As with any TV it’s easy enough to switch out your smart TV platform by buying a separate streaming device, starting at $40 for an excellent Roku with 4K HDR, and many streamers go on sale during the holidays. You can save that money and use the system built into your TV.

The Roku platform is my favorite, and Roku on the TCL 4-Series worked very well. Apps on the TCL launch quickly, and Roku features an uncluttered, easy-to-use approach that doesn’t recommend any streaming service over any other. It also has the simplest interface along with the best search functionality, which our test demonstrated. 

The TCL lacks the on-remote voice control found on the other TVs, but Roku’s robust software comes with an easy-to-use phone app for iOS and Android that can be used as a remote for your TV. The app does come with voice control and allows you to tap into Roku’s best-in-class search features. For example, Netflix launched immediately when I spoke into my phone. Similarly, Roku easily handled my request for The Case Against Adnan Syed. Clicking on the result gave me a list of everywhere the series was playing and how much it would cost to watch it. Saying “football” into the phone brings up upcoming games, along with sports movies included with my Disney Plus subscription. Searching for the Steelers actually showed Pittsburgh Steelers games.

Despite being my favorite budget TV, the Vizio has my least favorite smart TV platform.

The screen is cluttered with shows and movies, and below the row of apps there are many other rows, including “Live TV and On Demand,” “New on Hulu” and “Collections.” Navigation is noticeably sluggish, and using the voice search feature on your remote might actually be faster. For example, Netflix came right up when I asked, as did The Case Against Adnan Syed. Vizio also told me which services had the show, which I thought was a nice touch. 

I wasn’t so lucky when I searched for football, which yielded zero results. Saying “Steelers” into the mic only brought up a movie about the world’s first gay rugby club. This is particularly hard to take given that Vizio’s home screen featured a large advertisement for a Steelers vs. Browns football game. It looks like Smart Cast needs to get a little smarter. 

The Hisense A6H comes with Google TV and includes Google Assistant built into the remote. The remote eventually worked well, but I had some trouble initially trying to pair it to the TV. You’ll need to make sure to pair the remote manually with Bluetooth in order to get Google Assistant working properly.

I know that some people absolutely love the Google TV interface and find it more useful than Roku’s, but I found it to be slow on this particular TV. Google also offered up some silly categories that made little sense. For example, a category called Love Dramas appeared on my screen. I’m not sure if Google thought I loved watching dramas or if I was interested in dramas about love, but scrolling through the offerings didn’t bring much clarification. The category included Baz Luhrmann’s classic Romeo + Juliet, but with a poster that incorrectly identified it as Romeo & Julia, along with the movies The Florida Project and Sweeney Todd — both of which can only tangentially be related to love and then only in the darkest of senses. 

Google Assistant swiftly took me to Netflix when I asked, and automatically opened HBO Max when I wanted The Case Against Adnan Syed. Asking for football gave me football-related YouTube videos and a few football movies, but no actual games. Searching for the Steelers also failed to yield any games. 

As you would expect, the Fire TV 4-Series worked well with Alexa integration. Netflix immediately popped up on the screen when I asked Alexa to open it. It took a little more time to process my request for The Case Against Adnan Syed but eventually showed me that I could watch it on HBO Max or purchase episodes from Amazon. Asking Alexa for football yielded results that included live events for both soccer and American football, along with football-related movies and TV shows. 

The Fire TV interface was cluttered with both content and ads, with categories that include “Movies and TV” and “Trending on Fire TV.” Many of these categories promote content that is available exclusively through Amazon Prime Video. I don’t love it when ads are featured prominently throughout a platform, as they are here, and I especially don’t appreciate it when the TV becomes a giant rotating billboard for content or ads when it’s in screensaver mode.