Thomson and Nokia on Google TV: what to do with an orphaned television
· 7 min read
| Brands | Thomson and Nokia, both under licence |
|---|---|
| Licensee | StreamView GmbH, Vienna |
| Status | Insolvent since April 2026 |
| System | Google TV |
| Affected series | QG7C14, UG5C14, UG4S14 and the Nokia GE320 |
| Last Nokia | December 2023 |
| Updates | None to be expected |
| ADB | Works normally |
| What carries on | The panel, the HDMI inputs and the installed apps |
This page is different from the others, because the problem with these televisions is not in the software they ship with: it is that there is no longer anyone behind them.
StreamView GmbH, the Vienna company that built and sold Thomson and Nokia televisions in Europe under licence from those brands, went into insolvency in April 2026, with some 36 million euros of debt and no restructuring plan. The Nokia name had already left its catalogue in August 2024; the last launch was the GE320 range, from December 2023.
If you have one of these sets at home, it is working exactly as it was yesterday. But it is worth knowing what that means from here on.
What changes and what does not
Nothing changes today. The panel works, the HDMI inputs work, the apps you have installed are still there and Google TV starts up the same. No company can switch off a television from a distance because it has gone bankrupt.
What is not coming are the updates. Not system updates, not security patches, not the next version of Android. A set like this stays on the version it has today, for good.
Your apps are a separate matter, and this is the part that usually gets confused. Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ and the rest come from the Play Store, not from StreamView, and they carry on updating as they always did. What the manufacturer's disappearance freezes is the layer underneath: Android, the security patches and the television's own firmware.
And that, over time, has concrete consequences: apps stop publishing versions compatible with old systems, so a few years from now something you use today will stop updating or stop installing. Not all at once: little by little, starting with the ones that change most.
The warranty is a different thing. If you bought from a shop in the European Union, your legal warranty is the seller's responsibility, not the manufacturer's. The manufacturer's insolvency does not leave you without it inside the period. If you find the shop pointing you at the manufacturer, that referral is not correct. Keep the receipt or the invoice: it is what ties the set to the shop that sold it.
How to tell whether yours is one of these
Thomson's Google TV ranges carry a letter that gives them away: in the model code, QG, UG, MG, FG and HG correspond to Google TV. The ones carrying FF or HF are Fire TV, and there are others on TiVo OS or on Linux, which are different televisions.
The specific models in the Google TV range include the QG7C14 and QG7S14 series (the QLED Pro ones), and the UG5C14, UG5S14 and UG4S14 (the UHD ones). At Nokia, the last batch was the GE320, at 24, 32, 40 and 43 inches, none of them 4K.
Under Settings → System → About you will find the model and the Android
version. On these ranges it is usually Android 12, though some units shipped
with Android 11. With ADB connected, getprop ro.product.model returns the
same identifier without going through the menus.
A note on their spec sheets
It is worth saying, because it affects what you thought you had bought.
The official spec sheet for the QG7C14 declares a 144 Hz panel. An independent German test, with the television in front of them, concluded that the panel is a 50 Hz one and that those 144 correspond to motion compensation. We cannot settle the contradiction from here, but we can point at it: if you bought thinking of real 144 Hz for gaming, check it on your own set before taking it for granted.
What has been measured on that model: around 841 nits in HDR, which for the price is good, and an input lag of 8 milliseconds in game mode, which is very good.
On memory, StreamView never published official figures. What circulates in the press is 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, and there is no way to confirm it now that the company does not exist.
Why clearing out matters more here than elsewhere
On a television with a manufacturer behind it, removing apps is an improvement. On an orphaned one it is something else: it is what extends its working life.
With 16 GB and no future updates, every preinstalled app you do not use is occupying space you are going to need as the ones you do use grow. And since the system is not going to improve any more, whatever margin you get has to come out of what you take away.
Not all of those 16 GB were yours to begin with, either: the system and the data of the apps already installed share the same storage. What is left for you is a good deal less than the figure on the box.
What comes off is the usual: the streaming apps you do not use, the free content channels that fill up the home screen, and the manufacturer's own apps — which in this case, on top of everything else, point at services that may stop existing.
What is not touched, also the usual: Google Play services
(com.google.android.gms), the launcher (com.google.android.tvlauncher) as
long as you have no other one, and anything starting with com.android. that
you cannot identify.
The decision that is worth taking
On almost every page of this site, putting an external player in front of the television appears as an option for when the set falls short. Here it is not an option: it is the plan.
The reasoning is simple. The panel of these televisions is the one thing that does not depend on a company existing: it will give the same picture eight years from now. The software, on the other hand, is already frozen today. A hundred-euro external player updates for years, gets replaced when its turn comes, and turns your Thomson into what it actually is from here on: a good screen.
Do it before the system starts letting you down, not after. Connect it over HDMI-CEC and the television's own remote will drive the player, so nobody at home has to learn a new routine.
And when you do, leave the television off the network: a set that is not going to receive security patches any more is better kept off the internet, and with the player in front of it you will not miss it.
What this site is not going to tell you
We are not going to recommend that you install third-party firmware or root the set. There is no community behind these models the way there is behind others, the company that could give support no longer exists, and a television that does not start up has no one to turn to.
What you can do, and it is reversible, is what the rest of this site explains: list what it ships with, disable what you do not use and end up with a quieter television.
If you have one
The app list from your Thomson or your Nokia, exactly as the set reports it, now has a value it did not have before: it is documentation for a television nobody else is going to document. If you feel like sending it, it stays saved for the next person wondering what to do with theirs.