I want to get a small-ish TV for a 2nd bedroom so I can watch football in peace. This will not be our main TV, so I was expecting to buy a small TV, even a portable one. But, my wife said the budget could be up to $1k thanks to Best Buy’s layaway plan.
My questions:
My wife wants to get a name brand. Nowadays, what are the good brands for LCD tv’s?
Plasma TV’s are dirt cheap now, and the sales person said they’re getting cheaper only because new 3-D models are coming out. Is this BS? I suspect this has something to do with the fact that plasma TV’s use 3X as much power as LCD’s.
At Best Buy, it’s tough to ignore their house brands, Insignia an Dynex. Are these that much worse than the name brands?
Is this a bad time to buy a TV? We’re not in a huge rush. About two weeks ago, they had a sale where if you spent $700, you got a 2nd TV free. The salesperson advised us to wait for the “crazy” sales.
If my main goal is to watch sports, what features should I get?
How much of a difference is getting HD cable TV? My cable company will charge ~$26/mo for HD.
Any other general advice for buying TV’s?
Note: I know Best Buy is a terrible place to buy anything but the main draw is their payment plan, which is something like 18 months, no interest.
We recently bought a 42" Haier Full HD TV which was 2/3 the price of a Samsung… I think with cheaper brands you run the risk of sketchy A/S should the thing break down. Quality-wise - there’s a small difference if you look at them side by side but it’s hard to tell (for me, anyway).
Why not get the kind that are sold as “dual-use computer monitors”? My 18" from LG was 117€, and given the size of the room, anything bigger would let me see acne scars on Mt Rushmore’s faces.
You can get a LOT of TV for $1000. An under-30" LCD will only run a few hundred.
Of what’s available at Best Buy, the usual suspects: Sony, JVC, Philips, Samsung, etc.
I have an Insignia, bought it a couple of years ago and haven’t had any problems with it; they’re made for Best Buy by LG. Get a good picture, and there are a ton of I/O for connecting anything you can think of in any way.
On an HDTV, the difference is very noticeable and worth the extra cost. SD content will look worse on an HDTV than it would on an SDTV because it has to fill in the extra pixels.
For both of these, I’d advise you just go to the store while a game is on and pick one that’s got a good picture quality (sharpness, black level, viewing angle, etc.).
2. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that plasma TV’s use 3X as much power as LCD’s.
That, plus LCDs cost more to manufacture.
4. Is this a bad time to buy a TV? We’re not in a huge rush. About two weeks ago, they had a sale where if you spent $700, you got a 2nd TV free. The salesperson advised us to wait for the “crazy” sales.
That is a crazy sale, never seen it before. If you have the budget, there’s always a sale you can find, I’d just go out and get it.
5. If my main goal is to watch sports, what features should I get?
I think with that budget, I’d put a couple hundred into a soundbar. A small TV is going to have crappy little tinny speakers. Add a soundbar to really fill the room.
6. How much of a difference is getting HD cable TV? My cable company will charge ~$26/mo for HD.
The difference is huge. But before you do, I’d try just adding an antenna to pick up local broadcast. Of course, this doesn’t help for ESPN.
Other have covered your questions, so I will ask: Your cable company charges $26 for HD channels?
They are screwing you. The big selling point among providers these days is the number of FREE HD channels they provide. Are you in a rural area or some place with no competition?
You didn’t say exactly what size you were looking for but if it’s for a bedroom 32" is pretty good.
For a 32" I’d skip plasma all together. I don’t think you will find find plasmas that small either.
Basic LCDs are a bargain nowdays and you’ll spend less than $500. You can’t go wrong with Sony, Samsung, LG.
I’d personally skip brands like Insignia, Dynex, Westinghouse.
The Sony, Samsung, LG are so similar that’d I’d even say you could pick one just by whatever remote control appeals to you the most.
In our bedroom, if we had a 32" any time we had the tv on and were screwing it would end up being group sex with whoever was on TV … the entire room is 9"x11" A 19" is way more than enough to see perfectly fine.
I’ve been facing a similar dilemma, I wanted a smaller (32"), TV for the bedroom. I don’t watch a lot of TV there, so I wasn’t too concerned with quality and features, I just wanted a fairly cheap unit. Target is selling 32" Sylvania LCDs for < $300! I just bought one and couldn’t be happier. 3 HDMI inputs and the usual composite/S-Video/component hookups. I’ve been waiting about a year (since last black Friday) for 32" to get below $300.
I think some people live on a completely different planet re: TV sizes. My computer monitor is 22", and if I’m watching something in HD, the optimum viewing distance is something like three feet. For something at the foot of a bed there’s no way I’d go smaller than 32", and I’d probably even try to budget myself into something a little bigger.
(It’s not just you - I’ve seen it from a bunch of other people, too. Your quote was just convenient!)
Well, there is free and then there is free. Here, TWC will provide “free” HD channels, but only if you have digital cable. If you only have standard cable, then you still need to cough up some $20 or so to upgrade to digital cable and get the “free” HD.
My cable company does offer a few channels in HD (like 5-8), and some of the basic cable channels do offer HD content (like ESPN.) The $26 will cover the cost of:
HD cable box rental
40 additional HD channels
200 other channels, e.g. music choice.
I already pay $80/month for basic service and Internet, so HD would be 106 total.
Yeah, they’re pretty much a monopoly around here.
Edit: given the size of the budget, I’m thinking of taking our main TV (20" box), sticking that in the bedroom, and then putting the big tv in the living room.
I bought a 42" 120hz LCD Vizio in December for $649, and I couldn’t be happier. The HD channels are so much better than non-HD, I hardly ever watch non-HD channels any more. The only weakness were the built in speakers which didn’t produce sound quality comparable to the HD video, so I bought a stereo sound bar for $100, which gives theater quality digital sound.
I have a small 22" Toshiba LCD TV, and it is a total piece of crap. I would never get anything from Toshiba again. Its firmware is extremely buggy. For example, my DVD player is connected to one of the TV’s HDMI inputs. If I power off the DVD player while the TV is on that HDMI channel, the TV will just hang. I can’t even switch it off with the remote, and I’ll have to physically press and hold the power button on the TV. I’ve also run into a number of problems in how it handles audio muting.
