Choosing a new TV

almillar

letsbehonest - he means that shops are very brightly lit, and your living room is not. In shops the TVs are usually just whacked up to full brightness/contrast, and Joe Bloggs comes in, says 'Wow, that's nice and bright', buys the 'brightest' TV, takes it home and burns his eyes out with blown out, unrealistic pictures. You need to look at a TV in a darker room, and play around with the settings (nay, calibrate) to be able to compare them. To simplify this, find a set with a THX mode, and that will be far better than just setting 'Dynamic' mode!

Mothballs Wallet - please don't factor the size of your TV to what some ancient stand can take, buy a new one! The stand, for a CRT TV, could probably hold the WEIGHT of a 32" TV, not dimensions. As you'll find when you try to lift the thing, CRTs are very heavy compared to flatscreens. The stand will take a 50" flatscreen no problem! You haven't mentioned a budget...

penrhyn

I concur, my Samsung has a 'shop' setting option, everything turned up to 11!

MothballsWallet

almillar wrote: »

Mothballs Wallet - please don't factor the size of your TV to what some ancient stand can take, buy a new one! The stand, for a CRT TV, could probably hold the WEIGHT of a 32" TV, not dimensions. As you'll find when you try to lift the thing, CRTs are very heavy compared to flatscreens. The stand will take a 50" flatscreen no problem! You haven't mentioned a budget...

It's not an ancient stand - it's a Philips stand with 2 glass shelves, and it's not that old.

I'm sure it's for LCD TVs as well, but I can't remember what the box said about the maximum screen size, and the box is probably in my shed.

penrhyn

Remember the width of the base of an LCD TV is much smaller than the width of the TV, all your stand has to do is accommodate the base. As above weight is not an issue.

almillar

Mothballs - you missed my point - being that it's the WEIGHT of the TV that the stand can take that limits things. Sure, a huge TV on a small stand mightn't LOOK great, but doesn't really matter. Flatscreens are far lighter than CRTs so you can use whatever size you want on it. Just don't base your TV decision on the stand, that's the wrong way round!

MothballsWallet

Ok, so what does everyone think about this Toshiba one? To me, it looks good, and it's on offer from Lidl from Monday, but I've seen it cheaper on Best Buy at the moment.

I saw a nice looking 32" Bravia in our Sony Centre, but it was 420 quid (although they've got that trade-in discount going, with smaller discounts this time). I think I'll have to go to one of our independent shops for a good look

custardy

grumpycrab wrote: »

When we replaced our tube we thought 32" would be ok - viewing at 8-10foot but its too small; assuming you have the space I'd go for at least 37"

we went from a 28" CRT and I had the same debate
went for a 37" too,which is a good size up from the 28"
then went to a 50"

custardy

MothballsWallet wrote: »

Ok, so what does everyone think about this Toshiba one? To me, it looks good, and it's on offer from Lidl from Monday, but I've seen it cheaper on Best Buy at the moment.

I saw a nice looking 32" Bravia in our Sony Centre, but it was 420 quid (although they've got that trade-in discount going, with smaller discounts this time). I think I'll have to go to one of our independent shops for a good look

definatly going for a 32" as your chosen screen size?