HD TV recommendations please.

VincentAC

We think our 40" HD telly is on it's way out. There have been a few marks on the picture for a while but it's slowly getting worse.

http://sdrv.ms/1g3EeTp

You can't quite tell on that photo but the marks and dots go all the way to the bottom and there's another column of dots just to the left of "24 of 24...".

Anybody got recommendations for a 40"+ full HD telly that's reasonably cheap (i.e. less than ?400 if poss)?

edit
I forgot to say we don't want a smart tv as we've got PCs and the xbox for streaming/browsing and it needs to have RF and scart. We only need one scart socket as we've got a scart box.

zx1

Something similar is happening to my TV. There seems to be a discolouration at the top of the screen that is getting worse so i might need to get a new tv as well. I've had it for 6 years which is good for a tv these days.
Maybe take a trip to your local Currys or somewhere to get a price?

chev

Anything that isn't a smart TV. Get one of those and you've got a computer that needs to boot when you switch it on, and takes forever to do something simple like change channel. I'd give 3D a miss as well as it's overpriced. And remember the January sales will be on soon so you should be able to pick up a bargain. As much as smart TVs annoy me, the picture quality on the Sharp I bought a couple of years back is excellent.

Bermondsey Bob

My first HDTV was a BUSH but that blew up 1 year and 1 week after I bought it so I'd avoid those. My second (a cheap one as said BUSH telly decided to blow up 3 weeks before Christmas) was ok, but had a really annoying issue where the sound would turn off if it all went quiet and would take a split second to come back on again, meaning that I'd quite often miss the first 2 or 3 words of a line. A real bugger for games that had just loaded :-(

I now have a 32" 3D telly (I can't remember the brand sadly) that I bought in Argos for ?250. I'm really happy with it as it's easy to use and the picture is very good! On the downside, it's connections are rather minimal. One SCART, one HDMI and no HD Composites, meaning that I need to run my Xbox360 core system through the VGA/PC socket. The main issue with that is that the picture is quite often off center and I need to manually center it via the menus. It get's annoying if you switch over to watch a program for a few mins and have to recenter it again when you switch back again.

But overall, it's a good telly :-)

XTM of TMG

I'm sure something that fell off the back of a lorry would go for quite a bit under 400 quid :grin:

Scottie_USA

I had the pleasure of viewing a an UltraHD TV the other day. I must say I was impressed. I've only ever had CRT TV's and have held of getting a HD LED TV because I always think the DOT Pitch of the pixels is much less than than with a computer screen (even on equivalently sized displays). Also I never considered it so much of a leap that it warrants paying the extra. I look at the TVs in the store and a always left a little disappointed.

However, when I saw this 72" UHD I was like WOW, I could view my photos in full resolution, I cold also connect a PC up and sit close to it if I wanted.

As I have recently moved (countries) I'm now in the market for a new TV as well, we currently have only a CRT that the previous residents left. Standard definition in the US is also quite poor. I'm now considering putting up with the CRT until the price of UHD tvs come down a bit.

Oh and not Samsung, I've been reading they have longevity issues.

dm_boozefreek

Sanyo may be distinguished as a really cheap and nasty brand (which if I remember it was back in England :D), but our big HDTV we have in the living room is a Sanyo, and it's lasted a few years with no probs at all it was quite cheap too.

I have no idea if you can get Sylvania brand products over in the auld UK but my TV in my mancave is a Sylvania and it's about 6 years old and still going strong (alright not that impressive, but things these days seem like they're made to break or be obsolete in a short time), and that was about $120 when we bought it, our Blu-Ray player is a Sylvania as well and still going strong after about 5 years.

VincentAC

Cheers for the tips guys. I'm hopefully going out for a gander through currys tomorrow to see what they've got. Then I'll probably come home and order one I like online where it's cheaper.

It's good that the sales have started already, I want to get a new telly soon and waiting an extra week would just annoy me :D

Arjun

aowen wrote: »

Anything that isn't a smart TV. Get one of those and you've got a computer that needs to boot when you switch it on, and takes forever to do something simple like change channel.

Not strictly true. I have a Sony Bravia TV. It takes around 6-8 seconds to cold boot, which is a minor annoyance but not so much if it's on standby (90% of the time) and it takes a second to change the channel and even then I'm not sure if it's due to the set top box software (which *does* take ages to start etc) or the TV.

But yeah, I haven't found use for ANY of the supposedly "smart" features which seemed to involve installing next to useless widgets that take ages to start/update/refresh. And I definitely don't want to facebook or tweet when watching TV using a clumsy on-screen interface (after switching to the app) when I can do that perfectly well from my phone, in less time and effort.

Vampyre

Have a look on ebuyer.com. they have a questionnaire type thing that will filter and it will give you a good idea.

http://www.ebuyer.com/find-your?type=tv&utm_source=navigation&utm_medium=cnet_finders&utm_campaign=tv

BiNMaN

well I bought this panasonic viera a couple of years ago

the picture quality is quite good, bought it on offer at comet but didn't check out the connections on the back which I was miffed at the lack of when I got home, bought a 3 way HDMI connector box for a few quid off the net which sorted that problem out

there's a similar one on Currys for ?299 at the moment

VincentAC

Looks like we're going to go with Sony's KDL42W654 at ?489 in Currys.

The quality of the picture is amazing compared to the others we saw with the exception of a 50" Sony which we had to drag ourselves away from :D

Shame it's a smart tv though, coulda saved more than a couple o quid if it wasn't. But we figure it's worth it for the picture quality. That X-Reality stuff is brilliant.

zx1

I'll get a new TV when mines finally conks out (which may not be that far off). I'm not one of these people who buys something new just because they feel like it, i buy to replace something that has broken down.
So maybe in a new months i'll be asking the same question:smile:

BiNMaN

VincentAC wrote: »

Looks like we're going to go with Sony's KDL42W654 at ?489 in Currys.

The quality of the picture is amazing compared to the others we saw with the exception of a 50" Sony which we had to drag ourselves away from :D

Shame it's a smart tv though, coulda saved more than a couple o quid if it wasn't. But we figure it's worth it for the picture quality. That X-Reality stuff is brilliant.

nice looking set, like the way the stand looks like it can b used to hang the tv

ewgf

One thing to beware of with modern TVs (i.e. non-CRT TVs) is that they don't always work well with older computers (8 and 16 bits) or consoles. This is because the resolutions that the computers/consoles send to the TV might be too low for the TV to process, or even if the TV can process them then the final image might be less than great.

My TV works fine with the PS2, original XBox, Gamecube, XBox 360, PS3, and PC, but the N64 looks rough on it, sadly. The TV is a Samsung, which (I learnt after I bought it) is a brand that tends to be iffy with older consoles.

Some TVs do have an option to improve the picture before it's displayed, but ironically (since it's most necessary for gaming) this is often useless for gaming since the process can constantly result in a slight delay between the picture being input to the TV, and the TV displaying the input. This delay doesn't matter if you're watching a TV program or a film, but if you're playing a game, where you need a real-time image on screen, then it can render games unplayable, or at least a matter of luck.

zx1

The Spectrum picture on my HDTV can be a bit dodgy but that might be due to the age of the aerial cable (26 years).

XTM of TMG

ewgf wrote: »

Some TVs do have an option to improve the picture before it's displayed, but ironically (since it's most necessary for gaming) this is often useless for gaming since the process can constantly result in a slight delay between the picture being input to the TV, and the TV displaying the input. This delay doesn't matter if you're watching a TV program or a film, but if you're playing a game, where you need a real-time image on screen, then it can render games unplayable, or at least a matter of luck.

I'd say that depends on the game. In the last couple of months I've played a lot of Xbox 360 games at my mate, and many of them suffered from overambitious graphics on ageing hardware resulting in jerky frame rates. However, with his TV we could actually get 60 fps out of some games which was so much easier on the eyes. The slight delay was negligible for most games unless you needed some split-second timing in certain parts, in which case we'd just switch it back to regular.

VincentAC

ewgf wrote: »

One thing to beware of with modern TVs (i.e. non-CRT TVs) is that they don't always work well with older computers (8 and 16 bits) or consoles. This is because the resolutions that the computers/consoles send to the TV might be too low for the TV to process, or even if the TV can process them then the final image might be less than great.

We've still got a ~30" crt that we can use for older stuff if the new TV doesn't like them. The PS1/2, Gamecube and Megadrive work fine on the current HD TV which will be relegated to a bedroom until it finally goes so we'll still have that aswell.

rwap

Just a minor comment here - if a big ticket item, such as a TV breaks down after the end of the warranty period, don't just presume that you need to buy a new one.

The UK consumer law gives protection for goods which are not of satisfactory quality when sold - part of this is that an item should last for a reasonable amount of time in a reasonable condition - see http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/consumer_e/consumer_common_problems_with_products_e/faulty_goods_e/what_is_meant_by_not_of_satisfactory_quality.htm

If you buy a claw hammer for ?1 then you would find it hard it say after using it intensively for 6 months, that it was not of satisfactory quality when sold as you would not expect it to last for intensive use for a long time (although you would if you paid ?12 for it).

The same goes for any other item - generally big ticket items, such as cars, TVs and washing machines should last for at least 5 years unless subject to intensive use. You may need expert opinion, but generally go back to the manufacturer as first port of call and say that it is not of satisfactory quality as it should have lasted at least 5 years and take it from there...

I have successfully done this with a few things - including a hoover where the metal hose snapped after 2 years.... (bearing in mind I only hoover maybe twice a week in a small house!)

VincentAC

Forgot to post earlier this week, we got the Sony smart tv we were looking at.

It's brilliant. I didn't think we'd use the smart aspect of it, but it's great to stream stuff from the PC instead of relying on the slightly temporary Xbox connection.

Ended up buying a 1TB portable HDD so we can record stuff using that instead of the ancient DVD recorder. It's a shame that the file formats on the HDD aren't easily converted on a PC.

And bonus, it's got PiP/P&P which I never saw mentioned in Curry's. I missed that on the last telly. Now I can grind away on the Xbox and watch crap telly at the same time :lol: Unfortunately it doesn't work with streaming :(

Winston

I just got a Panasonic (Viera). Non-smart. In fact I've never used it with broadcast TV, I have an Apple TV and can watch Netflix or Youtube etc. directly using the ATV box. I can also mirror my laptop's screen using this so basically be able to show anything that my computer can access. As such my satellite receiver is now a bit redundant.