Hi, I wish to buy a new TV (Hisense 8G) but it doesn't have Air Play built-in. What are the repercussions of not having AP built into a TV. I have now an old Full HD 50 LG and a Apple TV HD. I have no problems whatsoever with the ATV. Works like a charm. Gives a better picture than Cable (yep still uncut...) and casts all I want from iPad, iMac and iPhone. Am I right to think that if I buy this TV, I won't be able to do the same without an external ATV this time being a Apple TV 4K. But then, Sony has built-in Air play. Does "this" Air Play works as good as an external ATV? In a nutshell: should I buy a TV without built-in Air Play like the Hisense or go for a Sony with built-in AP? Of course I get it that my ATV HD will be of no use in either case since I"m going 4K. What is your opinion on apps that come bundled in a TV? Same quality that those found on the App Store? Thanks to all for your good input. I always learn a lot here.
Racineur.

The problem with TV's with built in AP is security, if your neighbors are in BT range.

The other is the built in AP may not be the same resolution. My ATV 4Kv2 AP is of course 4K. TV AP is only 1K due to processor limitations.

ATV devices have an option to specify "Anyone on the Same Network" and "Allow Nearby to AirPlay" which basically disables the ability for rogue neighbors to pair to my ATV via BT. I bought a new Samsung 700 Series LCD TV, which has built in AP (was not a purchase consideration). Unfortunately, the TV does NOT have the ability to set an option "Anyone on the Same Network", thus my TV would constantly display a PIN code when my neighbors attempted to pair to my TV. I disabled AP on the TV (no option to disable BT). Now my pesky neighbors can find something else to do.

Well I had the same dilemma, we needed a TV for the bedroom to replace an old Philips 32" HD TV.

During Black Friday we found a USD 400 Hisense 43" 4K QLED A7 with Dolby Vision and Atmos, the cost was far less than a Sony/Samsung TV with comparable specifications. There is no Air Play on the Hisense and a lack of apps for our region in Scandinavia. Bought an ATV (2021) and all is well at an overall affordable price and we have all the necessary apps available on the ATV and of course Air Play plus Dolby Vision and Atmos.

If money is not an issue I'm sure the Sony TV Air Play will work well, but the built-in apps may not be updated as frequent as on the ATV.

Good luck.

What are you using AirPlay for? In general, all you need is a streaming box (i.e. Apple TV, Fire TV, et al) and an internet capable TV (i.e. ethernet and built in Wifi) for streaming. AirPlay is a means to connect your personal device to your TV (if supported), but not an ideal means to connect to streaming services.

App support on an TV is transitory at best. You are at the mercy of the TV manufacturer to support/update said apps, which is why a streaming box is the better solution in almost every case. Even Sony is horrendous at supporting apps on their TVs... and you're paying a premium just for their name.

So long as you have a streaming box that supports AirPlay, you don't need said support on your TV, you just an internet capable TV (ethernet/Wifi) for connectivity to the streaming box.

If you are in the business of replacing your TV on a yearly basis, relying on the TV's features (apps) makes sense. If you are the type to stick with a TV for several years, relying on the TV's features (apps) makes little sense.

Racineur said:

Am I right to think that if I buy this TV, I won't be able to do the same without an external ATV this time being a Apple TV 4K.

No reason why your old HD Apple TV shouldn't work with a 4k TV - you just won't get 4k or HDR. Instead you'll get HD upsampled to 4k which is usually pretty good - and, of course, that's all you'll get anyway if the content you're watching isn't 4k or HDR to start with. Remember that with some services (e.g. Netflix) you have to pay extra for 4k.

...and whatever TV you're looking at, you'll need to confirm whether the built in Apps support 4k, anyway. On the flipside, even if the TV doesn't have AirPlay, it will probably have apps for all the common services, which ought to be more efficient than going via your iPad & AirPlay (meaning 2 trips over your WiFi network).

I'd pick your TV based on picture quality, price, size and availability & just make sure it has HDMI inputs and eARC support so that you can supplement it with current and future streaming devices. If the TVs own apps turn out to get the job done then fine - but you're quite likely to end up wanting an ATV 4k or other streaming box anyway sooner or later, so I wouldn't pick a TV based on its Apps.

I've recently got a LG "WebOS" TV and the built-in apps, including AirPlay, NetFlix and Prime, seem perfectly good - but I'd already got an ATV 4k to run things like MrMC (the App Store friendly fork of Kodi) and do iTunes 'home sharing' with my yet-to-be-BigSurified Mac. The UI on the AppleTV runs more smoothly than the TV Apps and maybe (maybe) the AppleTV gives a marginally better picture (not sure) but I probably wouldn't bother with the AppleTV if it wasn't for the other things... except one dealbreaker: the LG doesn't support DTS sound - only Dolby - and the LG media player won't play the sound on some files stored on my local sever. The ATV will transcode these to Dolby and they play fine in MrMC etc.

...flipside, the LG Apps include a perfectly usable and armchar-compatible web browser - Apple seems to think would bring about the end times if they included Safari on the Apple TV.

I do find all of this redundancy annoying (...do I stream from my iPad, use the TV Apps, use the Apple TV, when they all produce a perfectly cromulent result) and it's frustrating that I can't just buy a dumb display that doesn't want to talk to the Internet, with a good picture and a bunch of HDMI inputs for the actual content sources....