A proposed class action lawsuit claims Roku and TCL “bricked” thousands of smart TVs through defective software updates that allegedly left sets frozen, black-screened or completely unusable.

If you've been dying to replace your old TV, you might have come across recommendations for TCL. Many users rave about the brand, mainly because it offers solid performance at a budget-friendly price.

The problems purportedly started to crop-up with these TCL sets, which were marketed on the ease of the Roku software powering them, started to appear on models that were just a year or two old. The ...