Bargain LCD HDTVs

cwillnic

cwillnic wrote:

Good prices posted here, but not 'top brands'. Managed to get a 27" LCD HD with in built freeview from Empire Direct for £399 - normally over £600. Now that was the best deal I could find for a branded set.

palmera_2

I agree with the comments that there is little point in buying a tv at the moment just for HD, but equally if you are buying one it seems daft to buy one that is NOT HD ready. I bought mine because the widescreen CRT one (that I was perfectly happy with) suddenly died last week. It was a Thompson, not an unknown name but it was less than 5 years old. Given the way the prices have fallen recently it didn't seem worth paying for a repair, I could get a new replacement one for just over £100. But then if I paid a bit more I could get a flat panel...... then a bit more for HD ready.... then a bit more for built in Freeview..... get the picture?!!! So I ended up paying £399.99 for an LCD 32" HD with Freeview. I think the picture quality is superb, most of the time it is far better than the no-so-old CRT one but I will admit there are certain times when it is probably not quite as good, football (which I never watch) is probably a prime example. Wildlife programmes are stunning, way better than the CRT set. As for power consumption it uses 180W, no idea how that compares to a widescreen CRT but I can't imagine it's much, in any worse. Just my thoughts, technical knowledge zero!

palmera_2

Dollywops: Item number is 529/2002. Good luck!

normal

Scooby_Man wrote:

While Samsung and Sony may be the LCD panel leaders...there are very few manufacturers of these panels, so what you'll find is that some of these 'bargain brands, actually use the same panels! Now I think (don't quote me) that the Samsung panel is used in the Techwood.

It might be true, I don't know. The key thing is that the picture quality is guided by the processing inside. For example, Samsungs and Sony are definitely produced in the same factories. So why does Sony charge about 30% more? Sure, some is due to branding, but most of it goes on what's behind the screen.

Ok. Many of us can't afford big brand products or don't want to spend more than the minimum for a TV. What I was getting at before is that the current 'bargains' picture quality make them not worth buying over older CRT TVs. There is more to TV than resolution and response times. A bit like painting is a bit more than putting a brush on canvas, it needs some skill behind it. Again, true, technology prices are dropping rapidly, so if you can't afford one of the current batch of big brand bargains, then wait a year and buy one then. There's seriously no point buying the cheap stuff at the moment. Buy in haste, pay at leisure.

deefadog

didn't the electricity board predict that if we all got high definition tvs the wouldn't be enough electricity for them? Given the global warming crisis, do we really need these tvs? there's nothing to watch anyway! and anyway it would be better to wait for the tv designers to design energy efficient ones, as they will have to in the next few years...

Interesting, not sure on the differnece in power on these? - My 17" TV is 12V

But to say there's nothing to watch! That's a personal statement and does not reflect on everyone else. I think there is so much good stuff on at the moment, lost, heroes, life on mars, shamles, skins for a few examples!

timbouk

Geoggy wrote:

you have 2 choices, a component lead or a VGA lead.

The component lead is supplied free with the Xbox premium pack, the VGA you have to buy as an extra.

Either will give 720p high def on these TV's, and I would imagine all of them will have both compinent and VGA (sometimes called PC DSUB)

VGA will however give you upscaling on DVD playback. I use VGA and it looks great.

Be carefull as some tvs dont not like tv resolutiond via vga; they were intended for pc only use.

matty69_2

http://www.digitalkind.co.uk/INU_Products/INU_ProdDetailsL8.asp?ref=M4442157

Spec seems good, price also seems very good...god bless our chinese friends

deefadog

Also, one huge difference (and i mean huge) is getting good quality Componet leads - makes such a difference compared to scart leads, the difference is from coax to scart quality!

I got this one - http://www.cableuniverse.co.uk/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=133&products_id=884

Top CS and very good quality!

L.S.D.

Clearly there are a lot of people on here who don't know the first thing about LCD TVs. As previous post, mine was one of the Cheap Aldi's (now expensive by todays standard). I'v put it next to our crt TV & it out performs the crt in every way. There is no motion blur. So todays newer models will only be better if possible.

ILikeFreebies

A lot of opinions are being thrown about on this thread, so here are mine.

1. Interested in the 'green' aspect of TVs? Read this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6188940.stm

It says Plasma TVs use 4x as much electricity as a CRT or LCD screen of the same size.

2. If you must have an HD ready screen make sure it has an HDMI socket or it isn't actually HD ready. HDMI is the high def replacement for SCART. If your TV doesn't have HDMI then you cannot get an HD picture into them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4361543.stm

3. I lot of the cheaper HD ready TVs I've seen can only show 720i pictures. If you don't understand what this means, the number is the number of lines of information. An 'old style' (or current unless you've got Sky HD) TV picture has 576 lines, the lower standard of HD picture is 720 lines and the best HD is 1080 lines. The more lines in the picture will give you a better image on the same size screen. The i or p after the number indicate whether the picture is interlaced or progressive. I won't go into details, but progressive is better. This is why you may see 'progressive scan' on more expensive DVD players. It's also worth remembering that the bigger the screen, the best quality picture will be lower as the lines of information will be spread over a large area.

4. Branded Vs unbranded. Like other posters on this forum, I saw the gadget show on Five on monday. They said that you need to spend a minimum of £700 to get a good flat panel TV. As stated before, they said that cheap, unbranded TVs are not worth buying as they use panels that are years behind the technology top brands are using. I would also metion the reliability of unbranded goods. My mother-in-law has a Sony TV and VCR. Both are over 13 years old, the VCR has an occasional glich but the TV is perfect. My parents bought a Tatung TV a few years ago, the picture started going wrong after 2 years and it died after 4 years. I was there when they bought it and tried to convince them otherwise but they liked it because it was cheap with a big screen and the salesman said that Tatung actually made TVs for the big names which were rebranded. The next TV they bought was a Sony which I found for them, five years later it hasn't had a single problem and the picture is much better than any LCD/plasma I've seen. I don't doubt that branded and unbranded TVs are manufactured in the same factory but that doesn't mean that that they are made with the same technology and the same standard of components. I always think that branded units always look better, most unbranded remote controls look like they are made with plastic from a kids toy manufacturer.

5. Do you really need HD flat panels now. I bought a DVD/surround sound set up over six years ago for £500, now you can get the same for £100. I bought a 24" CRT widescreen TV for £400 at the same time, it was recently replaced by a 28" CRT widescreen TV for £200. I have got lots of money in savings accounts but did not feel the need to move to HD yet. I can't justify spending lots of money on what is still immature technology. There are so few sources of HD pictures at the moment that I felt it was better to wait until HD TVs are cheaper and HD transmissions are more widespread. Do any of the posters here who intend to buy a sub £400 TV own a blu-ray (£1000ish) or HD-DVD player (£500ish)? Maybe they've splashed out £300 for a sky HD box + £60 installation + £10 a month extra on top of the normal costly sky package? If people have enough money to spend on expensive HD gear, why are they scrimping on the cost and quality for the TV itself? If you need the extra inches space in your house then why don't you save the money to move to a bigger house? The increase in your quality of living from having a bigger house must far outweigh having a fuzzy TV attached to the wall.

This is supposed to be a Moneysaving website, I'm a little dissapointed that Martin is putting £400 TVs of unknown quality in his tips emails when you could pay half that for a similar brand and quality of CRT TV.