Help me shop for a new TV

In My Humble Opinion
1

My husband wants a new TV and we are in the market. We’ve been looking at Black Friday ads and I don’t know what makes a difference and what doesn’t. I know that 720 vs 1080 is about screen resolution, and I can understand how that makes a difference.

How much of a visible difference is there between 60hz and 120hz (which is screen refresh, correct?). He doesn’t watch car racing, but does like football.

I’m just trying to figure out what the best deal really is before we drop over $500 on something. Because if it were 100% up to him, we’d already have a new TV as of Monday.

Thanks.

2

Since this is about equipment, not content, I’ll move to IMHO for you.

twickster, Cafe Society moderator

3

Do you want a nice TV or are you looking for the cheapest thing you can find?

If you want a nice TV just forget about those black friday deals. They are third tier junk brands.
If you want a really nice set stick with the bigger names (Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, LG, etc.)
If you want an good set go with Sharp, Magnavox, RCA, etc.
Stay away from the garbage like Dynex, Haier, Westinghouse, Insignia.

January is when the nice brands go on sale to make way for newer models.
If you can’t wait till then just wait for the generic “all TVs on sale” sale.

4

Many people (myself included) dislike the faster refresh rates. They can make a filmed program look like videotape. Luckily they can be disabled. I would ask for a demo at a Best Buy or whatever store is near you. A demo of Pirates of the Caribbean using high refresh turned me off to that technology.

5

It’s not the high refresh, it’s the motion smoothing that gives the "soap opera effect."It interpolates frames instead of just repeating them, giving the videotape look. You can generally turn off the motion smoothing while leaving the refresh rate alone.

High refresh is great for sports and for watching 24p bluray movies, since it doesn’t have to do the 3:2 pulldown conversion. I’d also echo Hampshire’s comments about avoiding 3rd tier brands.

6

I thought about going for 240hz refresh last year when we were shopping, but the price differential wasn’t worth it for us. I gather if we watched a lot of sports, or played a lot of video games, it might have been. We wound up with 120hz which seemed a good compromise. Depending on what you’re replacing, even 60 hz might be a huge improvement (we were replacing a 1991-era 19 inch Sony!!).

LED-lit LCD TVs are thinner and use even less energy than regular LCD TVs, but there’s a cost differential. I wanted the LED for the energy/environmental impact but that may not be essential for you.

Plasma vs LCD: Plasma uses more energy but has a wider viewing angle and more glare. They all looked fine to us in the store so we went with LCD. And yeah, if you’re off to the side it’s not perfect but it’s still pretty nice.

Consider a smart TV - i.e. one that can get content from the internet. Typically you’ll find that they can get content from Netflix, Amazon or both (plus other sources like Youtube, Hulu etc.). I have been surprised at how much we’ve taken advantage of this. Sometimes you can get that feature in the blu-ray player instead (the one we got accesses just Netflix, I think). I’d bet pretty much any TV, aside from the cheapest ones, will have at least some smart capabilities.

Wireless can be useful if you have a wireless router, that will let you access the internet-based content. What we found, however, was that we’d get about 2 minutes into a movie and it would freeze and I’d have to reconfigure the TV’s wireless settings, lather rinse repeat. Since our internet and TV come from the same company (Fios), there’s a coaxial outlet right by the TV; I wound up purchasing a MoCa (I think) adapter and cable splitter so I could send a wired signal to the TV. Other providers such as Cox use a standard cable modem that you can purchase anywhere, I had to order our adapter online. Much more reliable than the wireless, once I got it set up.

In any case, consider your internet provider and how to get that signal to the TV, it may not change which one you get but it will help in deciding what extras you may need (like our MoCa adapter).

HDMI inputs: Our TV has 4. I think we’re using two right now: one from the cable box, and one from the BluRay player. A gaming system might use a third (we have a Wii which does not do HDMI input). Other peripherals might use a fourth. Lower-rent TVs might only come with 1-2 HDMI input slots, I’d recommend looking for 3 or 4 instead.

Despite what the gentlemen tell us, size DOES matter. Get the biggest TV that fits your budget and your room. If you want to get a visual for how big that would look in the room, take some newspaper or something and make a shape of the appropriate size, and tape that up on the wall and look at it for a few minutes. We have a poster in the same room that was pretty close in size, so that gave us a visual - and I still wish we’d gone a bit larger. We have a 47 incher and a 52 or 55 incher wouldn’t have been out of line.

7

Mama Zappa’s post reminded me of one more thing - DLNA. If you’ve got a network capable DLNA-enabled TV, and lots of videos or photos on a DLNA PC (anything Windows Vista or later), you can watch the content on the TV, with no other hardware or setup required. Just go to the DLNA setup on the TV, watch for a popup on the PC that says something like “DLNA client television model ABC detected, allow access?” and you’ll be able to watch all your videos & photos from menus on the TV. It completely, utterly rocks. I didn’t even know it was out there, and I was completely blown away when I discovered it on my new TV a few months ago.

And totally concur on the 4 HDMI inputs as a minimum.

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Also agree (and applaud) Mama Zappa’s comments.

And absolutely correct with bigger is better - I don’t think anyone has ever gotten a large, flat-screen TV and wished it were smaller…

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Avarie - a few things you’ll need to figure out:

1. LCD vs. Plasma. The biggest factor here is “what room will it be in?”. If it’s a darker room with few light sources that would be reflected back at you, plasma is going to be the superior choice. If it’s a brightly lit room, then LCD is better. A smaller factor (but very important to some) is whether you’re concerned about power consumption (plasma is quite a bit higher).

2. Size. There are few exceptions to “bigger is always better”, especially for a primary television. If you are somehow limited to size, then this becomes a factor. If you’re looking for the biggest screen you can get, then the only limit here is your budget.

Let us know about those two (and if you’re comfortable letting us know your budget range), and I can help narrow things down from there. And remember - if you don’t want to mess with shipping, Fry’s will match pretty much any price out there, if they have it in stock. They and Costco are probably the best options here in Indy.

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The higher the contrast the the better color blacks and whites will show up otherwise black look like dark gray.The Hz is refresh rate you need good refresh rate to stop ghosting effect on fast moving image.Plasma is good in dark room not a light room .Get LCD or Led if it is a light room and not in your basement.

The 1080P is the highest resolution but keep in mind most TV shows and TV station will not be in HD but SD
Also not all blu ray movies are going be true 1080P .I have some blu ray movies that look realy good and other blu ray movies look just little better than DVD.

11

1080 resolution means you shouldn’t worry too much about the old “too close for a big TV rule.” Bigger is nicer.
Most people won’t notice 720 v 1080 at 40" and under unless they are looking hard (versus casual viewing).
120 refresh rate for LCDs and active sports. For plasma refresh rate is not an issue.
Internet TV if you want cheap programming like Hulu or Amazon, or want to use a content streamer like ROKU.
Plasma is less expensive. Slightly heavier, often; more reflective usually. I prefer a matte finish because my TV is near a window and I hate the mirror effect of some surfaces.
Right now, if I were on the cheap, I’d buy the TCL 55 from Amazon. Biggest decent TV for the least money. Chinese, I think.
If I preferred a big box store to Amazon, I’d get the 60" Vizio E Series from Costco, b/c it’s a deal at $980 (also at Sam’s and Amazon). Edge lit LED and basic Internet inc WiFi. I heard a rumor Costco is putting their TVs on sale tomorrow.

My personal bias is that most people would never know they have a “crappier” TV if they didn’t have one side by side, and in any case not every TV in every store is set up the same.

I think Mitsubishi still makes DLPs, ($1300 for 73 inch on Amazon) if you are looking for size above all, but the brightness is not going to compete with plasma and LED(LCD) TVs.

12

My local Walmart has the Vizio E series 60" as a Black Friday special at $688, starting Thanksgiving Day at 10p.
This is a new model, edge-lit LED, thin bezel, 1080, 120 Hz, internet-enabled TV w/ good reviews.

I find that a staggeringly good deal.

I believe this will be true of most WalMarts. Supposedly Amazon will be matching…(be careful; Amazon’s low price guarantee for TVs does not extend to Black Friday, so it won’t be an automatic match of price).
As a cheapskate addicted to good deals, I’ll be outside the door with my pepper spray in hand.

13

Thanks everybody! We ended up going with a 47" Vizio LCD E-series, 1080p, 120hz, SMART TV. He didn’t see anything better in our price point (under $600) for Black Friday so we ended up getting it early. We are thrilled! It replaced a 7 year old 32" CRT so it’s a big improvement.

14

If I might piggyback on this thread, I’m also looking for a new TV in the near future. I’m kind of leaning toward a Panasonic 50" plasma, but the reflectivity has me slightly concerned. It’ll be in the front room, which has windows along one wall. If I put the new TV where the current one is, it won’t be directly reflecting those windows. Is LCD still the way to go in a bright (during the daytime, anyway) room?

15

Not what Robot Arm asked, but this reminded me: always go to a store to try to get a feel, vs. ordering online. We picked up a smaller TV for my son this summer and I looked at several in the general price range (200ish dollars). Several really did look better, despite having roughly similar-sounding specs. For reflections, you can also get a better feel - while they don’t have actual windows, you could maybe bring a flashlight or something and have a friend help you out.

When we were shopping, I didn’t see a huge issue reflection-wise between the two sorts.

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If you want to get a sense of reflections turn your cell phone on, brightness set to high, and wave it at the screen while watching.