Flat Screen TV Advice?

Boxerpapa

Looking to finally break down and buy one before football season begins. Looking for 40-48 inch range. What am I looking for as far as quality? One brand better than the other? Recommended placed to buy? LCD or Plasma? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanx

Mark0525

You'll get a million opinions on that one. Go look at the TV and if you like the way it looks...buy it. A lot of times the price difference is because of the number of inputs you have. HDMI and things like that. I always buy a tv that gives you many options of adding components to it. As far as brands...there again you'll get too many opinions. Look at the quality of the picture and what you want the tv to do for you. I tend to stay away from the 720 and go with the 1080 just for the HD quality. Good luck

Charlie tuna

Brother-in-law bought a Vizio --- two weeks later the screen has a red line from the top to the bottom of the screen? Calls the place he bought it from and they tell him to call the manufacturer. Manufacturer tells him to send it back to the factory to evaluate?? He has thrown the box and packing out?? Manufacturer is in California -- he is in Florida!!
You will find the LCD-LED's to be more expensive and their life span is far and above the plasma. Sam's Club has a 46 inch Sony Bravia LED LCD -- 1080P --- 120 HZ -- with a $200.00 instant in store rebate which brings the final price to $1297.00 . They also have a great wall mount device rated for this TV for $49.00 . Swings and tilts in all directions--if you need one ??

Jai-Bo

I just went w/ a buddy of mine who dropped 3500 on a whole home theater setup. Best Buy has 3 years same as cash right now. The salesman was talking up the 3D TV's and I kept insisting it was a waste of money but he explained, which made sense to me after thinking, that when the 3D is off the Mexapixel rate on a 3D TV is better then the other LCD,s ect... TV's. So he might be on to something???

Boxerpapa

I'm a little confused. 3D TV's, while not in 3D mode have more megepixels? If so, it makes more sense to have a 3D TV. Is this what you're saying? Will 3D viewing be something of the future? Sorry for the ignorant response, but the last TV I bought was about 15 years ago and tried to search online, but personal experiences tell a lot. Thanks for the response.

Boxerpapa

I see Vizio's all around, but like anything else, you get what you pay for.

Boxerpapa

I figured that much. I recently bought a front load washer/dryer that the salesman recommended and my wife hates it. Doesn't clean well or dry well.

Recently, my cousin was looking for a front loader and I advised her against it. She told me nothing but good things about them from other people she talked to. Low and behold, it was the brand I bought that was junk-LG. Whirlpool, Kenmore all got great reviews. Just don't want to make the same mistake. Afterall, football season is approaching.

Jeffersonian

I got a Samsung 46" LNT4669 LCD a couple of years ago, and I've generally been happy with it. Other than some blurring on high-speed shots (it was very noticable during the diving events of the Olympics), the HD picture is very good.

I bought it on Amazon, and I've never regretted it: Quick delivery, free setup and great customer sevice should I want to return it.

I think AZRP was looking at the Pioneer Kuro set a few months ago. You might ask if he wound up buying it, because I've heard they are stunning, head and shoulders above anything else.

hornhonk

I bought a 52 inch Sharp Aquos 1080P LCD from Sams Club 2 years ago and haven't had any problems with it. I paid around $2400. You can get it with a few more bells and whistles for around $1600-1800 now. Superb picture with no blurring.It comes with , I forget what its called, 5.1, 5.2? Dolby surround sound, too.

Fidel

Look into LED televisions before you make your choice. They are pricier because the technology is newer, but I've heard a lot of good things. I am waiting for the price to drop on them (after the holiday season is my guess) to replace my 10 year old rear projection HDTV.

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

i have a 27 inch sony trinitron tube.

:laugh:

fishlessman

ive got the 65 inch Aquos 1080P, love the thing, crystal clear. friend bought the smaller sony version, the sharp is better.

Jeffersonian

Old school! Do you play vinyl, too? :P

icemncmth

I just bought a 46" Samsung with Apps...

I looked at pretty much everything out there. I stayed away from plasma because they use huge amounts of power and generate a lot of heat.

I have an LCD but didn't get the LED because I didn't see 600 bucks worth of difference.

One thing to watch out for. For example Samsung makes a 46" LCD and has about 5 different versions. Each has something different. Also all the stores talk about price matching but Best Buy's version my my TV has it's own model number so you can't say that Sears has it cheaper because the model numbers are different even though it is the same dang TV.

I ended up buying what I have because it has Netflix built in and Vodu. I can stream Blueray quality movies to it using my wireless router.

Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker

i play perforated metal discs that have some nickelodeon tunes on them.

great stuff.

those edison gramophones you are talking about are just a flash in the pan

Boilermaker Ben

I just got an HDTV last week, so this is pretty fresh in my mind.

LCD is the most popular type, and generally speaking, least expensive of the HDTVs.
LED is basically an LCD with a different backlight. The difference is very obvious when you're in the store and see an LCD right next to a comparable LED.
Plasma is a different technology, and is primarily found in the larger sized screens (42" and up, I think). Plasmas have more defined black tones, so you'll see more detail in dark areas. Plasmas have a shiny screen, so if your TV will be in a brightly lit room, you'll get a lot more glare with a Plasma than an LCD. Plasmas are great in dark rooms.

Resolution, 1080 vs 720: the larger the screen, the more noticable this difference will be. Below 40-42" it's not such a big deal. My cable box shows what resolution each channel broadcast is. Many of my HD cable channels are 720, but if you're playing videogames or watching Blue-rays, there will be a difference. And presumably, more broadcasts will be 1080 in the future.

Refresh rate: unless you've got a big budget, your options will either be 60 or 120 Hertz. This translates to motion blur. If you're watching fast paced action, like sports or videogames, a slower refresh-rate will result in motion blur.

Size: figure out what size you want first, then go shopping. When you get to the store and start drooling over the goods, you'll be tempted to go bigger. I had a 32" standard definition tv, and wanted a tv with at least the same height, which would have been 40". Just for the heck of it, I went one step higher, to 42". When I went to check out the TVs at several stores, the 40s and 42s didn't really look all that huge. When I got my 42" TV home, it looked much larger than it did in the store. Almost too big for our room, really.

Compare picture quality in the store, and at several stores. It seems to me that there are too many options that could affect this: lighting at the store (Walmart's viewing area was brightly lit, Best Buy's was dark); signal definition (like I said, many of my cable channels are 720...if the store is getting a 720 signal, you won't see a difference between 720 and 1080...if they're playing a repeating DVD, you'll see the difference); tv settings (there are all kinds of things that might have been adjusted...contrast level, brightness, etc.) I had narrowed my options down to a few different TVs, and then visited four different local stores, to compare picture quality.

In the end, I picked the LG 42" LCD 1080, 120Hz without the internet capability. Best buy was running a heck of a sale on the internet capable version, but since I knew I'd be hooking it up to a Playstation 3, I knew I wouldn't need it. The sale price on the one I purchased was also quite good. It was still a little more expensive than the other TVs I was considering, but I thought the better picture quality was worth the small price increase. Without the sale, it would have been quite a bit more expensive than my other options. The LEDs were out of my price range, and the TV is in a brightly lit room, so Plasmas were out too. I would be getting a PS3, so I knew I would want the 1080 and 120Hz...so from there it was price vs. picture quality. So far I've been very happy with it...but getting Comcast to upgrade my service to HD...that's another story...not happy at all.

Good luck with your choice.

Oh by the way, welcome to the Big10.

Jeffersonian

Moving up to wax cylinders soon? :P

ibanda

I am a football fan and a home theater nut, did hours and hours of research and viewing and went Panasonic plasma.

I picked plasma for a couple of reasons. For sports and fast motion, the processors in plasma are much faster and do not tend to have motion blur like the LCDs sometimes have.

Plasma has darker blacks, which makes the whites pop more, and allows for more sublte shades of gray and shadows to be shown.

Lately a lot of LCDs manufacturers are adding glass front panels so now LCD and plasma are even on the glare issue.

The LCD salesmen have sort of extorted the energy issue in their favor as the published specs are not an apples to apples comparison.

Comparing 2010 Sony 55" LCD at 166 watts vs. Panasonic 54" Plasma at 459 watts, so the LCD is 3x more effecient right? Wrong. The LCD draws all 166 watts on the flourescent bulb whenever it is turned on. LEDs draw less but right now a $500 up front purchase premium.

The 459 watt plasma rating is published at peak power, but plasmas are a dynamic display and only draw peak power on full bright scenes. On dark scenes plasma drops down to around 180 and the overall power usage is on average half of it's peak rated power. For a year it might cost a few dollars more, but IMHO you get a better picture.

Up to 50" it takes a very discerning eye to catch the extra pixels that 1080p provides over 720p. 50" 720p plasmas are now commonly on sale under $600.

FF/Medic Egghead

LG and plasma .

NC-CDN

I prefer SONY and Samsung and likely won't buy outside of those brands. Lots of good advice already. I'm liking the LED TVs, but I don't own one. I have a 42" Panasonic Plasma and it's not bad. NEver had a problem. I have a SONY 42" LCD and I love it. Sports and gaming are great on this TV, although the refresh rate isn't as high as they have now. Also have a Samsung 32 and a Samsung 22" both in LCD. All of them are 720p. Both 42s are older so 1080p would have been big $ then. The smaller ones as others have mentioned won't really benefit from 1080p so why spend the money?

I'd buy a 1080p for sure for that size range. LCD or LED (depending on where the TV is).

Go to www.crutchfield.com for an amazing amount of info, which guides you into what TV is right for your location and how you'll use it. Good luck and enjoy. Football in HD is awesome.

Hillbilly-Hightech

We ended up getting the Pioneer Kuro. Expensive? Oh yeah. Worth it? Every penny!!

As far as which TV for you - it all depends on your budget, where you'll be using it (dark room, light room, etc), how far away from it you'll be sitting, and the type of things you'll be watching on it.

If you can, find a place that has the ability to place TVs side-by-side. Have the salesman put the same exact demo disc in each TV & watch each one, side-by-side.

That's what did it for me when I got to compare the Kuro w/ the top-of-the-line (at that time) Samsung. Can't remember the exact model, but it was their top-of-the-line at the time and it was the LCD w/ LED backlight.

The Kuro was better at producing the more "true-to-life" colors. However, some people don't like that. They see the bright / shiny colors on the screens of the LCDs in the stores & are automatically drawn to them (I was too, at first).

But as I said, if you can do a "side-by-side" - you'll see that the LCDs colors may look a bit "fake" (for instance, a scene with grass - the green may not look exactly like what you'd expect grass to look like. Or in a person's face, it may have a bit of an orange hue to it).

If you're OK with that, then yeah - LCD is better at that. Personally, I want my colors to look as close to what they look like in real life as possible.

Also, with a plasma, you won't get that "ghosting" or "blurring" of fast moving scenes like you will on an LCD.

However, it seems that the market is favoring LCDs, as there seems to be more LCD options out there versus plasmas. So who knows what companies are going to be selling plasmas 5 years from now.

Even the Kuro I bought - Pioneer has stopped making new ones (not because they were "bad" but because they cost so much).

Also, don't make the mistake of getting the biggest screen out there - it really does make a difference as to how big the room is where the TV will be sitting & how far away from it you'll be. Think about when you've had to sit in the front row at a movie theater - not cool!!

chrisnjenn

I had the same dilemna about 6 months ago. After a ton of research, I came down to a Sony or Samsung LCD HD. I wanted around a 46 inch TV and decided on the Sony because I didn't like the glossy screen of the Samsung. Both are really nice though. I have really enjoyed my Sony.