LED TV questions

almillar

ukcarper is thinking of OLED - Organic LED, where there is no backlight. You can't really buy them yet, unless you want to spend over a grand on a 15" screen. Put one in your diary in about 5 yrs time.
You guys have to stop being blinded by marketing. Just because a Corsa has a spoiler on it, doesn't mean it's faster than a Ferrari. Just because an Alba TV says LED (backlight) on it, doesn't mean it'll have a better picture, or use less power, or be thinner, than a Sony LCD with a tube in it.
Look at the picture before you buy something!

Inner_Zone

AirCooledHeaven wrote: »

You are way behind on pricing, LED tv prices have dropped massively in the last 12 months, a 40" samsung LED from john lewis with 5 years warranty is less than £600...

No, you are confused. That's not an LED TV, it's an LED backlight TV. Totally different thing.

InsideInsurance

21Twinkle wrote: »

So are LED backlit TV's worth buying ?

There is no one perfect technology hence why the different ones are still be marketed.

The problem with LED backlit LCDs can be they suffer from clouding - ie inconsistent lighting, with my LED screen if you look at a pure black screen it does almost look like very very very dark storm clouds but as soon as you put a moving image with contract then your eyes filter it out a lot.

Traditional LEDs however are thicker, use more electricity and can instead suffer the issue that the edges are brighter than the middle of the image.

The_stingemeister

Can I hijack here and ask the knowledgeable ones a question? Do the LED tvs (I don't mean the true, v.dear ones) avoid the ultra dark (infact unwatchable) screen you can sometimes get if watching from a a certain angle on the LCDs? I'm talking about ones I've seen on peoples bedroom/kitchen walls (generally <20" screen sizes). So your sat on a bed looking up at screen and all you see is darkness, unless you stand up to watch it at your own eye level.

50Twuncle

Are there any brands to avoid ?
I seem to think that, in the old days (20 years ago) - there were only a dozen CRT tube manufacturers - and brands such as Tatung used Sony tubes ?
With LCD displays being comparitively cheaper to produce - is this still the same ?
What about Logik or own brands such as "Essentials" or "Digitrex"?
and finally - PCWorld have a lot of refurbished TV's for sale - why so many and where do they originate from ?

almillar

Stingemaster - you're talking about viewing angles. This has got better in LCDs over the years, but the LED backlight itself has no effect. Generally you hear about viewing angle horizontally, whereas you're talking about vertically. They're setup to be viewed from straight ahead, and can look too bright when viewed from above, or as you say too dark when viewed from below.
Problem with little bedroom TVs is they're often cheapo ones with ancient panels in them, so it makes the problem seem worse.
Plasmas don't have any of the above problems, but they start at 40 inch! Best bet is to look at branded, more expensive small LCD TVs for better viewing angles.
21Twinkle - of course you're better avoiding that kind of stuff, but better brands will cost more. How much do you value your eyes? I use my TV every day, so it's one area where I don't mind spending more on a better model (for a good price). The cheaper TVs you talk about often have older screen technology, fewer connections, worse sound and fewer features (like having only Freeview instead of FreeviewHD for example).
Refurbs can be customer returns that have been checked and still come with a warranty, check the cosmetic condition and shop around and you could get a bargain.
DON'T just walk into Tesco and buy a TV without doing research first though.