Budget £400 TV - options please

veryintrigued

Hi there

A relative would like to buy us a new TV as a present.

Currently we have a Sony 28 inch large old version sat on a unit. We have separate DVD recorder and freeview boxes. We've had them all for a decade with no issues.

Budget is around £400-500 and we dont want a wall mounted one (which presumably would involve hiding wires).

We dont want too much technology that we wont use - just a good, solid reliable TV. Fantastic picture quality as long as its as good as now isnt too high on the wishlist. We dont have (or want) sky or cable or need to plug game consoles or connect to the internet or record or pause things.

Can anyone direct us to a decent, reasonable model please with this wooly info!!!

Thanks in advance

devils_spawn

Keep your eyes on the link below - was reduced to £499.99 yesterday and a little birdie tells me it will be reduced to the same price again later in September.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/49451755/Samsung-UE46F6100-Series-6-46-inch-3D-Full-HD-LED-TV/Product.html?

veryintrigued

devils_spawn wrote: »

Keep your eyes on the link below - was reduced to £499.99 yesterday and a little birdie tells me it will be reduced to the same price again later in September.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/49451755/Samsung-UE46F6100-Series-6-46-inch-3D-Full-HD-LED-TV/Product.html?

Thanks for this - good info.

Its a 46inch that one - thats like huge isnt it?! Especially compared to our 28inch.

devils_spawn

Yes - it is big!

Depends on the size you want really, £400-£500 can get anywhere from a 32" TV with loads of features up to 46" with less features. Check out reviews on sites life AVForums or the Gadget Show. Or if you can blag a free month trial of which you can check out their best buys.

Inner_Zone

You will have opened a can of worms, not doubt this thread will generate a LCD/LED or Plasma debate.

Personally as the owner of two 37" Panasonic plasmas and several smaller LCD/LED sets, as you want a basic TV this is my recommendation:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/panasonic/viera-txp42x60b/pana-txp42x60b

veryintrigued

Two great replies already - thank you. I'm on with opening links and reading.

Do you guys and girls who have these larger TVs not find them very intrusive in the room? Or is that the whole point that the TV is the centre piece rather than tucked in a corner?

almillar

TV will seem big for about 5 minutes then you'll wonder why you didn't get a bigger one. Or maybe that's just geeks like me!
Anyway, I would normally jump up and down and scream at people not to buy a TV like that Panasonic but you've said you want basic and big. Just know a few things before you do buy:
It has a rubbish, ancient panel resolution of 1024x768 - nothing is broadcast in this resolution so everything will have to be scaled onto it. This loses sharpness. Consider that full HD is 1920 pixels left to right and 1080 top to bottom. It does have FreeviewHD which is good, and it only has 1 SCART socket which may be a problem for the devices you want to connect. Problem is, most modern TVs do only have 1 SCART socket.
I can personally recommend this TV which my sister recently got. I always worry about flatscreens having rubbish sound but was pleasantly surprised by this one:
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/large-screen-tvs-32-and-over/panasonic-viera-tx-l39em6b-39-led-tv-21278883-pdt.html
My sisters was a similar one for £350 from Sainsburys, without the Smart features that you're probably not interested in.

veryintrigued

almillar wrote: »

TV will seem big for about 5 minutes then you'll wonder why you didn't get a bigger one. Or maybe that's just geeks like me!
Anyway, I would normally jump up and down and scream at people not to buy a TV like that Panasonic but you've said you want basic and big. Just know a few things before you do buy:
It has a rubbish, ancient panel resolution of 1024x768 - nothing is broadcast in this resolution so everything will have to be scaled onto it. This loses sharpness. Consider that full HD is 1920 pixels left to right and 1080 top to bottom. It does have FreeviewHD which is good, and it only has 1 SCART socket which may be a problem for the devices you want to connect. Problem is, most modern TVs do only have 1 SCART socket.
I can personally recommend this TV which my sister recently got. I always worry about flatscreens having rubbish sound but was pleasantly surprised by this one:
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/large-screen-tvs-32-and-over/panasonic-viera-tx-l39em6b-39-led-tv-21278883-pdt.html
My sisters was a similar one for £350 from Sainsburys, without the Smart features that you're probably not interested in.

Cheers for the words of wisdom.

Basic yes - big, no not really. Rooms isnt huge and neither of us wears glasses just yet (although the dog squints!!)

Humphrey10

veryintrigued wrote: »

Do you guys and girls who have these larger TVs not find them very intrusive in the room? Or is that the whole point that the TV is the centre piece rather than tucked in a corner?

No and no. My 42" TV is in the corner of the room so it faces the sofa, and the room's quite small. It doesn't dominate the room - bear in mind how much thinner flatscreens are vs CRTs, they don't stick out in to the room and therefore don't take up all the space CRTs did.

I don't think you get ones that are just wall mounted - you'll be able to get both wall and floor stands for any TV (I think!).

Go and look at some TVs in a shop - get them to show you both non-HD pictures and HD channels on them. Also bear in mind that the shop will be much more brightly lit than your living room, so don't be put off the plasmas because they look dim.

2010

The first thing to say is don`t buy a new TV costing up to £500 without it having a 5 year warranty.

It`s very hard to beat John Lewis both on price and customer service.
This link is for Samsungs but there are other makes to choose from.

http://www.johnlewis.com/electricals/televisions/all-tvs/samsung=brand/c800005013?showAll=&sortOption=priceLow

brewerdave

Look at the big sets in one of the high street stores - then buy from either Richer Sounds or JL!
Also don't scrimp on the size -I bought a 51" 18 months ago -seemed huge to start with -now I'm salivating over 65" models:rotfl: