Something I've repeatedly complained about with smart TVs is how outdated their ports are, even if you've paid thousands of dollars for an RGB or OLED set. You'll often find HDMI 2.0 and 2.1 ports sitting next to each other, despite 2.1 being virtually mandatory for modern laptops and consoles. Ethernet ports, meanwhile, may be stuck at 100Mbps, even though gigabit technology has been available since 1999. That's right — there are adults with kids and careers who've lived their entire lives in a world where gigabit is the norm.
After the persistence of HDMI 2.0, the worst debacle has to be the state of USB ports. You might not have thought much about it, but your TV isn't nearly as well-equipped as it should be, and it's holding both you and the industry back. If you're not already onboard, you'll see what I mean in a minute.
What's wrong with USB on your TV?
State of the art for 20 years ago
Some of you might be thinking that the quantity of USB ports on TVs is one of my complaints, but not really. Simply including a couple of them makes a TV more flexible, and a few TVs have more than that, as you can tell from the picture above. In fact, I can't really think of a circumstance in which I needed more than one USB port at a time. Chances are, if I'm powering a streaming dongle, I don't need a movie drive plugged in simultaneously.
Really, the focus of my…