Surprise! There’s a new TV in the house! Well, it’s not really new anymore since we bought it about seven months ago, but it’s still “new” because I haven’t talked about it here. Until now. Here’s my review of the 32″ Insignia fireTV Edition (F20 Series).
The Buying Process
It was way past time to update our home theater setup. First, the old TV in the living room broke, so we swapped it with the ancient TV from the bedroom. Then our two-year-old digital converter box started falling apart: the power cord had developed a short, and half of the remote’s buttons had stopped working.
Originally, we had only planned to replace the converter box. But then we did some math. A new converter box would cost at least $35 by itself; a decent new TV costs about $100. Given those numbers, a new TV seemed like a better long-term investment. It would replace our outdated TV and eliminate the need for another converter box. Plus, we could pick it up the same day.
I quickly found a good TV set deal on the Best Buy website: the 32″ Insignia fireTV Edition (F20 series) for $99. Sold! There was even a great payment plan available through ZIP (formerly known as Quad Pay) so we could split the $99 into four installments.
The ZIP application was included in Best Buy’s checkout process. Getting approved was painless. I put in our name, address, phone number, and card number. That was it. The total came to $106 with tax and ZIP added a $4 vendor fee to that. Each payment would be $27.62 and due every two weeks.
There was a small snafu after the purchase. Best Buy said the TV would be ready in an hour. ZIP had already taken the down payment and registered the order, so we figured it wouldn’t be a long wait. But a few hours passed with no word. When my dad finally went down to the store to check on things, they told him there was a “verification” problem. When he asked what he needed to verify, they didn’t have an answer. This was frustrating to hear. How were we supposed to fix the problem when we didn’t know what the problem was?
I have a theory about what might have caused the delay: I placed the order at 5 PM. Most financial institutions don’t process things submitted after 2 PM until the next business day. Since everything had worked itself out by the time my dad went to pick up the TV the next morning, this was probably the case with ZIP.
We had no further problems with ZIP. They withdrew their payments on the due dates and the TV was paid off in no time. I would’ve liked some kind of confirmation email stating that our business had concluded, though.
Unboxing, Setup, and First Impressions
The TV comes in a beige rectangular box slightly larger than the TV itself. There are cutouts on the box’s sides, simple handles that you can slip your fingers inside to make carrying it easier (not that it’s particularly heavy in the first place). When you slide the TV out of the box, it’s wrapped in a plastic bag with two Styrofoam lids attached to its top and bottom sides for protection.
Since I only saw pictures of the TV online before the purchase, I was nervous about whether it would look as nice in person. The answer? It looks great. The black bezels are thick but not unattractively so. It has one USB port (!!) and three HDMI ports going down the right side, as well as the usual A/V ports on the back. There’s even a headphone jack, though I later came to enjoy connecting my Airbuds Air5 wireless headphones to the TV via Bluetooth instead.
It comes with a remote (with two AA batteries), a power cord, and lots of documentation. It also has a pair of plastic legs that you can attach if you don’t want to mount the TV on the wall. Since our upstairs neighbors stomp around like Godzilla attacking Tokyo, we decided to use the legs. My dad handled that part, which requires putting two screws in each leg to attach them to the TV’s underbelly.
Setting things up was a breeze. Our over-the-air antenna worked fine when I plugged it into the TV’s coaxial port, though it now makes the most indescribably irritating digital blipping noises when the rabbit ears aren’t in the right position to pick up a channel. Then I connected the DVD player using the A/V cords we had used with the previous TV and it worked okay too. We did have to rearrange our entertainment unit shelves a little so the TV would have more room and be closer to eye level.
When I turned the TV on, I was impressed. Its screen (LED, 720p, 60Hz) is so crisp! Even up close, the picture doesn’t distort much, certainly nowhere near as badly as my TV does. It sounds wonderful too, with the perfect balance of treble and bass. I barely had to adjust any of the settings.
From there, I just had to sign into my dad’s Amazon account, perform some updates, and download some apps.
Apps
The TV has 8 GB of internal storage. One perk of that storage is that the TV can cache parts of live shows, which allows you to rewind and pause. There are a few limitations, of course. You’ll only record static if the channel isn’t stable. Also, it can only cache the show from the point in which you started watching and it only lasts while the show is playing. But it’s helpful for those times when I need to catch stuff like bits of missed dialogue.
Another perk of the internal storage is that you can use it to install Android apps from Amazon’s App Store. I downloaded a bunch of my favorite streaming movie and music apps including YouTube, Pluto TV, The CW, Roku, FreeVee, hoopla, Spotify, and Tubi. I really enjoy watching things on the big screen instead of on a phone or computer. We pick a new movie to watch as a family every weekend, and I watch music videos and other K-Pop content whenever I get bored.
Since the TV has a USB port, I can also plug in my external hard drive or a flash drive to watch the DVD files I ripped. The built-in media player works for most of the movies, but I had to install the VLC app to handle the stuff with subtitles.
The best part of all is that I can play games on the TV. The only game I’ve downloaded thus far is Crossy Road. Can’t go wrong with a classic! I appreciate that the game works offline, though I have to take the long way around through the Settings menu to access it.
The Remote
I don’t like the TV’s remote, physically or functionally. It’s very lightweight and slim, to the point that it feels cheap. The whole frame shifts and creaks every time I push a button, which particularly worries me when I’m playing games. In fact, I already have to press extra hard on the button that lets you move to the right on menus to get a response.
The lack of number buttons is a constant thorn in my side. When I’m watching TV, I can’t just put in the channel number. I have to either flip through the channels until I get to the one I want or go to the TV guide and flip through the channels there. I’m already used to this madness because I have the same problem with my other TV, but that only makes me hate it more. I paired our DVD player’s remote with the TV, hoping that I could use its number buttons, but only the power and volume buttons worked.
Logging into apps is another pain point. While some apps offer a QR code or a special URL that you can use to log in on your phone or computer, most apps still make you put in your credentials manually. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything more tedious than shuffling back and forth across that stupid onscreen keyboard to select the necessary characters.
On the bright side, Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa, which is triggered by pressing a button at the very top of the remote, works very well. I can’t use it most of the time because the TV is rarely connected to the internet, but the experience was pleasant during the few times I used it to find an app or a music video. I didn’t have to yell, and it understood what I was asking for about 95% of the time.
Moreover, I like the four shortcut buttons towards the bottom of the remote. Although I don’t use any of the services featured (Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu), I think it’s a neat idea. I can totally imagine how convenient it would be for me if there were a YouTube button.
Performance and Usage
Overall, the TV’s performance could be better. It frequently lags and freezes. It has a lot of weird quirks as well, like how the TV guide or home screen can randomly pop up during shows. Sometimes the thing acts so crazy my only option is to reboot it.
I was very worried about how a smart TV would handle not being constantly connected to the internet. We have unlimited data through our phones, but no home internet service. I know from experience that just because something technically works without internet, it won’t necessarily work well.
Thankfully, the TV handles this situation perfectly. The interface automatically adapts to changes in connectivity. The offline menu is bare bones—you can only access the Inputs and Settings. When the TV’s connected to the internet, the menu fills out with your installed apps and shortcuts to shows from various streaming platforms. If the TV detects that you’ve cut or lost the signal, it reverts back to the offline menu. While the switchover from one menu to the other could be faster, I have no complaints with this system.
The thing is, the TV never stops searching for a signal. The second I activate a phone’s hotspot, the TV immediately connects to it. If I disconnect it from the hotspot, it will eventually reconnect anyway. When I limited the number of devices allowed on the hotspot to one, the phone incessantly dinged to tell me that the TV wanted to connect. Then I made the TV forget the phone networks altogether, but that only made my life harder when I wanted to stream something. Such a headache!
The TV’s connectivity status affects the built-in program guide too. It will blank out if I don’t periodically connect to the internet. The schedule will simply say “Programming information currently unavailable” on most of the channels, and all of the channel logos will disappear. Every time I connect the TV to the internet, however, a bunch of internet-only channels add themselves to the TV guide. I can’t delete them because they’re apparently related to the apps I have installed. All I can do is repeatedly hide them.
The biggest problem of all is that my parents are not used to dealing with a TV this advanced. The day after we bought the TV was rough. My mom woke me up that morning, freaking out because the TV was “broken.” They couldn’t access any channels because it kept saying that the home screen was unavailable.
The TV wasn’t broken. It had installed a major update that (among other things) had changed the entire interface and logged my dad out of his Amazon account. I had to connect it to the internet to set things up again. My parents, however, thought they had pushed the wrong button or something. The memory of this incident keeps them from freely exploring the TV’s functions. They’re afraid they’ll “break” the TV again. They do not stray from the basic actions they’ve learned.
We’re working through it.
Conclusion
So, yeah, the TV has several rough areas. It’s finicky performance-wise, and the remote could be much better. But I don’t regret picking it. The screen and sound are great, and I love the fireTV capabilities. I want a Fire Stick for my own TV now.