I have two 42" Samsungs and have been very happy with both. The first one we bought ( at Target) is up front in the viewing room hooked up to my A/V Receiver. We used to watch regular TV through the U-Verse box, Blu-Ray, Wii, and X-Box with it. Nowadays, my youngest son has mostly commandeered it for X-Box play. We bought the second for the bedroom (also at Target) because it came with a free Blu-Ray. We use the on-board speakers on that one and they are adequate. Now, it does have internet capability but, as it happens, we bought an AppleTV at the same time that we bought the TV. The AppleTV now pretty much dominates our viewing experience. We still record some first-run stuff on the DVR but everything else comes from the AppleTV.
Oh, and +1 on the monoprice HDMI cables. Just buy a bunch of different lengths to use now and forever and be done with it.
I personally like Samsungs for the picture. Sonys are also good. If you are looking for a good budget buy take a good look at Vizio. They have been very solid in the field and the screens are manufactured by Samsung.
Best advice i give is to go to a place like Best Buy that have them all up on a wall, stand back and look at the whole wall and see which screens catch your eye. Look at those models to narrow down from there by features. Then run from BB as fast as you can and buy it else where.
Also, under no uncertain terms, for ANY REASON spend more then $5.00 for a 10’ HDMI cable.
There is a 99% chance that the TVs at Best Buy aren’t calibrated properly, so visually comparing them doesn’t really give you a good idea. That’s assuming they’re even using source material that’ll highlight the difference between the TVs.
You want to pick a TV based on expert reviews, like pretty much everything else. The word from them is 2011 Panasonic plasmas.
BTW, my Panasonic plasma is 3D capable. Now I doubt I’ll ever watch much at all in 3D, just not interested, but they put their best electronics and materials into the high end 3D models so it makes for a better, longer lasting 2D set. Also, Best Buy does offer an extended warranty, up to 4 years, that kicks in after the Panasonic 1 year warranty has expired. If you get burn in (highly unlikely) or pixels die or whatever they’ll replace it with a new model.
I don’t know. I only recently started to care about televisions again. There is way too much information out there to figure out previous winners. My guess is that the Panasonic S2 was the previous under-$1000 champion. I know Samsung did very good low-end plasmas, so maybe one of those is better. The only reason the ST30 is the clear winner now is that Panasonic was nice enough to use their premium panel (GT30) and just skip THX-cert and some other polishing touches.
OUCH! well, if anybody’s poking in for other advice, I’ll give mine, based on keeping an eye on this market for quite some time. In short:
If you want the best picture for the price, go with a Panasonic plasma. They’re very, very, very pretty. Great blacks and rich colors.
If you want convenience (ie much lighter weight and no real need to worry about image retention / burn in) go with a Samsung or Sony LCD. I prefer Samsung, but if you have other Sony equipment the unified interface is nice. Quality-wise, they’re on-par.
The other option is the “as cheap as possible” approach, like a Westinghouse. There’s definite compromises in quality, but, hey, sometimes 30+% cheaper is worth the tradeoff.
Whatever you get, buy 1080p. Not sure if it’s still the case, but I always used to hear people say “you can’t tell the difference and you can save money buying 720p.” There’s some truth to that, but 1080p saves headaches when hooking up computers or trying to display digital photos, both of which are things people are probably going to want to do more of moving forward.
That ain’t worth a damn. I hope insurance comes through in a way that gets you back on the road quickly and allows you to get the set of your choice. Good luck.
I’d think very carefully before going directly to a plasma. The reflective nature of them is something to not overlook. Any and every type of lightsource is directly refelcted off the screen making for distracting viewing and often makes it unwatchable.
I just got a 60" plasma that looks great but is pretty much unwatchable until I get blackout shade for the window that sits behind the sofa. Even a translucent shade will show up as a big white rectangle on the screen. Right now I can really only watch it at night. And even then if there is a lightpole or a light on in a neighbors house across the way it reflects off the screen.
Yes, the plasmas are great, just be very aware of what type of environment you’re putting them into.
Agreed. I don’t know if they’re $1 but I got some really nice “certified” high-speed hdmi cables from monoprice for about $5/ea. “Certified” being the key word meaning they meet the standards of HDMI.org. They work perfectly fine.
Take the $60 you just saved yourself and get a blu-ray copy of Dark Knight and Wall-E.
If you’re paying $60 for two Blu-Rays …[sub]{drum roll}[/sub]… you must be buying them from Best Buy.
I haven’t had the money yet, but I’ve looked at units. 1080p is definitely better than 720p. Plasma seems to have too much reflectivity. My big problem is that the wall on which I need to place a new unit has no cable drop. I’m thinking more and more that I can just use WiFi and stream Netflix, Hulu, etc. Is there a HDTV that can stream regular Hulu and not Hulu Plus? YouTube videos too?
At a buck a piece, and since you bought a whole bunch of them in different sizes, in the (highly) unlikely event one of them doesn’t perform up to specs just chuck it in the bin.
Just a week ago, I bought two 6’ HDMI cables from Monoprice for about $13 total. I then attempted to watch a few programs on Netflix via my PS3. The picture quality was shit and the sound cut out every 3-5 seconds. I called Netflix and we finally determined everything was working except the cables.
This is why I suggest mid-priced cables. The Monster ones are a rip-off, but the Monoprice ones were crap.
I have a very nice Sony 60 inch LCD with LED lighting, which I use as both a computer monitor and a TV. It is sumptuous. Expensive, however, I figure the LED lighting will pay for itself within 2 years. And they will take forever to burn out.