I love binge-watching movie series, this year it was the Matrix and Bourne movies. But these movies are not good to watch on a laptop.
These are the movies you get the 75-inch big boppa TV and spenny soundbar for. It was not an enjoyable experience watching it on a laptop.
Even hooking up a speaker to my MacBook Air earlier this year did relieve some tension but it still didn’t hit the same way.
I missed the convenience
I was recently under the weather and spent most of the day in bed and there is nothing better to do than watch TV under the comfort of your doona.
It’s so easy to pop something on and you can fall asleep without having to worry about knocking your laptop off the bed (which I’ve done many times).
I was binging shows and gaming, living my best TV-centred life. At one point of the binge, I realise that watching TV in bed, is living barry.
You can go without a TV, but don’t
Sure you can brag about not having a TV, how you’re above it and how you are ‘too busy’ to watch TV but honestly, TVs are good. This article isn’t paid by ‘Big TV’ but now that I have a TV back in my life, it feels good and it feels natural.
All in all, I survived the great TV famine of 2023/2024 but I will make sure it will never happen again!
Image: Samsung/iStock