Buying a new TV

zx1 · June 2016

My Philips 9 year old flatscreen TV is on the road out and recently wouldn't switch on (and the picture is starting to go) so I think I need a new TV.
I've had a look online but there's so much choice - do I go for 4K? A Smart TV? LED? Plasma?
To give me an idea, what kind of TV's do you have? My budget is going to be around £300 - £350.

beanz · June 2016

Plasma, no. Smart TV yes, 4k...up to you...not a lot of stuff using 4k yet but if you expect to keep it 10yrs maybe as there isn't that much price difference on them these days.

Forget the curved screens...gimmick.

Vampyre · June 2016

Exactly what beanz has said plus don't bother with 3D either. I also think that the bigger the screen the better and wouldn't go for anything less than 40". It's amazing how little room they take up too.

ebuyer.com are always worth keeping an eye on. For example they have a 39" 4K (not Smart though) for £190. They generally have at least one decent deal per day so it's worth subscribing to their daily email. I've got a "no-name" 42" LCD (Foehn & Hirsch whoever the hell they are) that I got from ebuyer in 2009 and it's still going strong so don't be swung by it having to be by a big electronic manufacturer.

Your Spec-chum · June 2016

Best advice I'll give you is go to a store that has TV's set-up on display. That way you can see the picture quality and judge how good the set is. Don't just buy one online because it's cheaper than other sellers. To me, and I've fixed a few of them, I find the newer LED panel one's to have a dark picture and poor definition. We've had an Hitachi LED set for getting on for 2 years now. When the sun shines on it you can't see the picture. It's not a fault just poor quality. I've also have a 10 year old Toshiba set that the screen is florescent lit, still gives an excellent picture and never been repaired, it's just a 28'' set which is a little too small for our living room.

MatGubbins · June 2016

Don't forget to take your Spectrum in to Currys and try it with the SCART lead

zx1 · June 2016

I don't think i'll bother yet with 4K, although the prices are coming down but nothing much is on 4K yet.
Smart? Perhaps but there's so much choice it's hard to choose. I'll not bother with curved or 3D either, a waste of money.

VincentAC · June 2016

I had the same question at the end of 2013.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/discussion/45947/hd-tv-recommendations-please#latest

I'd recommend going to Currys or summat and have a good look at the picture quality. That's what we did and there was a massive difference in quality of some of the different makes. Make sure you check it's got enough inputs. It didn't matter too much to us (HDMI switcher and 2 scart boxes) but it may to you.

Jimmo · June 2016

Agree with Beanz and Vampyre there and I wouldn't bother with 4k either. Very few of them have SCART sockets (although that applies to some HD tvs as well), nowhere to plug the DVD in.

murtceps · June 2016

Costco are good for telly's if you or someone else has a membership, as they include a 5 year guarantee.

Also Richer Sounds also are good as a lot have a 5 or 6 year guarantee.

ewgf · June 2016

If you want to play the last couple of console generations on your new TV, then you'll be fine. But the older the consoles you want to play, the fewer TVs can display them well. Even worse, you can't easily tell how a given TV will work with an old console, short of either trying the console on the TV before you buy it, or finding someone who has used that console on that specific TV.

For some reason, TV manufacturers seem reluctant to specify if a given TV of theirs can display the low resolutions or low frame-rates of of pre-PS2 consoles, and even if the TV does display the console output, some TVs do so very badly, with blurry or flawed pictures.

1024MAK · June 2016

I can't see 4k transmissions happening anytime soon in the UK. There is no bandwidth allocated yet and the broadcasters are still catching up with/have only recently caught up with HDTV! In fact, the normal definition channels could transmit a better quality signal if the number of channels was reduced, but they (the UK government) wanted the maximum number of channels. So instead we have to put up with compression artefacts and stepped colour gradients.

TV's on sale described as LED, are a bit misleading. This is only referring to the backlighting used to provide the light source for the LCD screen. The cold cathode flouresent back lights are plenty good enough.

Also, if you are checking the picture quality, don't forget to test the sound as well. Some of the "thin" sets have not very good speaker systems :(

Mark

guesser · June 2016

Don't get a smart TV... If you want it you can add all that "smart" functionality and more by plugging in one of any number of little boxes on the market which stand some vague chance of still being useful five years from now.

Scottie_uk · June 2016

I brought a 60" LED flatscreen at 1080p when I moved here in 2013 (actually in the spring of 2014). One year later I could get a 4k of the same brand and size for only $100 more. The brand was VIZIO. They seem to have good bang for buck.

Mt Visio is a smart TV which means I can do netflix or youtube without a computer being connected. I can also use my mobile phone as a keyboard for entering stuff on screen.

RMartins · June 2016

zx1 wrote: »

My Philips 9 year old flatscreen TV is on the road out and recently wouldn't switch on ...

Did you know that most LCD TVs just have a crappy power source, which is what goes bust, because they place electrolitic capacitors, near heat sources, which in time, dries the capacitors, and makes the power source malfunction or not work at all.

But the good thing is, you can recap these power supplies, with less than £10 in parts.

If you open it up, and capacitors, look fat or bulgy, on top, just replace all electrolitic capacitors, and you have a refurbished TV in no time.

Note: Your mileage may vary, but sometimes there are other problems.
However intermittent power failures, is usually related with bad/dry capacitors.

P.S.
I fixed my parents Kitchen bench TV, with exactly this problem, just last month

fog · June 2016

go to the local tv repair shop.. and get a nice piano key vcr with a remote on a wire..different lifetime ago :)

I still have a hitatchi from portable from 32 years ago, but it didn't get loads of use after the spectrum.. probably why it lasted

zx1 · June 2016

Why are you awake at 2.29am? It's way past your bedtime! :))

andrewvanbeck · June 2016

Be wary of TV's that are too cheap if you plan to connect older hardware to it - a lot of cheaper TV's have terrible upscaling, and just don't handle resolutions very well... some of them have this filtering thing they do with lower resolutions, it just looks horrible - like peoples faces have melted a bit.

zx1 · June 2016

Thanks for all the advice, i think i might go for this one

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3979877.htm

RetroTechie · June 2016

guesser wrote: »

Don't get a smart TV... If you want it you can add all that "smart" functionality and more by plugging in one of any number of little boxes on the market which stand some vague chance of still being useful five years from now.

Little chance if any. But much easier to replace.

I regard a "smart" TV as anti-feature. The software will go out of support in relatively short order. Just compare with say, many Android phones on the market. Perhaps 2 big/important system updates, 3 if you're lucky, and after that (warranty expired ;) ) you're on your own. Swiss cheese security-wise? Tough. At best the 'smart' features won't get in the way @ that point. Oh, and that's ignoring vendors-spying-on-their-customers, NSA backdoors or whatever. X(

I might be in the market for a TV myself in the near future, my wishlist is short:
* Biggest I can fit on my desk / corner of my room. Big is cheap these days, and screen real estate is something you never have enough of.
* Full HD (1920x1080) minimum. And probably just that. I just don't care about higher resolutions when broadcasts / movies etc in those resolutions are still rare, and Full HD is more than good enough for my uses. By the time that has changed, time for a new TV...
* Lots and lots of inputs: analog RGB (SCART), composite, VGA, HDMI. Preferably >1 of some.
* None of this "smart TV" bullshit. Speakers optional as long as there's sound output signal(s) to be tapped.

fog · June 2016

zx1 wrote: »

Why are you awake at 2.29am? It's way past your bedtime! :))

soldering ... sorry dad.. (oh look it's even later ;-) ) . I keep late hours anyway, get far more done.. well until they start PPI calls at this time.

besides my idiot neighbours like making excessive noise till 3am.

nice tv, and if it's cack just bring it back within 2 weeks argos are good like that. I'm after a tv for a kitchen, it's annoying that the 5487935795" tv's are the same price as the 22" etc

1024MAK · June 2016

Whatever you decide, buy soon... As the UK has pressed the self destruct button :(

zx1 · June 2016

Might change my mind and get a non Smart TV, it's cheaper and with hindsight I might not use all the 'smart' functions away.
I'll decide later today, when I get home and order it.

rich_chandler · June 2016

Ok, so if buying a non-Smart TV is the way to go then what is the best option for accessing all the Smart TV features?

Vampyre · June 2016

Personally I have several Amazon Fire TV sticks attached to all of our TVs and they're excellent particularly if you subscribe to Amazon Prime. Even if you don't it's very easy to install software on it via an Android tablet/phone via the App2Fire app. For instance I have Kodi installed on all of them and stream TV/Films from my NAS.

1024MAK · June 2016

I put any movies/films to programmes that I have downloaded or recorded onto a large capacity USB stick. Far easier to do this and plug it into the TV (which can play back from a USB device) than go to the effort of putting in a network cable, or rearranging the wifi so that I can get a network connection to the tv.

The TV that I have is a well known make. But even so, within the first six months, I needed to contact the manufacturer because it stopped receiving digital tv transmissions. I had to use my PC to download an "update". Transfer it to a USB memory stick, then go to the special settings "screen" just to get back digital tv!

So you can take your "smart" whatever and shove it in a skip.

Mark

zx1 · June 2016

That's the new tv arrived and been set up, i picked the one that was in the link i posted.
It's really nice, has great picture and good (but not great) sound.
If only it would connect to my wi-fi - the router is sitting about 6 feet away from the TV :))

MatGubbins · June 2016

Ah... yeah, yeah, but the important question is....
Does it work with your Spectrum via the SCART socket and is it a great picture?
(providing you have a real Spectrum and it has been wired up to use the SCART socket.....)

All round to zx1 gaff to watch the TV and help him annoy his next door neighbours.

zx1 · June 2016

Not tried the speccy yet and i usually plug it in using the RF socket. I'm too tired to go fiddling around with it. I've been awake since about 0430 every day this week (early start at work this week)
*tells all the wossers to come round to watch the rugby and get the beers in*

fog · June 2016

MatGubbins wrote: »

All round to zx1 gaff to watch the TV and help him annoy his next door neighbours.

we better hurry up, and don't forget our passports.. hehe . I didn't realise JK Rowling was a member of parliament like a load more celebs / writers etc.

"oh I've missed all the free pizza"... what a shame :D

Dave_C · June 2016

guesser wrote: »

Don't get a smart TV... If you want it you can add all that "smart" functionality and more by plugging in one of any number of little boxes on the market which stand some vague chance of still being useful five years from now.

This is true. But it's becoming more difficult to find non-smart TVs that aren't lowest end in terms of picture quality, connector numbers, etc.

zx1 · June 2016

Too late - i have a smart tv, just watched a couple of DVDs and the quality was top notch.
Also spent some time fiddling around with the internet options such as Youtube etc. The interface is a bit fiddly and will take time to get used to though.
I've also just realised the stand swivels so you can adjust the viewing angle, that could come in handy.

Buying a new TV

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