Need help choosing a 40" TV

electricco

crazyterrier2000 wrote: »

Ok. lots to consider, especially whether I go for that brilliant Sony Bravia, would be my first ever refurb, conflab over boddingtons with the wife required.

Many thanks for all your help

crazy

Personally I would not consider refurbished for a TV, it says in the blurb "May have slight marks on unit". Not easy to return them with especially if you have to pay P&P. I would get yourself down to your local TV store and have a look at them in the flesh, what you will find is they basically all look the same or different depending on how they have been set up. What you will find is that when compared side by side the one which is brightest looks the best. Any TV will look poor is it is set up badly. I find mine looks nice on the low energy setting, easier on the eye than a bright picture, but not suitable in a very bright room, you can set the setting to automatic so it adjusts to the room lighting. ON the low setting you have to put it higher behind a bright window for example. I put a high importance on things like ease of use, what is the TV guide like? What is the remote like? How easy is it to set up favourites and to navigate the menus. Easy of use is the thing which will annoy you most with a TV. 99% of the time you are not even aware of the picture quality. You will notice when it take half an hour to set up your favourites. Unfortunately you can't test many of the features in store because they are not connected to aerial just some fixed feed from the store. AT the end of the day you watch the program, not the display panel. NO amount of technology will make Jeremy Kyle look good!! If you have to return after 90 day you have to pay P&P, actually that is wrong, it is free after 90 days, however it is unclear what happens within 90 days. 3. Items which develop a fault within 90 Days of Delivery can be returned for a full refund or exchanged (subject to stock availability). 4. Items which develop a fault after 90 days will be collected, repaired and returned free of charge for the remainder of the 12 month warranty. Buyer beware.

Notmyrealname

electricco wrote: »

All I can say is you must have money to burn, I have seen plasma TV's and quite frankly their is no difference in the picture quality. The picture quality on my TV is excellent, hard to see how it could be any better. You will not get better quality on fast moving images because it is not possible to fit that quality into the available bandwidth which is pretty limited.

Not on Blu-Ray. And the quality is already there even on Sky HD. The cheaper TVs will turn a fast moving background of trees into a green smudge because their processors and panels are not fast enough. And I can guarantee that put side by side you'd need to be blind not to spot the differences.

SD will look rubbish on any 42" TV because there are not enough dots per inch to produce a sharp looking picture. No plasma can change that fact.

However there is a world of difference in upscaling, especially with jaggies on edges and reducing MPEG noise.

I expect it is all psychological with you, if he had told you it was a plasma you would be creaming yourself over the picture quality. But if you have money to burn and the retail therapy makes you feel better I have no problem with that, it's your money.

I have three HD TVs in my house - a 5 year old LG 32" LCD, a LG3000 32" LCD and the Panny. The difference between all three is immediate and obvious. Even between the two LGs there's a marked difference even though the LG3000 is the updated version of the earlier one - it has better contrast, better menus, better SD image quality.

People who say "you're talking rubbish, its all psychological" and other such nonsense invariably turn out to be people who buy cheap and are either trying to convince themselves that their low rent stuff is as good as the top end stuff or are jealous of someone who can afford to buy something they can't.

almillar

electricco - I'll spot the difference between a plasma and an LCD any day, thanks. You say that it's psychological - I think you've brainwashed yourself into thinking there's no difference! You're recommending £400 LCD TVs, well, you can do much better than that with LCD and plasma.
Quality of SD material can ABSOLUTELY be different on different 42 inch TVs. How good is the freeview tuner? how good is the picture processing (you do know what Sony's 'Bravia' engine is?), how good is the scaler in the TV?
And please don't bang on about energy consumption. The example above of 300w seems high (my 50" Panasonic G10 is 250 I think, and they've got lower since then), but as I'm sure you'll know, plasmas use more energy for brighter pictures, and less energy for darker pictures, so the energy usage depends on what you're watching, whereas LCD energy usage is pretty constant. When buying a current model today, you'll find that there isn't really much difference between the energy usage of an LCD and a plasma for the same size, and MY opinion is that you'll get a better picture with plasma.