New TV

edindie

I need to buy a new tv in the next week or so and I was wondering if anyone here had some sage-like advice on the subject?

I haven’t done much research, but I think I want a 32 inch flat TV (although I’m easily swayable if people have good reasons) and it seems they cost £400. I’ve got more than that saved up I can spend, although I don’t really want to. Ideally I’d spend less but I want a decent tv.

As you can see it’s all still up in the air!

So, any advice? What should I look for in a TV? What ports/plugs at the back would be useful? Should I just go with a trusted brand like Sony/Phillips?

penrhyn

I'd avoid supermarket brands, and look at the offerings from Sony/Panasonic/Toshiba/Sharp. Notice a trend here?
All sets currently on sale should have digital tuners (freeview), and be HD ready.
If you are going to go larger than 32" then you may want to consider a 1080p set.( if you plan to get Blue Ray/PS3)
All should have multiple Scart, HDMI, and possibly component ports.

Best bet is to go somewhere like Empire Direct and view as many as you can, remember to ask to see the Freeview picture as some sets don't handle standard definition that well.

mymatebob

You may want to get one with a Freesat tuner built in as an alternative
And the inbuilt Freeview tuners will not, as I understand it, be capable of decoding the HD service on Freeview when it starts

rosenrot

I got my 32" telly from Kays catologue using a money off voucher. I had looked round and then found a 20% off code at vouchercodes.com so i got my telly for less than £400 should have been just over £500. Its a Philips and its great.
Maybe worth having a look in that kind of direction.
Oh and the 32 " is fine if you have a small livingroom. Had been advised when looking around that if your veiwing distance is less than between 9 -11 feet then anything bigger than 32" will have distortion on the LCD screen.

savemoney

Samsung do some great LCD tvs too

savemoney

I think thats some some time away if freeview HD starts however you can get HD free from freesat although you do need a dish and box with pvr to follow later this year

mymatebob wrote: »

You may want to get one with a Freesat tuner built in as an alternative
And the inbuilt Freeview tuners will not, as I understand it, be capable of decoding the HD service on Freeview when it starts

tryptase

The new Toshiba ranges look good and you can get the 32AV504/505 for less than £380. Try ebuyer or Dixons (quidco and discount vouchers available).

ianfabris

It depends what you want to do with your new TV. I was looking into upgrading my CRT a few months back (but then my mortgage renewal put paid to that) . . . my research (including an excellent thread here on a Vistron 32" going for £299 at ebuyer) suggested :
- when viewing an HD signal or a signal from built in freeview on most LCD's are of a much ness (most LCD's have the same screens)
- when viewing a signal from an external non HD source (eg a standard DVD or SKY plus though a SCART), alot of LCD's have very poor quality signals (electronics behind the scenes sort these images out).

Apparently CRT's and LCD's have a similar (ish) number of lines, except standard CRT's use 2 sets of lines which get updated alternately (very quickly) to give a high quality image whilst on an LCD all the lines get updated at once..

The electronics behind the scenes deal with this and some brands are better than others (eg Sony, Panasonic, Phillips & Samsung) . . . although there was a lot of criticism about 'artifacts' on the Samsung . . . whatever that means.

I was looking at the Sony KDL32S3000 (or 3020) from Amazon . . . which had good reviews and is also in your price range.

PS. don't be tempted to buy from pixmania . . . they have a very bad rep, and I have fallen foul of them before.

mymatebob

savemoney wrote: »

I think thats some some time away if freeview HD starts however you can get HD free from freesat although you do need a dish and box with pvr to follow later this year

Due to start sometime in 2009 so not that far away.
And you don't need a PVR for freesat although PVR boxes are supposed to be released soon

I would be pretty cheesed off if I bought a brand new tele today with a tuner which is obsolete tomorrow. (just like buying an analogue only TV now I guess)

savemoney

Yes but not all regions will get it as they have to get rid of analogue tv which is some time away for all regions. Analogue needs to be switched off to allow more space for HD plus Freeview signals will be boosted as it doesn't have to compete with analogue which we do at present. True you don't need a pvr just a freesat box around £100, but you will be better with pvr as you can then record one channel and watch another providing you have a twin LNB

Most new tvs have freeview it wont be defunct the worse thing will be it wont be able to get HD content via internal freeview decoder. Shame they arent shipping tvs with freesat decoder in at mo, they always seem to be some years off as fereview intergrated tv's have only recently strated to become the norm, and you still get some tvs that still dont have it like the unbranded ones. Analogue tuners look rubbish on LCD never use my analogue tuner just the freeview tuner

mymatebob wrote: »

Due to start sometime in 2009 so not that far away.
And you don't need a PVR for freesat although PVR boxes are supposed to be released soon

I would be pretty cheesed off if I bought a brand new tele today with a tuner which is obsolete tomorrow. (just like buying an analogue only TV now I guess)

mymatebob

Panasonic are already selling a freesat capable TV as of now.