Mr. Geek and I are going to be replacing the old and beat down television we have for the bedroom. We would like to replace it with a flat panel LCD. We have already been looking at possible replacements, but I would like to see which sets you guys really like or just absolutely hate.
Just a few “requirements”:
Something in or around a 32" model
Less than $1000
Easy to hook a DVD player up to
Top name brand not important
We have a 42" plasma in the living room and have gotten used to the "stretched"aspect ratio common on the flat panels, so that is a non issue for us.
With the proper aspect options offered, the stretch affect should be a thing of the past. New tv’s offer the aspect option that only stretches the edges of the picture, meaning most characters and parts of scenes are in normal aspect.
Top name brand sets offer more of these options, but even TV’s like Polaroid now have them.
The price went up since the sale is over, but the specs on our tv was approved by our “ooo shiny <3”/techy friends. Worked for us!
We also like this tv because there are various settings on this tv. You can watch a show regularly, stretch the images so it fills up the screen or have it as “overscan” where the images are stretched so it’s proportional, but the edges all around are cut off. We watch tv on the overscan mode and we don’t care that the top, bottom and sides are a bit cut off.
We totally <3 this tv. It’s our son. We named him Pablo Fancypants Figueroa. We love our son.
P.S. Do NOT get a plasma tv! A friend of ours was watching tv and left the tv on a certain channel for a while and the logo in the bottom corner was burned into her tv. Apparently that’s not a surprising thing when it comes to plasma tvs :eek:
Our 13-year-old Sony Trinitron is still going strong. Must be one of the best sets ever manufactured. However, I have been keeping an eye on the flat screens for that inevitable day when we have to change. Do you have the Sony Bravia in the US? I’m very impressed with the color; it’s much sharper than in even the other Sony sets. More expensive, too.
Panasonic is coming out soon with something called the Kuro that’s supposed to be good.
We have a Panasonic 42" plasma tv that we bought nearly 2 1/2 years ago. We knew about the “burn in” problem, and so far we haven’t had any issues with it even with me spending hours at a time playing Guitar Hero. The model we have is really fantastic for the price we paid (right about 2K).
I will add the Westinghouse model and the Olevia models to the list of options to look at.
Siam Sam, My in-laws have a Trinitron tv that even though it’s old is still a great TV. We do have the Sony Bravia tv’s in the U.S., and all the ones I have seen are really nice, but over what we want to spend for a bedroom tv (unless we find one on a helluva sale :))
We got a Samsung 32" LCD flat panel almost a year ago now. LOVE it, and now that we have HD service through DirecTV, we can use all its features too. Of all the sets we looked at at Circuit City, it had the best picture (the Sonys were really nice too, but you pay a premuim for that name), and we also had a $100 coupon, so good deals all around. Now is a good time to look for electronics, there should be sales to draw people in for the holidays.
In Thailand, a 35-inch Bravia goes for 35,000 baht. That’s about US$1029. Expensive, but the color looks so good that if it lasted as long as our Trinitron, I could justify buying one.
At your price range, you can get a 32" Sharp Aquos, one of the better rated LCDs out there. You might also look at LG flat screens. They’re underselling everyone and are also top rated for quality.
Hello LVgeogeek! How ya doin’?
I happened to wander through the electronics department at both the local Walmart and Sam’s Club recently and found some great LCD flat screens that are below your target dollar amount!
I also saw a huge-ass flat screen that I think was 60" or so and was salivating, but luckily the SO grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off to another department before I started to grab for the credit card.
BTW, we too have had our plasma 42" for almost exactly three years and have had no problem with any “burn in”, but are aware of the fact and make sure we do not hit the pause button for too long. It is still a great TV (the ILO brand from Walmart) although it pisses me off that the price of that television has gone down about 40% since we bought it two years ago!
We looked a the models they sell at CostCo. There is a nice Vizio brand for around $600 or so that has pretty good reviews on a few sites. HDTV and all that good stuff.
I might do some online looking at Fry’s, RC Willy, Worst Buy and Circuit City and see if they are having any specials/sales going on. If not, we’ll probably just get the one from CostCo.
Burn-In is, maybe not a myth, but is exaggerated. If you do ever get any burn-in, 99.99% of the time it will disappear after a few hours use of regular watching, as the pixels get some varied usage again.
There is, though, probably a 0.01% chance that something nasty may happen to cause permanent problems. However, recent Plasmas are less likely to be prone to burn-in, they seem to have improved the technology in that department.
Actually the Sony and Samsung LCD screens share about 98% of their technology.
The only difference between the Sony Bravia (which are seriously overpriced) and the cheaper Samsung FullHD series is a bit of software.
Do these TV’s still require extremely careful installation? I am drooling over them, and finally got the wife to conceed that we will get a flatscreen when we redo the living room (next year? Possibly the year after that…?).
Should one spring for the $200 installation from BestBuy, for example?
No they don’t, but you will likely require 2 people due to size and weight, especially if you go for a plasma. Special care will be required if you’re going to mount it on a wall: the wall should be a full, brick, wall, not a partition wall. Otherwise the thing will rip itself out of the wall and fall down.
Agreed. It’s smaller as far as “names” go, but top quality at (at worst) a mid-range price. We recently bought their current 42" 1080p LCD after going to the walls of screens at three different stores (two Best Buys and a Circuit City) in order to get a potential variety of screen setups/temperatures running. We tried to just look at pictures first, then notice the brand and price. Yeah, the typically top-ranked Samsung looked great, but the LG seemed just as good, and far far cheaper.
Then again, we have friends who swear by the un-brand Visio.