What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

My TV died last night, and I'm thinking of purchasing a flat screen TV, and I have some questions.

How do they measure the screen? Still diagonally, like the older CRT TVs?

What type of sceen is best? Not even sure what there is...plasma, LCD, etc.?

Any brands to stay away from, or better brands to buy (although price may dictate this a bit)?

Can they all hang on the wall, or do some only sit on a base?

I do know to check for inputs, as I'll be connecting a VCR, DVD player, and stereo to it.

Anything else I should look for?

ps: I don't need the best, all singing, all dancing TV, but am looking for good value. Price is important, or I'll have nothing left for RCing! I see some on sale for about $400, but if I have to, I can go up to $1000. Is that realistic pricing?

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

LCD still reins supreme... although the LED tv's are pretty good. Whatever you may hear here, the best way to shop for a TV is going to an electronics store and checking them out for yourself. Vizio makes fantastic and affordable TV's.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

My roommate just bought a Panasonic 42" 1080P Plasma at Best Buy for 600 bucks. The TV kicks ass and the HD looks amazing.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Big fan of Sony and Samsung myself. I feel that when you're looking at non-HD channels with them (granted, rare, but can happen), the quality is better.

As for Plasma vs. LCD (or LED), I hear that Plasmas are fine, if you have no light/sun glare to worry about. Where my TV is, I was a bit concerned about the ceiling canned lights giving glare, so went with an LCD. No idea if it would have impacted a plasma or not - wish they let you test one at home before buying. :)

Either way, HD on both types is amazing. "They say" that plasma is supposed to be better for fast motion (think: sports), but I have yet to see any faults with my Sony LCD, and I watch a ton of sports. And I'm a pretty picky b@@#$@ about these things.

proanti1 has a good point that Vizio has less expensive models that are good. Take his recommendation and check 'em out at stores to see what your eyes can see. Also, cnet.com usually does solid reviews of stuff like this. Of course they love the expensive stuff, but maybe you can read a thing or two about Vizio there (or brands to avoid).

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Plasmas have the best image, but are the fastest to degrade.

It can be a hard unit to find, but each manufacturer is obliged to provide their MTBF figure for electronics. This stands for Mean Time Between Failures. You'd be surprised how this can differ from model to model, and the more feature rich a TV is, the lower this figure normally is (more technology=more things to go wrong). Traditionally, Sonys have a very high MTBF value, but I'm well out of touch with the TV market, so don't base anything on that.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

1) Yup, still Diagonally.

2) See addtional questions below.

3) If you've never heard of it, stay away from it. A cheap TV is exactly that. A CHEAP TV. Vizio is the "cheapest" I'd recommend and they are a luck-of-the-draw brand as it is. Some batches of Vizios win awards and should have shrines built in their honor. Some batches are complete junk. Samsungs, LGs, Sonys (arguably Best in LCD), Panasonic (argubably best in Plasma)..all fine.

4) They all can hang on the wall, but buy a proper Wall-mount and USE A FRIEND!!! It is not a one-man job.

5) Most TVs these days have everything from the Red/White RCAs to HDMIs and everything in between. Whatever you have is gonna plug in.

Other questions to ask yourself.

A) What size do you want? Over 40" Plasma will be cheapest on your pocket book. Under 40" LCD/LED is the ONLY way to go. Plasma doesn't do small.
A.2) What size will fit? The only thing that sucks more than getting a TV home, unpacked and saying "Darn it, I've got room for 4 more inches." is "Crap! I bought a TV 4" too big!"

B) What do you watch? Dramas, sitcoms, disney movies, etc... take your pick. Everybody looks good on LCD/LED. If you watch a lot of sports, high-energy movies, fast paced video games, Plasma refreshes faster so the picture will me somewhat clearer (less fuzz between moving legs). I watch a TON of hockey and Plasma is the way to go, eh.

C) Where will this be placed in the room? Plasma, despite all of it's "anti-glare coatings" still relfects the sun like a mother-fricker. LCDs (and I believe LED) keep glare to an absolute minimum. If you've got glare now, think LCD!

D) If you plan on watching Blu-Ray movies and/or playing some of the super kick-tail Video Games on PS3s, you'll want 1080p (and an HDMI cable. DON'T BUY IN STORE, go to monoprice.com. You'll thank us later when you're not paying $100 for your cables.) Anything else, you can buy a 720p.

Hope that helps.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

If you ask me Plasma is better than LCD, the only benefits LCD or LED offers is they are better for hanging on a wall as they are lighter and thinner. Plasma offer IMO a much better and more realistic image and they are cheaper but some of them do weigh a ton... The best thing to remember when buying a new TV is only buy FULL HD, some TVs are sold as HD and they only display 720p. Make sure you get something that has 1080p. Also make sure you use HDMI cables I see too many people with expensive TVs hooked up with component or god forbid even RCA cables. One of my friends was amazed when I gave him a cheap HDMI cable I had after he was using RCA for the first 6 months of having his 60" behemoth, "It's like I bought a new TV again" he said...

So if you ask me you can't go wrong with a 50 inch full HD 1080p plasma

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

If you're concerned about power usage (how I convinced my parents..) you can download a list of ALL the energy star TV's from the energy star website. I did that, deleted all the irrelevant specs and sorted it by size/power usage. We ended up getting an LG 42LV3500 42" LED LCD TV. We got it from Newegg for $600 with free shipping and along with a super cheap HDMI cable a few months ago. It looks great, the only thing is the speakers are pretty low quality, so you might want external speaker. One thing to watch out for about speakers is the audio output on the TV. Our's has L/R component, and 1 optical output, so if we want surround sound (and we do) we have to find something with a optical input. If you have a PS3 or HTPC, you really don't need any kind of smart TV. Ours can play MKV files straight off a hard drive via USB, which is all we need. Also, even though I can't compare it, ours is only 60hz, not 120hz or 240hz, but I really don't think it would make that much of a difference, and 60hz seems plenty fine, expecially seeing as most TV or games (PS3/XBOX) are around 30fps (I think).

And like Tjettzky said, stay away from weird name brands, like Best Buy exclusive or the really cheap ones. LG, Samsung, Sony, and I think Sharp are good. The biggest thing is probably picking the size you want, and reading reviews, from multiple websites.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

LED is the way to go, less power drain and heat!


We have a plasma in the den. The house temp is set at 72° but after watching a movie the den is 84°. That TV heats the den up 12° in two hours! The fire place doesn’t work that well.

Reminds me of the story of the first V8 engine. Looking over the data it was learned that it was running at 12% efficiency. One engineer looked over at the other and said. "Good Lord! 88% efficiency! You have just created the worlds most efficienct heater"!

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the comments.

I just got back from the store. Sony has a nice 40'' LCD with 1080p, but only 60Hz. I only watch movies, and the movie that was on seemed fine, so it seemed to work nice in the store.

There was an almost identical Toshiba there as well. On sale, so about $30 cheaper (not significant) than the Sony. Picture not quite as perfect as the Sony, but extremely close. Probably will decide on one of those two.

There was a 40 inch LED one there too. Had a very nice pic, but $200 more (yes; significant). I forget the brand. Might have been LG.

The plasma units all had a very good picture, but I found out about glare. The overhead store lights really gave the plasma screens a bad reflection and glare. Not sure if that would be a problem at home or not.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Glare can be a problem but show me a TV that looks good sunbaking... If it's night time I have the lights off for movies anyway and in the day I shut all the blinds so glare is not a problem for me... If I was going for 40 inch or smaller I would be more inclined to get LCD or LED but any bigger I would want plasma... I find that in a dark room LCD are really bright, even when I turn the brightness or the backlight down I still feel a bit like I'm trying to look directly at the sun. Plasma has more of a soft easy on the eyes kind of light rather than a stark fluorescent light that LCD has.

what ever you get you should be pleased with I am just picky with TVs... when I found out Pioneer stopped making Plasmas I was in a bad mood for like a week.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

look at the tcl brand if you can , I got a full hd 32inch led , with 120hz at $600 its pretty good I got it last year , but now you can get them cheaper and bigger sizes for less money , and don't get anything less than 100hz otherwise it will look like crap .

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Do some research on the components. No use sweating over the picture quality of brand A, B, or C when all the screens are all made by Samsung.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

No doubt. I was wondering if there are adjustments for colour, contrast, brightness, etc. on these flat screen TVs as many of the models I saw in the store had various picture qualities.

My "dead" TV was an AKAI, and it was cheap. I didn't even know AKAI made TVs, but they did make decent stereo equipment, so I bought it. Ironically, I had to exchange the first one I bought as it had a duff speaker.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

plasma IS the way to go, far better than any lcd (led lcd too) in my opinion. the dark ages of plasma are over they are now energy efficent, thin and clear.

at least with me, even the BEST lcd set blurs at high speed and black levels have a little to be desired.

LG and samsung (?) make the best plasma's you DO NOT NEED 1080P 720 looks just as good, the only time you will notice is if your 3 feet from the set (who watches that close?

my zenith (LG) 47" eats an average of 60watts and 100watts when on bright images. picked it up for $450 a year ago, TONS of settings, great audio, and as clear as $1500 sets.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

As many as are made by samsung are made by mitsubishi. Also, sony don't use third party screens.

Argess, get the Sony you're looking at and get an extended warranty if it's an option.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Foxy (Sony makes thier own screens)


http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Pr...19E/index.html

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbi...128_546338.htm

http://news.cnet.com/Sony,-Samsung-c...3-5271407.html

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Meh, times they are a changing. Sony sell out. :(

Thanks for the correction.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

I have the 46" Panasonic 1080p Plasma and have been absolutely satisfied. Great TV and great mfg support. The sales guy said plasma was the better technnology for faster action (sports, action movies ect) but not so great for gaming where LCD would be better. Seems great for games as well.

Had an ID 10T problem 6 mos out of warranty and Panasonic covered the in home service call anyway. I had somehow muted the output to my surround system and thought the AUX audio driver board had failed. Mfg was prepared to replace both the audio boards under warranty. Can't beat that!!:D

I definitly prefer the 1080p to the 720p and the resolution is really noticable when there is print on screen, as in the end credits of a movie. I hate when there's an actor(ess) that I can't quite place and then not being able to read the credits to figure it out.[:@]

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Comments like this make me laugh. They remind me of the comments that were made about certain types of audio equipment many eyars ago. And they are made by "philes", self-described experts who know nohting about the man-machine interface world or human engineering.

Simply put, more "high-quality" designs are based on profit margins andmarketing garbagethan engineering principles. Someone who tells you you have to get a name brand, 120Hz, 1080P on a 32 inch screen in a typical small living room has more dollars than sense. Problem 1 - no tv channel operates at 120Hz. Problem 2, no HDTV channel operates at 1080p. Problem 3 - your eye cannot see that resolution on a 32 inch screen. Problem 4, damn near every TV in the world is manufactured by LG electronics - someone else slaps their name on it.

Best Buy has a perfectly fine 32 inch, 720P Dynex LCD for about $270. Mine sits about 10 feet away from me. Dynex, like all others, is made by LG and is the house brand of Best Buy. I have had mine for 2 years and have had zero problems with it. I run digital cable through a decoder on one component channel, CDs, DVDs, Netflix and Blockbuster through my multimedia system on an HDMI channel, Real Flight (that's right even an RC simulator to keep it on a RC topic) on the VGA input and still have 4 or 5 inputs left. And my audio is routed back to the multimedia for 5 channel surround sound. Not bad for $270, huh?

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

if a 40 inch fits your viewing need then just stick with samsung sony or panasonic..and over the last couple years alot of good reviews come in on vizio..stay far away from rca and cheap wally world brands.you get what you pay for.there is actually a formula to use measuring the size screen for the sized room to give max enjoyment.as one guy said when you stay below 40 inchs say 37 or 32 720 pixels is all you need ..and just to add to the chorus go with LED!

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

what drugs are you on lol , in australia we do get channels that output 1080p , and you need the 100hz to 120hz option for when playing games and fast moving action . plus mine is not a name brand , so there is TV's out there that offer the high specs with out having to pay for a high name brand .

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Stop arguing or the thread get's locked. No one has time for this kind of behavior. Act your age people, please.

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

Plasmas have changed since their introduction over a decade ago.  They run cooler now and have special game play modes and timers (for all the kids that leave them on and run down the block for a couple of days).  Plasma color definition is BETTER than LED, though LED is shows BRIGHTER, the color intensity is BETTER on a Plasma.  BOTH now days have the same life expectancy.  Plasma now has special built in pixel movement (the human eye can't see this movement) to keep the old "burn it" seriously limited.  Unless you are a big Blue Ray person, we have no 1080p broadcast.  Plasma will show HD better.  Stay with Samsung or Sony if you can.  Electronics are as much about extended warranty as they are price.  Buy from a reputable dealer/retailer that you know will be there if you need them 3 years down the road.</p>

RE: What to look for when purchasing a Flat Screen TV?
 

go with Samsung. 10 Year owner of their products talking here. My newest was a 52 inch from 2007 and with only 1 repair (capacitors blown), it's a great tv.