Is there any benefit to keeping your smart TV in standby mode?

Imran Shaikh (0:00)

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Imran Shaikh (1:55)

Is there any benefit to keeping your smart TV in standby mode? We'll find out in moments, but first. When we last reviewed the Mac Mini in 2024, Apple was sitting pretty with a compact redesign and a surprisingly affordable $599 starting price.

And then, the AI frenzy begat the Ramageddon. Mac Minis flew off the shelves. We never got an M5 version, while storage and memory prices exploded.

Now, we have the M6 Mac Mini, which still has a wonderfully small case, but starts at $899.

That's not so adorable, is it? The M6 Mac Mini remains a very powerful and compact desktop, but it's no longer the shockingly great deal that it used to be. It wasn't unusual to see earlier models go on sale for $499 or less, making them perfect servers, sturdy computers for kids, or AI dev boxes. Now, the Mac Mini just seems a lot less fun. But if you absolutely need a powerful little system, it's still the best mini desktop you can buy today.

And for creative or AI pros looking for Apple's most powerful desktop computer, there's now only one model to consider, the Mac Studio. It's the only one equipped with the company's mighty M5 Ultra processor, two M5 Macs chips Frankenstein together, and support for up to 512GB of unified memory. With all that, it's capable of incredible performance, despite the small size. This year, though, there's an unpleasant twist. Given that amount of memory, the Mac Studio is particularly vulnerable to the aforementioned Ramageddon crisis that has, of course, seen memory prices soar over the last year. The M5 Macs model jumped from a base $2,000 price to $2,500, but the M5 Ultra version now starts at $5,500, an enormous jump from the previous model's $4,000 price. Though incredibly powerful, the leap in performance over the M5 Macs-powered Studio can't justify that extra cash unless you're a hardcore power user. Check out Steve Dentsville's full review of the Apple Mac Studio M5 Ultra and Davindra Hardewar's review of the Apple Mac Mini M6 right now at engadget.com.

You might have noticed that pressing the power button on your TV's remote doesn't fully turn it off. Modern TVs are designed to enter a deep sleep or standby mode rather than shutting down completely. They still sip a tiny bit of power in this state, but the upside is much faster startup times. The standby mode may seem wasteful, but you'd be surprised to know it can actually be helpful and even a necessary part of display maintenance and long-term reliability. Thankfully, smart TVs barely consume any electricity in standby mode and are just one of many other appliances you may also leave plugged in. So should you specifically unplug your TV when you're done watching, or should you continue to place it in standby? There are good reasons for both approaches, but your TV's standby mode does have a few big advantages.