Help me pick another screen

You might look at "Smart" blu-ray players for your netflix watching. In our house we have a "dumb" tv and we bought a Samsung smart blu ray player that plays the discs but also can download apps such as Netflix, Hulu, etc. Works pretty well for our purposes and might save you money over a smart TV.

Another really cheap option is a Roku box. It won't play discs but it will do all the apps. We bought one for our bedroom tv because the tv is hung on a wall where we cannot put a BR player below it. The Roku uses a radio remote instead of an infared so we were able to put the Roku up on a plant shelf, out of sight but the remote still works. They run $100 or less.

Hadn't even thought about the smart Blu-ray thingy. Hmmm...

Thanks guys!

Just don't go too cheap on one. We went cheap the first time, got an Insignia, which is the Best Buy brand made by LG. It sucks. Never gets an update, drops wifi often, etc. 

The Samsung unit we bought after that is much better, gets updated often and is pretty quick to respond. The Roku is even faster. 

Is cable in your future? If so, a TV might be the way to go with Chromecast for the time being.

Are you an Apple based family?  Pictures, movies etc through iPhones and iTunes with music etc?  If so, an Apple TV might be better as you can stream you iPhones and their videos and pictures etc.  If you aren't an Apple family, go with Chromecast.

No cable in my future.

I have an iPod nano and shuffle. That is the extent of my Apple-fan-ness

Chromecast is pretty cool, I got one for Christmas.  Some things about it if you are not familiar.

You do need to power it.  There is a micro USB connector on the end and it comes with the proper cable to connect to a standard USB port.  Most TVs also come with at least one USB port so getting power to it is not an issue, just an FYI...

Setup takes all of about 5 minutes.  It was really easy but it does require you have wireless in your home.

We have android and apple in the house both play very nicely

Since it uses your wireless connection there is no extra battery drain on the device broadcasting to it

It only works with certain apps but there are supposedly a lot in the works

There is a plug in for the Chrome browser that allow you to stream the internet from a PC so any website could be broadcast

Hope that helps, good luck!!

I can do other things on the same PC while watching something streaming from the PC on Chromecast, right?

Be careful with Chromecast and Ipad combo. We have an old Ipad (Ipad 2?) and its operating system is too old and not chromecast compatible. Also I could not get chromecast stream from media player (solved it by copying the movie into a flash drive and installing the drive in the USB port of a smart blue ray player).

Having said that, my Chromecast works great from computers and from the surface tablet, and for $30 well worth it.  That and a smart TV/smart blue ray DVD combo should work great. I bought my TV at costco, since they give you a 2nd year of warranty for free. I got a Vizio (my second one) and quite happy with it, great value.

I would think so but I have not yet tried that....  I will try when I get home tonight and report back.

Thanks!

If I go the iPad route, I won't be getting a TV - I'll just continue to stream on my laptop (or the iPad)

Yep , you can run other programs while your casting, in fact, you can even open other tabs in chrome and browse while broadcasting a different tab.  If you have multiple tabs open they are listed when you click on the Google Cast icon you just choose which tab you want to broadcast.  The only thing I see with casting the chrome browser is about a second or 2 lag on the TV from when you scroll the screen on the PC.

x2 for Roku.  Love it.  we have 2 of them.   For most of our watching, streaming is unreliable due to the speed of traffic through the great firewall.  We generally download our shows and then watch them.  You can get a program called "Plex" for your computer to serve up the files, and then install the Plex channel on the Roku.  Works a treat!

Also:  Whenever possible, hardwire these types of devices instead of using wifi.   MUCH more reliable and much faster as well.   Sometimes, you just can't... but when you can, I highly recommend it.     Hardwiring my iMac and Roku solved ALL problems with long load times and drop-outs during watching.   

My house is tiny. I don't think I can put the TV more than 10 feet away from the cable modem

I know you are all anxiously awaiting the results. I bought a SmartTV on eBay. Apparently, if you don't mind two small scratches on the screen, those things sell for like 30% of the total retail cost.