What’s the diff between an £800 telly & a 2K one, curved or flat screen, what size in a 19 x 14ft room, 4k ready?
Basically, if you had a budget of up to 2K & not a penny more, what telly would you get? (We have sound bar so need to include that)

Ta’s!

Probably of no help whatsoever…As I have been picking up 720p TV’s for around £40 secondhand for my tv’s

But thought I would treat the house to buying an actual new one, asked my 15 year old to do the research up to £1000 and he liked this one. I have not bought yet but will in the next few days.

TV

I have a Panasonic plasma that cost me 2k. It was the last model of plasma Panasonic made and is considered a reference level to which all the new technology is trying to catch up with. The picture is the best I have ever seen and I looked at a lot before buying it. My previous tv was a pioneer plasma which was again a reference level to in its day and even that is still better than most tv’s you can buy today. There is a big difference between a £800 to and a £2000 to of the same size but a lot of people won’t tell the difference. I don’t watch much to but love watching films and it’s when you have a source like a bluray that you really notice how much better a good tv is.
Edit: I didn’t need a new tv but bought this before they stopped making plasmas knowing it will be a while before plasma picture quality is matched by new technology like led or more likely Oled.

Do you already have an amp and speakers?

I was pondering the same thing last week and went for a Curved Samsung Ultra HD 49″ and it is very very good. Amazing how clear the picture is. You can get the non ultra HD version about £100 cheaper but thought as this is something we only buy every 8 to 10 years then worth future proofing a bit. Curved is really good and certainly gives more depth to pictures.

http://ao.com/product/ue49ku6100-samsung-tv-black-43149-108.aspx

Panasonic plasma here, I’d love a new tele but am afraid it just won’t be as good, no matter how awesome they look in the shop.

a curve ball…

http://www.trustedreviews.com/sony-vpl-hw45es-review

If you go into the service menu on your TV you’ll find various modes that it can be set to – one of those is “shop mode” which makes all the colours much more vivid and brighter than normal. Thats often why they look great in the shop but not so great in your front room.

CoolHandLuke – stick with your Panasonic Plasma. I can confirm that current LCD screen technology – including a 4k telly upscaling an SD or HD picture is not a patch on a Panasonic Plasma. There are only a couple of times in the history of the human race we actually took a step back. One was of course when Concorde was pulled out of service, the other is when Panasonic stopped making Plasma screens. I’m not even keen on OLED – way too bright and colourful, farm more than real life, just look a bit cartoonish to me.

My only appeal to the OP is, please, please, please don’t go for curved. The sooner this ridiculous gimmick is consigned to the scrap heap the better.

Go for the better quality displays your budget allows, so that means the premium brands like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung (maybe one or two others). The screen may or may not be 4k, but will probably have smart features. I’m a Panasonic fanboy and they do about three or so panels at different qualities which are included in the model number of the set, so do a bit of research to decode the model numbers as that will tell you which model will have the better displays.

Hurry if you want a genuine Panasonic.

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/why-panasonic-is-about-to-stop-making-your-tv-screens-1322469

If you have the space and wall and right sized room then an hd projector for not much more than £300 is a really fun alternative. We use ours every night.

@hb70 how dark does it have to be to use a projector – is it ok in daylight?

Do you already have an amp and speakers?

We do, Panasonic ones.

I’m now even more confused! 😆

4k then minimum 49″ but 55″ should be fine. With your budget the Samsun 9000 series or Sony KD9 series stuff will be amazing. Curved is of no use.

For a true bargain the Hisense 55″ M7000 is amazing and is up there with panels at twice it’s £899 price tag.

I’d probably go for an LG OLED 55E6V

Aside from specs if I was spending a fair bit of money I’d want a 5yr guarantee. These things are pretty much landfill when you have a screen issue.

I had a Panasonic Plasma TV superb picture but it’s not a patch on a good LED.

Don’t. go curved, by a higher range one that’s on offer within your budget.

Aldi have a £400 4K telly at the moment.

No idea of picture quality but it’ll come with a no-quibble 3 year guarantee.

Good stuff! What’s the issue/grouch with curved screens?

The thing with curved screens is that at normal viewing distance there’s no effective difference in how your eye focuses: once you get beyond a couple of metres everything is in focus anyway the difference of a couple of cm between the centre of the screen and the edges is minimal.

Put another way: with a flat screen TV have you ever noticed the edges of the screen out of focus when looking at the centre? I’ve currently got a large flat screen TV on my desk about 40cm from me and everything is in focus at that distance so there’s no way I’d notice anything at 5 or 6 metres.

Curved screens will go the way of 3D TVs.

Also a curved screen distorts the screen *more* than a flat one unless you’re actually sitting incredibly close. A 40″ curved display on your desk would make sense. A 50″ curved on the other side of the room is madness.

Quite. It’s not so much “what’s wrong with it?” as “what does it gain you?” You’re paying a premium for a marketing gimmick.

Lovely, I hadn’t realised that!

Curved is out.

FWIW I have a basic 350 quid 49″ TV and am completely happy with it.

I get the feeling that technology has come down in price so even cheaper TV’s are pretty good now, so the higher end ones are increasingly resorting to gimmics.

Recent thread here http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/4k-uhd-is-it-worth-it

load of bolloxs about curved distortion

fat bloke I know has had a curved 48” samsung for 2 years. it is perfect. oh and he knows his onions, he is in the trade.

I went to Richer sounds and look ata few, choose one I liked and got them to set it to a ‘standard’ picture mode, still liked it so bought it. Mine’s only a 32″ flat screen LG as I don’t like my TV to dominate a room 🙂

ton – Member

load of bolloxs about curved distortion

fat bloke I know has had a curved 48” samsung for 2 years. it is perfect. oh and he knows his onions, he is in the trade.

What relevance does the onion trade have to buying TVs? 😆

Have a Samsung ku6400 which is 4k.

The old plasma Panasonic in my attic room has a nicer pic tbh.

Tony, for curved TVs to be effective they have to occupy a large part of your field of view. At typical viewing distances of 3 – 4 metres you’d need around a 2 metre screen for it to become noticeable. With HD output it would need to be upscaled to be displayed at these sizes which reduces apparent sharpness! You will need 4K content to see it.

I’ve a flat screen 40″ TV on my desk currently showing HD content and at a viewing distance of an arm length (let’s say a metre) there’s no loss of sharpness at the edges of my vision. Consider why I might have such a TV on my work desk …

If I wanted to know about onions I’d have asked! 😆

tescos jim. less than 500 quid

Well FWIW I spent my TV money on a new bed…. I am sticking to my second hand £40 plasma’s for now, perhaps Christmas will provide a glut of nearly new TV’s on the second hand market…I am very happy with this decision 🙂

Mine’s only a 32″ flat screen LG as I don’t like my TV to dominate a room [/I]

When we bought our current 37″ telly our living room was about 12′ x 10′ and the telly was perfect, our current living room is now nearer 30′ x 17′ and 2 stores tall – telly feels ‘slightly’ undersized and we’ve actually got it positioned nearer the sofa’s than we’d like 🙂

Recently had sky Q installed, and I had to get a new telly for the bedroom as that one had no HDMI port…..I literally wanted to get a cheap stop gap for £200 max, as I was a bit skint, so bought a sharp 43″ from tesco …..I wasn’t expecting much at all, as it was cheaper than their own ‘itchy fanny ” brand, or whatever…..
It is actually fantastic, and better than my main LG telly, which I love…..

cheap tv