Can anyone recommend a flat screen TV?

[MmeLindt]

We don't want to spend a fortune, but our old massive TV is doing funny stuff and so it is time to look for a new, sleeker and fancier version.

What should we look for? What size is right for our room - is there a way of working this out?

Bump

More info please.

How big is the room and the budget?

Do you want discreet now or are you happy for your TV to take centre stage?

If it helps, I've got a 42" Toshiba in an 18ft x 13ft room and it's ermm, noticeable.

What size is the TV you currently have ?
What sort of budget do you have to play with ?

Lots of options, depends on your needs and budget I think!

In the UK, there are now choices between having flat screens with satellite (FreeSat) built in or Freeview built in, but if you are not in the UK, they might be available without either.

Also, some are 'internet ready' with an ethernet socket or wi-fi, so they can be used for iPlayer or alternative systems.

Google's Android OS will be available in the not-too-distant future in Sony TVs (there was a Google conference in April/ May where they announced Android v2.2 for phones, but were also demonstrating linking devices, so for example one could use a laptop 'tied' to an Android mobile phone to 'send' the mobile directions to a location and cause it to go into SatBav mode, or to buy an App in the Android store and it would be downloaded into the phone not the laptop).

Later they showed using an iPad (wi-fi connection via the Android phone) to control some download to the TV, which could then play the film.

According to Which, anything 32" or less is now a small TV!!!

We have a 32" flat screen Panasonic (fab TV) in a 13' square room & it's a bit big for us but it was the smallest Panasonic we could get. Previously we had a 24" big square fat thing.

HTH

Oh, and, the non-HD picture on an LCD (LED???) TV is rubbish compared with an old one with the lines.

HD is brilliant, but everything else is just blurry.

Argggh. I don't do imperial measurements.

Ok. Living room / Dining room is about 6 m x 9 m

Distance from couch to tv about 4 - 6 m (depending on where you sit)

Not sure how much we want to spend. Where do we start to get something decent?

We have a similar system to bt vision from Swiss telecom so no need for sky/freeview.

Do we need HD?

Oh, and looked up the TV size - 28 inch at the moment

Do you want a DVD with that ?

If you aren't in UK (?) then are brands like Hanns-G )Hannspree) known and familiar ? They have been making monitors for a while now, but like Viewsonic they are moving into the home TV market.

Other options include using a projector (which can be fed via HDMI (or VGA from a computer) if you are thinking of home cinema (only needs a white wall, though electronic screens which roll up out of sight can be nice too!)

Prices for projection TV is coming down from thousands to hundreds so not something to 'instantly dismiss' IMO.

My TV is a 28" bought 5++ years ago for 300 quid on LetsBuyIt.com before they went bust and relaunched. It is in a room about 15'by 12' and my next TV will likely be 37" (or larger).

If 42" I would mount on an Ikea wall unit (they had one in 2009 which was around 8'by 8'by 10" deep with horiz and vert slats making up cubby holes for DVDs etc, and a portion with no verticals for the TV, below which was a section for sat box [cables went through a discrete pipe from lower to upper area so they didn't need to be visible in front or behind the unit.

If Ikea stop selling them I can build it, I think (school carpentry comes in handy). I want it to fill the bow window at the front of the house so it would put off burglars as they would see that if they broke a window they would still have another structure to get past... Also plan on adding some of that one-way film over the lower 2/3 of the window so they would be unable to view in and my webcam could see out.

Projection thingy is out as no wall for it.

We have an ikea thing so could put tv on it, if that works. Do they have to go on the wall?

No, have DVD and can record from Swisscom box.

corner where TV should go.

Worked out room size approximate 19 x 29 ft (if I have converted correctly) but only half of that is the actual living room area. Other half is dining area.

We have a 32" Samsung which cost £500 three years ago and has been fab. My brother has just bought the same but newer model IYSWIM for £300.

Our room is about 13ft x 12 ft and the tv is a good size but doesn't dominate.

Sounds as if your living area is approx 20 x 15ft, MmeL, so more than a third bigger than mine, but I honestly don't think you'd want to go a lot bigger than 32" - 37" maybe.

Yes, Ponders. That sounds about right. I don't want it to dominate the room. It will be next to a lovely stone built open fireplace which should stay the focal point.

So is LCD the one to go for?

The choice is LCD or plasma & I honestly don't know what the difference is! I'll see what Which say...

What is LCD TV?

Liquid crystal display (LCD) TV screens come to life when light from behind the screen is shone through the television screen's matrix of tiny coloured liquid crystal cells. Signals control each cell, letting varying amounts of colour through, and a picture is built up.
To find the best LCD TV check our rigorous and independent television review guide. We test more than 100 televisions every year - plasma, LED and LCD.

Who makes LCD TVs?

All television manufacturers make LCD TVs. LCD is the most common type of HD TV and offers the widest array of screen-sizes - from small sub 20-inch televisions to huge big screen TVs.

For many years 42- and 50-inch plasma TVs were the only choice for fans of big-screen TV, with technology restricting LCD TVs to mainly the 32-inch market.
Today, it's a different story. Massive manufacturer investment in research and production has led to LCD TV screens becoming increasingly bigger and LCD screens now dominate the 40-inch plus category.

How good is the picture quality on an LCD TV?

There are a couple of general observations to be made. Many LCD TVs don't do blacks well, so darker pictures can look washed out. Wide viewing angles have never been a strong point of many LCD TVs either. Watched head-on the picture looks fine but from an acute angle images can fade.
However, on many of the latest LCD TVs deep colours and rich blacks are the norm, and problems with viewing angles can be more down to the brand of television than technology.

Television size matters

LCD TVs have a definite edge over plasmas in the rigorous Which? testing regime, and find most favour with our exacting viewing panel. However, if you take screen size into account, this is hardly surprising.
A 26 to 32-inch screen is the optimal size for watching standard-definition material. Bigger screens tend to make digital processing side-effects more obvious.
Conversely, bigger screens are more suited to high definition. A 42-inch screen is more capable than a 26-inch set, for instance, of showing off the extra detail and sharpness of a HD picture.
Considering most of us watch standard-definition TV, LCD is more often than not the technology of choice.

How do plasma televisions work?

A plasma TV display is an array of tiny gas cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass. Each cell acts like a mini fluorescent tube, emitting ultraviolet light which then strikes red, green and blue spots on the screen. These spots glow to build a picture.
Plasma has lost HD TV market share to LCD over the last few years, due largely to many of the key TV manufacturers concentrating efforts on LCD and LED televisions.

Who makes plasma televisions?

Panasonic dominates the plasma TV market. It produces by far the most extensive range of plasma TVs and continues to place plasma at the heart of its TV strategy.
LG and Samsung still produce a handful but largely concentrate their efforts on LCD-based technologies. Other big brands, such as Sony, Toshiba and Pioneer have ceased plasma TV production.

How does plasma picture quality measure up?

Plasma TVs have some key advantages over LCD televisions. They tend to produce deeper blacks and richer colours, have wider viewing angles and typically boast a faster response time. This is the amount of time it takes a pixel to go from black to white and black again, and in theory means the TV should cope with moving images, reducing the chance of blurry or stuttering pictures.

Are plasma TVs the best option for 3D TV?

Thanks to the faster response time of plasma TVs (the amount of time it takes a pixel to go from black to white and back again) in theory they should be the best option for 3D TV.
TVs with slower response times (LCD and LED) are more likely to suffer from double (or ghost) images caused by the images for each eye overlapping ? once you notice them, they?re hard to ignore.

That is great, Ponders. Thanks. Seems that LCD is edging out plasma, going by that.

Have seen the Samsung linked to earlier in a store for a decent price, but may go for the 37 instead of the 32 inch screen.

Does Which? say anything about LED TVs, or were they too new/ expensive for the panel to look at?

There are some great LCD TVs from Loewe but they range from about 1000 to 5000 pounds, unfortunately.

LCD - one advantage over Plasma is lower power consumption - look at refresh rates (as per Which? info). 100 Hz is perhaps minimum to go for - more recent (and expensive) TVs may offer 200 Hz and higher. Also see if they have LED backlighting (which gives better contrast when used).

MmeL - one other thing (assuming Swiss TV has similar standard!!) is for a screen with 1920 x 1080 pixels. If you look at any UK websites you may see 'Full HD' 'HD Ready' or 1080 (not sure what they'd put on Swiss sites... 'HD Ready' just isn't up to handling 1920x1080 so I would always suggest looking for the 'Full HD' version so if you get an HD box from Swisscom it will display properly on your TV rather than squashing down the number of pixels to fit the screen.

If you can afford it, get a Panasonic Plasma TV. They are stopping production of them so prices should be dropping, they are by far the best picture qualit available.

I've recently been pestered into a new TV by the DCs. I can only describe it as utterly vulgar.

It's 50" but it's actually neater and tidier than the old TV because it's a flatscreen and therefore takes up less room. So I'd be tempted to go for larger than 37"

Our TV is HD (dunno what the acronym means) but the picture seems very good and 3D.

It's been here for about a month and I still don't know how to switch it on. Hopefully I'll work it out before the children leave home

Are LCD/plasma tv's always lower quality pictures at sd level. We have a 28" toshiba flat screen behemoth which we bought second hand for £20 atm. I love it because the picture quality is actually really good, all the lcd's I have seen in shops (32" kind of size) look, well a bit shit when displaying a normal tv signal.

Dp wants to get a flat screen effort, but tbh if this one conks out I'd rather just get a cheap similar one if the picture is going to be poor. We could get HD (have sky) but obviously it's more expensive and not every channel.

I don't have Sky HD, just normal Sky.

Got a 42" Panasonic Viera plasma, as anything bigger would look ridiculous in my front room. The picture quality is excellent. Very crisp, colours are perfect.

The rule of thumb seems to be, if you want 32" or less buy LCD, if you want over 32" buy plasma. Something to do with LCD not being so good with displaying movement on bigger screens.

Maybe it's just the cheap lcd's that look crap then, honestly even in Tesco etc I've seen the flatscreen pictures looking blocky etc. Is it something to do with the set up in shops etc? (reassuring). We wouldn't be buying any of your known brands .