Are there any other advantages of AppleTV over Samsung smart tv?
There are probably a hundred threads with a similar question asked and answered, but I can list a few reasons.
To be fair, Apple does a horrible job explaining the ATV HW to potential customers, why they should get one, what makes it better than other options, or even what the Apple TV even is. In my experience, most non-techies, and even some techies have no idea what the Apple TV is. When talking to other people, they often think I am either talking about Apple TV+ or an actual television set. This probably has to do with Apple horrible naming of ATV+ and the Apple TV app.
When telling people about my Apple TV 4K and why they might want to try it, I often hear "I have that already, it came installed on my Smart TV." You even see it on this forum, people thinking that "why get an Apple TV 4K when I have it already on my Smart TV?".
I blame it on Apple, if they spent a fraction of the ATV+ advertising on the ATV HW, I am sure a lot more people would at least know that there is a difference.
Anyways, here are a few reasons why to get an ATV:
The ATV is in the Apple Ecosystem. Yeah, you can AirPlay to a Smart TV, but with an ATV everything just works together a lot more. You can get alerts for your HomeKit devices, view cameras, turn on lights, set scenes and run automations. The ATV can also be a hub for your HomeKit things.
The ATV HW is supported for a lot longer than what is typical on Smart TVs. I think it has gotten better recently, but is not uncommon for apps and OSs on Smart TVs to no longer be updated after a few years. To put this in perspective, almost every app for tvOS that can be used on the newest ATV can still be used for the ATV that launched with tvOS 9 years ago. The ATV4 (HD) is still getting tvOS updates.
The ATV HW, especially since the original ATV4K1 (2017) is powerful compared to Smart TV HW and other streaming box HW. The newest ATV4K3 is very fast for streaming apps, and if you use one then go back to using a Smart TV, the OS on the Smart TV feels like it is moving in slow motion.
You can take the ATV with you places. I take my ATVs with me whenever I travel. Apple made it a lot easier to connect to Hotel Wifi on tvOS.
Games, if you play. The ATV has some games. It is very casual, but there there are a few good ones that stand out. I suggest getting the older ATV4K2 over the newer ATV4K3 for some of them as the ATV4K3 doesn't have a fan and can actually thermal throttle on some games. Streaming apps (with the exception of some content on Plex) won't thermal throttle, so if you don't play games, I would recommend the newest ATV4K3 over the older ones unless you can get a really good deal on an older one.
There are a bunch of other reasons as well, but the above are my top reasons.
Now, some reason to not get an ATV:
Price. The HW is really fast on the ATVs, but even with the price drop with the most recent model, it is expensive, and the super fast HW isn't really needed for someone that is just using streaming apps.
State of the tvOS App Store, specifically for games. The App Store has a lot of dead games that are no longer working, or not fully working. Developer interest was pretty when tvOS first launched, but with Apple being Apple, they killed any momentum with stupid restrictions on apps in the tvOS App Store that even when Apple backpedaled on those restrictions, the damage was done, and developers started to flee or just abandon their tvOS version of apps. The popular streaming apps don't have this issues, and I don't expect this to change, so if you don't play games, I would just ignore.
Getting the settings right. I love my ATVs, but with a 4K TV, getting the picture looking good took a while, and I had to change some of the settings. Even after making a bunch of adjustments on the tvOS settings and my TV picture settings, I still think the quality of the picture looks better on my 4K Smart TV's version of apps, but the ATV's picture is close.
