Considering replacing the behemoth crt as the sides of every scene are cut off and weird colours sometimes crop up. So I’d be after a 40 or 42″ lcd or led that is full HD ready BUT can play films via USB (.avi format) and ideally could get lovefilm through, go!

EDIT: looks like need a smart tv to stream lovefilm 🙁 ie expensive

Samsung.

Budget?

Budget?

Never heard of them. Is it an in house brand? 😛
Budget not important. Buy whichever Samsung matches the amount of cash you have.

ok don simon is keen on samsung….

budget is at the lower end of the scale, 300ish so had looked at this and this from richer sounds. Not sure can do better really?

Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic.

In your size / price bracket and looking at Richer, I’d go with the Tosh. The Panasonic is excellent too, and bigger, but another 50 quid.

toshiba doesn’t look like it can play films from USB? I’ll have a look at the panasonic ta

Really? I’d be surprised if that were the case.

if expand the spec list for connections it says it doesn’t

whatever you go for led backlighting or full led ftw !

I’d pay the extra and get the Panasonic,as a Sky engineer I see loads of TV’s every day.
IMO all the panasonics I see are good solid TV’s with a very good picture and reliable,I’m not saying they have the best pic but I’ve never seen a poor picture from one,whereas Samsungs and Toshibas can be a bit hit and miss ,some models are great ,others have very average picture quality and the Samsungs are renowned for not having good sound through the standard speakers.
A lot of the LG TV’s are pretty good too.

cheers! narrowed it down to the panasonic and lg but tbh the panasonic looks a better shout. The only issue is whether I can afford it :'(

samsung and whatever you buy get it from John Lewis.. they price match at worst and offer FREE FIVE YEAR warranty no one else came close they were 200 cheaper than anyone for the same model led samsung plus the free garrantee.. job done!

Richer sounds are currently doing 5 year warranties on Samsungs and are cheaper than John Lewis.

Normally I’d have said John Lewis.

have a 42″ LG led1080 great picture sound was £324,also have a 32″ sony bravia picture good sound is crap
p.s my dad works for a large retailer,the tv’s they see the most of returned faulty are samsung by a long way

Panasonic GT from 2011. They won all the awards – well, lots of them anyway! We got one a month or so back, fantastic!

folks bought tv from john lewis with the guarantee and when the tv broke john lewis were shite so i’m not that sold on it tbh

You have chosen… wisely.

Panasonic gets my vote – although I saw a large sharp recently and the colours on it were very good.

Never impressed by any Samsung I have seen – and their picture processing is way too aggressive.

I think Samsung depend on model. The high-end models are class leading; but they’re also bloody expensive. The mid-range are inferior to Toshiba and Panasonic in my experience.

I demoed a lot of models before buying a Tosh. The Pana was very close but, IMHO at the time, the Tosh was better.

http://m.tesco.com/mt/www.tesco.com/direct/sony-40bx420bu-40-inch-widescreen-full-hd-1080p-lcd-tv-with-freeview/211-1873.prd?skuId=211-1873&pageLevel=

Slight hijack, anyone have/seen that Sony? Think it fits the bill for you and we need a TV too our CRT finally gave up.

I think Samsung depend on model

their picture processing is always suspect in my view.

I went into a sony centre in tottenham court road recently and was quite impressed by every set in there. tried the same in the samsung shop and had a similar overriding opinion – I don’t like them…

my sony at home is too colorful (even though I have made corrections in the various menus, even the service one), but the ones in the shop seemed ok. don’t underestimate the value of good, and correct colors…

I would still get the Panasonic, as I always suspect Sony reliability.

I wish the realibility of my Sony beast would finally give up! Can’t bring myself to swap till it dies!!

I got a Sony similar to that for work and it’s excellent.

Samsung

I got a Sony Bravia 37″ in a sale 15 months ago. HD picture and sound seem good enough, menus OK to use. No issues with it.

I think Samsung depend on model. The high-end models are class leading; but they’re also bloody expensive.

I concur, but I will add that my man in the know reckons that on a vfm basis you’d be better off getting the 8000 series over the 9000 series.

judging picture quality in shops can be a bit hit and miss because of the type of lighting they have – they need to be set up correctly.

I went out this morning to buy the Sony I linked before (after a visit to Currys, John Lewis and Richer Sounds) but came home instead confused with an order for this:

http://m.tesco.com/mt/www.tesco.com/direct/panasonic-tx-l42u3b-42-inch-widescreen-full-hd-1080p-lcd-tv-with-freeview-hd/211-7772.prd?skuId=211-7772&pageLevel=

After reading a few things it could well be a bit naff.

We compared loads and ended up with a Panasonic. Picture was much better than the LGs and Samsungs we compared it to. It plays videos via usb stick, though you need to use divx converter to get most of them to play.

I read the panasonic I just brought has a poor non-hd picture quality. I think it will do though, it look alright in the shop and it’s going to seem like we’ve had our eyes cleaned after the polychromatic trippy effects of our 18 year old CRT. Unusually I found the staff In Richer Sounds very unhelpful one was playing a word game on his phone the other wasn’t too bothered about selling me a TV. he keeping trying to flog this LG one I wasn’t Intrested in. Always had good customer service off them before so was surprised.

I read the panasonic I just brought has a poor non-hd picture quality

this is probably due to the upscaling the tv has to do to be able to show the lower res stuff at 1080P, which depends on the quality of the software.

If you hook it up to a decent PVR and set the pvr to output at 1080P then the picture quality will be dependent on the quality of the upscaling in the PVR.

If you don’t have a PVR I would recommend getting one – just the fact that you can skip through the adverts is enough reason. Series record and also detecting recording clashes and recording the next repeat showing instead are very useful as well.

My mate has the TVOnics Freeeview HD PVR which puts a decent picture on his plasma panasonic, and I just bought the same for my mother.

If you had one, then as these boxes only have two tuners you will probably also use the freeview HD on your panasonic for times where you are recording from two channels and want to watch something that isn’t on the same mx’s.

Thanks Turnerguy, I will look into this (had to google PVR) for in the future.

this is the one I bought my mother, which she now loves:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DTR-HD500-Freeview-recorder-500GB/dp/B0046G9NCK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334413741&sr=8-3

Made in Wales – was a bit worried about reliability but you get a 2 year warranty if bought from John Lewis or the tvonics web site.

Otherwise this one is popular:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Humax-HDR-FOX-T2-Recorder-Freeview/dp/B004BMB2XC/ref=pd_cp_ce_2

If you have virgin in the road you can get a tivo on most packages now.

New TV arrived, not bowled over by the picture at all.

I have the Panasonic GT something or other, it blows our old Sony LCD and the kitchen JVC LED into the weeds.

The 3d picture is amazing but limited and the glasses sometimes give me a headache.

But the normal screen is great.

I was sitting far too close, my lounge is tiny the new 42″ tv is as big as the window. Sitting over 3 foot away the pictures lovely and sharp. Thankfully my new house has a big lounge, moving in May, so until then I’m going to have to sit in the hallway.

To avoid the catflees problem, take a look at this before you buy:

http://www.which.co.uk/technology/tv-and-dvd/guides/what-size-tv-should-i-buy/

I am also assuming buying the greatest size for the least cash is never a recipe for getting the best possible picture!

To avoid the catflees problem, take a look at this before you buy:

good link – I shall use it on the wife to persuade her we need a bigger tv 🙂

I liked the idea of that wide Phillips as a 32 is fine at 10ft until a letterbox movie comes on.

I am also assuming buying the greatest size for the least cash is never a recipe for getting the best possible picture!

pixel count versus the upscaling capability of your tv/pvr is also key.

better to watch on a smaller set with apparently decent picture quality than to watch on a big set and see all the pixellation nasties as it tries to upscale to a higher resolution.

often better to have a 720p set if you watch any standard definition for that reason.

I had a 540P Sharp Aquos and it had a wonderful picture even on SD.

Got a 720P Sony and the Virgin V+ box which upscales very well and it took me quite a time to get the Sony picture as good as the Sharp.

Only got rid of the Sharp as I wanted to put a media PC through the TV and 540P was a pain on a computer.