Bargain LCD HDTVs

Quickblood

My personal opinion is that side by side on Standard Def pics, CRTs still have the edge especially against LCDs and even though it's nice to see them coming down in price I wouldn't touch them at this price level. I've read many reviews and am not convinced you can get a good one for this amount of money.

But if you do have access to HD programming &/or a decent home cinema set-up then they're worth it, but if you had that I doubt you'd spend under £600 on a set.
When I do eventually get a HDTV I'll be looking for a 1080p model and because of the lack of HD programming in this country I'll be adding a Xbox360 and a powerhouse HTPC to the mix to handle upscaling and watch downloaded HD shows.

Most people I know aren't willing to spend that kinda cash and so I always advise them to stick with their TVs for the time being unless they absolutely have to get a new one.

ILikeFreebies wrote:

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.

I've never seen 720i don't think its even used. In order for a TV to be HD-Ready it has to be capable of outputting 720p, 1080i or 1080p so you shouldn't have any problems there and if you’re buying a TV less than 40 inches many would argue that you shouldn't be overly concerned about 1080 lines as you'll not see the benefit.

As for not buying larger screens cause the picture quality will be lower well that's not entirely true I think it probably would depend on the screens resolution.
Sure with these TVs it's probably true as bigger pixels supposedly means more noticeable pixilation and they're all likely to be 1366 x 768 but that wouldn't be true for 1080p sets and people are always telling me that so many factors come into play and that's why it's always good advise to go and see these TVs working for yourself.

PeteHerts

Please tell me if you think im wrong but if you have a PC with a decent graphics card that has DVI output then you can buy a DVI to HDMI cable and connect to your HD ready LCD TV.
You'll then need to transfer your your HD films to your hard drive (might take a while as they are over 20GB) but then with some HD DVD software you should be able to play through your TV.
Long way round maybe but might save some money

PeteHerts

HANNspree XV 37" lcd tv++24 MONTH WARRANTY++FREE DELIVERY++
[XV37 JTO2-37] - £493.50

http://www.intekx.com/product_info.php?products_id=103

ambisonik

deefadog wrote:

That's what i read, i think Samsung, Sony and LG are the only manufactures that make panels, so any of these TV's mentioned will have one of those panels, maybe older type panels perhaphs?

I bought a Hyundai 32" last year for a snip under £600 - that was cheap compared to the big boys around at the time and i find the TV outstanding!

Going to have to buy an Xbox 360 now to take advantage of the HD and you can get a HD-DVD add on for the Xbox for around £100 iirc!

Teco make LCD TV's for Sony & are a lot cheaper..

32" LCD

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=473408

26" LCD

http://www.hitech2go.com/fulldescription.php?ref=fr&pid=809

TiSwAs_2

PeteHerts wrote:

Please tell me if you think im wrong but if you have a PC with a decent graphics card that has DVI output then you can buy a DVI to HDMI cable and connect to your HD ready LCD TV.
You'll then need to transfer your your HD films to your hard drive (might take a while as they are over 20GB) but then with some HD DVD software you should be able to play through your TV.
Long way round maybe but might save some money

Why waste money on buying LCD TV or cable if you already have an LCD monitor that will output 1024x 768 anyway? you monitor should be good enough if the refresh rate is about 16ms to show HD clips/movies

nordberg

ambisonik wrote:

Teco make LCD TV's for Sony & are a lot cheaper..

32" LCD

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=473408

26" LCD

http://www.hitech2go.com/fulldescription.php?ref=fr&pid=809

Nonsense. They don't "make" them for Sony. They MAY use some of the same components and they MAY be made in the same or nearby factory, but that doesn't constitute "making" them.

There's so much mis-information floating around about this topic at the moment...

ppg

PeteHerts wrote:

Please tell me if you think im wrong but if you have a PC with a decent graphics card that has DVI output then you can buy a DVI to HDMI cable and connect to your HD ready LCD TV.
You'll then need to transfer your your HD films to your hard drive (might take a while as they are over 20GB) but then with some HD DVD software you should be able to play through your TV.
Long way round maybe but might save some money

think so but dont forget you'll also need to connect the audio cables, DVI doesn't inlcude audio - but there are now graphics cards with HDMI output. I think what you are actually talking about is a HTPC (home theatre PC or Media center)

BTW people talking about cheap brand names I thought AOC were a big name - you may not see much of their stuff in this country but doesn't mean they don't sell loads elsewhere.

With some of the other makes, remember years ago when the Japanese first made inroads to the UK and we first heard names like Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony etc and they made a name for themselves with quality vfm products maybe its similar with the Chinese stuff

Rgs

boshdmg

No-one seems to have mentioned that broadcast picture quality on many channels continues to degrade at an alarming rate as they squeeze more and more channels into a limited space.

Oftentimes, 'poor lcd' can be attributed to either this, or simply a poor set-up. I would compare sets like-for-like, with a representative dvd for example. (of course you'd still benefit from knowing how they handle broadcast.. but it's not the full picture).

yeah?

shellabella

I have to say we bought a new tv last week, It's a 37" Panasonic HD Plasma with built in freeview and I absolutely love it, I thought long and hard before purchasing as the plan was to save up and buy it, we did have quite a significant amount saved up and then in the last month, my car has needed fixing twice, my husbands bike has needed fixing twice and I had to get my laptop fixed, in total costing us about £1500, so that was all the tv money gone.
Our old tv was 5 years old and we have wanted a new one for years but everytime we've tried to save something else always comes up and takes away the savings.
So I have to admit I bought our TV through my Littlewoods catalogue but I justified it for the following reasons:

*I dont have to start paying until February 08, but CAN pay money towards it in the mean time.
*When I do have to start paying it at 0% for a year
*When I buy anything off my littlewoods catalogue I earn cashback when I pay it off and I will earn around £150 cashback off this transaction.
*It had £850 off of the original price, so was £1149 including delivery

Yes we have paid a lot more for a Panasonic one but although technology will change over the next year or so we wont be changing the TV regardless, my dads Panasonic tv lasted him for 15years and he only eventually changed it because he wanted a newer and bigger one, he certainly got his money out of it though.

I can see the poster's point when he said about getting new carpets rather than a well known brand TV but as we are in temporary rented accommodation we would not be able to take the carpets with us, if we changed them we would have to leave them here. As we are likely to move in the next year and most definitely in the next 2 years as least the TV can come with us!

Plus I got my hubby an Xbox 360 for christmas and the graphic comparison on the HD is amazing, you can turn the HD off on our tv and see the difference.

Stuartli

The Dabs 32in set is down to £349.99 on special offer.

However, I fully support the views to buy known brands such as Sony and Samsung (who have a joint LCD panels production plant), Sharp and Toshiba.

Present LG/Philips (again joint panels manufacture venture) sets currently don't quite match up to the above makers' offerings, based on comparisons at the independent audio/visual/appliances outlet owned by my best mate.