Advice on buying a TV please?

[FreddoBaggyMac]

Hi. We're thinking of buying a new TV, our current one is 32'' and we bought it purely because it was cheap and we didn't have much money at the time! Picture isn't brilliant on it and remote control doesn't work - it's made by an unknown brand! We're thinking of something 40" in size. What features are worth paying extra for? We could spend around £400 but would rather spend less if possible. I'm really confused by why they vary so much in price!
We have an amazon fire stick which we'll continue to use and I'm thinking that as we'll be using that a lot of the features of smart TVs will not be that useful to us (?)
We need at least 3 (HDMI??) ports as we need to plug in the dvd player, virgin media box and Amazon stick. Not bothered about the latest gimmicks - just want the best quality TV for the best value! Any advice would be much appreciated.

I bought this on Wednesday. Ours was also 32" and ancient and we were funded an upgrade as a pressie. It's so so lovely. I'm now a tv addict!

When you're looking at reviews look for ones with good sound. Newer TVs are much thinner but it means you don't get as good sound due to less space for speakers.

I would still 'futureproof' and get one with the main catch up and apps, you might go off the amazon firestick or change from Virgin Media to something else.

That said if you aren't that bothered about features you could focus on getting a larger TV instead (if that is something you would like).

Thanks both of you. Good advice about the sound Kai. We def want to stick with 40'' as anything bigger won't look good in our lounge. I like the look of that Samsung one Shelagh... will show DH.

"Future proofing" by having apps built in is the exact opposite to what you should do.

People like YouTube are already liking the app on TVs by big manufacturers that are only a few year old as the TV won't support the code and processing requirements of the new apps.

A much better idea is to ignore all the smart crap and use the forestick or similar which you can upgrade as and when needed completely separately to the TV.

I mean future proofing for the next 5 years or so, our last TV was that old when we got rid of it and the apps still worked. The usual lifespan of TV is 7-8 years (before people decide to buy a new one).

It does really depend whether you are likely to stop using your firestick and Virgin Media in the near future though.

Linked article is an example of YouTube killing the app on TVs older than 2013, in 2015! So some
Sets only three years old.

Don't base a TV decision on its smart features, run them on seperste hardware.

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.geekwire.com/2015/youtube-ends-support-for-older-apple-tvs-smart-tvs-and-other-devices/amp/?client=safari

I use an old laptop to make my TV smart. Wireless keyboard and mouse.

Yes I agree! We like the fire stick and are likely to stay with it and buy upgraded or newer versions. We're a bit of an amazon house: Alexa, kindles etc... and have Amazon prime. Ideally I'd like to pay less to get a non-smart TV (is that a stupid TV?!) and use the fire stick to give us the smart TV features - but all the decentTVs out there seem to be smart TVs (or am I wrong??)

Fair enough, I don't watch Youtube on the TV, but things like iPlayer, ITV Hub, Netflix which are pretty standard on TVs nowaways anyway. You can still some get some HD TVs (and even SD but these are less likely) without smart functionality though.

I wasn't fussed about the smart aspect either - we have virginmedia and an Apple TV on it so two ways of getting YouTube and Netflix as well as the tv. And we have a firestick upstairs that can be used too so we're fine for accessing stuff. But as you said, there aren't a lot of non smart TVs around.

Just bought a new samsung and very impressed with picture quality. We went for a sound bar as well to enhance sound quality.