Came back from holiday to find the TV on the blink. It’s had a good run – one of the first flat screens from way back when – so I think it’s reasonable to replace rather than repair.

I’m guessing anything I pick will be streets ahead in terms of performance and picture quality, so I’m at a loss.

I’m definitely after a Smart TV, preferably one running Android TV rather than manufacturer’s own restricted take on it. Other than that….? Is 3D or 4k worth it?

Size wise, 42″-43″ would be perfect. Nothing bigger than 43″ will fit in the space though, and I wouldn’t want to go smaller than 40″.

John Lewis. Richer sounds. Anything well reviewed and on offer with their 5/6 yr guarantee.

This has been discussed loads lately, have a look back through the forum.

TL;DR – At that size, 4K is a gimmick. 3D, do you want to sit there wearing 3D glasses all day? Smart generally better to use a separate box.

Panasonic / Toshiba / Samsung.

3D not worth it unless you are at the iMax, i.e. something filling your field of view.

4K only worth it if you have a 4K feed, otherwise your TV has to do extra processing to ‘upscale’ to 4K.

John Lewis for the 5 year warranty.

Smart not really worth it either, better to get an external box like a Fire TV, or Now TV, or even a chromecast, which will very probably have a lot more processing grunt than your TV and will therefore offer a nicer user interface.

Also the boxes are pretty cheap and you won’t be reliant on the TV manufacturer keeping its software up to date.

I would go with a decent Panasonic – not at all sure about Samsungs warranty (or their upscaling software).

I bought a sony bravia 43 tv from richer sounds, it has android/full hd 1080 for £399 with 6 year warranty. I have had it a few months and still getting used to the features of what it has – google play store (kodi, es, mx, etc), screen mirroring

I recently got the panasonic 40″ CS520 – HDTV/ really nice picture, good viewing angles – currently £320 at john lewis.
has netflix (dedicated button to launch on the remote) and the amazon app preloaded along with iplayer, all4, itv and C5 apps.
Doesnt have a fancy interface but it works just fine, if slightly slow

Did look at the panasonic 40″ CX680 4K tv but decided the £500 price tag was too much for our viewing habits with a lot of SD tv as we dont have full compliment of freeview and HD channels in the valley.