My new Sony smart TV functions "fine" without an internet connection. I use a Shield TV for streaming. It does however pop-up an overlay once a day reminding me to connect to the internet. It also crashes on startup about half the time, presumably because it's failing to connect to a server somewhere.
So far, these annoyances have been tolerable but really shouldn't exist at all with a $1,000 appliance.
It boggles the mind that we somehow reached this acceptable state of a crashing TV. If a PC monitor crashed, it's either a RMA or a 2/10 review, why is it okay for a TV to do that?
That I understand, but you can still find reviews mentioning "this TV crashes a few times" and somehow it isn't a showstopper, it just gets excused as "bugs they'll fix later". That part annoys me.
So far, these annoyances have been tolerable but really shouldn't exist at all with a $1,000 appliance.