Buying a new TV

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Hi folks

I'm thinking of buying a new widescreen TV. I haven't bought one for over 20 years and would like advice on what features both essential and 'nice to have' features I should look for when selecting my TV.

Also, do you suggest I should select the TV model from the popular makes such as Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic etc, or should I widen my choice?

Thanks
 
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Not sure that you can buy "non widescreen" ones!

Personally I have a Sony Bravia My job is video.
You don' say what you watch but freeview plus is good, as is net connectivity for catch up tv and Netflix

The sound on most flatscreen tv's is crap. Buy either a soundbar or a decent 5:1 system
I have solid floors with parquet so have a Sony sound system with wirelsss rear speakers to get over the wires issue

Any new tv looks really big at first- I am about 10 feet from my 42" telly
 
Don't go for a cheap brand from the likes of tesco stick with a good name. I personally like Samsung. Like above a sound bar is a good add on I can't remember a good flat screen TV with good sound.
 
Join Lewis do a five year guarantee thrown in and actually they're prices are matched so worth considering and don't expect your new one to last 20 years!
 
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How much is your budget, how far do you sit from the TV, and what sort of TV subscription (if any) do you have - or want.

If you're just watching from and aerial, then most TVs will be fine, and a 40 or 43" will be a nice improvement. If you decide you want to look at the new 4K programs, then you need a SKY or Netflix subscription, but you could go for a 50" TV with the improved resolution.

Sony or Samsung are good makes, and you want a full HD resolution. Tescos will let you take the TV back if there are issues, but Currys won't. Currys will also be a more hard sell, but their guys normally know more than Tescos staff. Currys will also do 5 year warranties on some models, where John lewis tend to do it on most TVs they sell.
 
what features both essential and 'nice to have' features I
Essential is what they all have - a freeview tuner.

Nice to have is the proper quantity and type of inputs to connect to whatever equipment you want to use with it.

Not required is any kind of 'smart' functionality such as apps, internet connection and similar, because it will be obsolete within months and you are then totally reliant on the manufacturer issuing updates for it, which can be delayed, not work properly and after a relatively short time will not be available, rendering all of those expensive features totally useless.

If you want smart features, get a box from a supplier of your choice.

as Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic etc, or
Provided it is actually made by one of them then that's fine. Some manufacturers including Toshiba licence their name only, and the TV is actually by Vestel or some similar cheap-o-matic generic supplier, making it no better than the own brand things you can get in Tesco.

Also beware of things such as 'contains panel made by X' - where X is some large manufacturer. Or 'made in the UK' which really means generic parts obtained in China, shoved into a plastic case in the UK by a company called Cello and sold under that brand or the name of certain high street shops which consider themselves better than most.
 
4 hdmi ports and optical 5.1 output for me.

Had my Samsung LED 7 years now and would buy another!.
 
Wow. 20 years. A lot has changed in that time.

Brands
The once-household-names such as JVC, Hitachi, Toshiba, Philips, Grundig, Mitsubishi aren't making their own TVs for the UK market any more. In most cases they've sold the brand name to a 3rd party manufacturer in China, Turkey or Eastern Europe. They make TVs under those brand names, but it's not quality product in the old sense. Other manufacturers are out of the business altogether.

Sony, Samsung, Panasonic and LG are all reasonably safe bets. A couple of these buy their panels from other manufacturers but they still make their own electronics. Sharp sold its TV business to Hisense

Apart from Cello, the brands listed above, and a few high-end products (e.g. B&O, Loewe) then pretty much everything else is a generic product with a badge. This includes but isn't limited to: Alba, Aiwa, Blaupunkt, Bush, Digihome, Dual, Finlux, Goodmans, JMB, Linsar, Logik, Luxor, Memorex, Polaroid, Seiki, Techwood, Technika, Telefunken

Screen Sizes and Resolutions
If your current TV pre-dates digital then you're probably using some sort of external box such as a Freeview recorder or Sky. A new TV will give you the opportunity to add a Freeview tuner for digital TV (it's standard on all TVs now), but what's not standard on some 32" and 40" sets is a Freeview HD Tuner. It's getting less of a problem, but it's still worth double-checking, particularly with the cheaper brands.


At 43" and above you'll start to see a lot of TVs with 4K UHD resolution. This is the new thing. Don't worry about going 4K yet unless you want to subscribe to Sky's HD service or Netflix/Amazon in 4K. It doesn't look likely we're going to get 4K UHD on Freeview in the next few years, and even if we do it will only be one or two channels. After all, we've had HD since Freeview started in 2007, but so far we have little more than a dozen HD channels out of over 100 on Freeview so I wouldn't hold my breath on it yet.



Smart Features
TV is getting more 'internetty'. Smart features abound on TVs, recorders, Blu-ray players, plug-in boxes and USB sticks, your toaster.... okay, I'm kidding about your toaster, but honestly they're everywhere. For that reason don't let it be a big factor in your TV choice.


Having catch-up TV is great, but if there's one thing the last 5 or 6 years of having these features on TVs has taught us it's that once a model gets past 3 years old then support for them from the TV manufacturer gets patchy. That was a big shock to the early adopters. They spent an extra £100-£200 over a non-smart TV when these features fist came out. Now they have a TV where iPlayer and other apps no longer work.

A simple plug-in box or USB stick for £20-£40 will do all that the TV's built-in features will do, and better than that, it won't suffer the same kind of support issues because it's not some bit of custom-written software locked to the TV manufacturers way of working.



Where next?
At this point going in to any further depth beyond what's already been covered by the other respondents is pointless. Time for you to fill in some of your blanks such as what screen size, what you're likely to use it with (Freeview recorder, Sky, Virgin, DVD/Blu-ray), whether you have an external sound system already (and how that connects to yyour current TV), plus any other specific requirements
 
Nice piece as always Lucid; I've been waiting for you to come along - always informative.

Now you're obviously on the internet Geek, but what sort of contract do you have, because as Lucid points out, a lot of catch up TV /on demand, is internet based, so you need an "unlimited" contract. My daughter downloads everything, and must go through about 100gb a month at least, and that's on top of the 60gb she does on her phone.
 
I would avoid Panasonic. They are good when they work. Customer service LIE when they don't. Around 5 or 6 years ago a series of Panasonic Freesat TVs stopped working properly on ITV HD. This coincided with ITV changing their broadcast parameters, but still within the DVB spec. The tech spec for the TVs said they should still work. Other makes of TV continued to work. Panasonic LIED and said ITV was to blame, they would do nothing, and suggested you watch the SD version. All the forums were full of it at the time and some people won compensation in the small claims court.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5667787

Think it could happen again somewhere down the line.
 
All good stuff above. Collectively you know a lot about TVs. So my Question. Having a TV on the wall without any space taking ugly boxes that plug into it. I have a router at the front door and a RJ45 socket at the TV position with a line back to the router, as well as an aerial cable point. What is best way of having a TV (Smart TV?) to get as many functions as possible using this setup with no set-top boxes.

thanks
 
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depends what you want to do.
if you want to play memory sticks, you need to be able to access the back.
some tv's have a usb socket to allow a HDD to be added so you can record TV when you're out, saving set top room.
some TVs have wireless as well as wired internet. - go with wired .
you need to get sound back out of the tv via HDMi.
 
It's pretty much what we described above. Either a smart-enabled TV, or a TV (smart or otherwise) with an add-on box to make it smart.

Unless you're buying at the very bottom end of the market then the chances are that whatever TV you buy will have some smart features. So straight away you should be able to start using the TV's web features, if it's only BBC iPlayer and YouTube and a couple of other catch-up-TV services.

The manufacturer's versions of any apps will have some limited functionality. Open platforms such as Android allow for the adding and removing of apps at your leisure. If you have an Android phone then what you see on that device is what the screen for an Android box looks like.

If you're an Apple user then the new Apple TV box might be up your street.

Really the question has to come back to you. Ar eyou quite tech savvy and happy to rip your DVDs and Blu-rays to a NAS drive and you want to play hooky streams of as-yet-unreleased films and set up Plex server to access media away from home, or does that idea fill you with horror and really all you want is the simplest solution possible?
 
thanks. The point is what is the maximum functionality available with no add on ugly space consuming boxes. I see some have USB memory sticks for various reasons, built-in Freeview and others. I have android.
 

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