Currantly thinking of buying a Sony Bravia 37″ telly,any others any good or are all much of a muchness? Cheers

they are not much of a muchness…

A lot of the difference is in the processing behind the display as most of the source material you will feed the tv will not have as much resolution as the display and so will need upscaling, even 720P on a 720P panel.

Everywhere seems to have the Sony Bravia 40″ telly for £399 (incl John Lewis with their 5 yr guarantee)

As mentioned above – John Lewis is the bestest place to buy a TV. FACT.

Panasonic TVs are worth a look too – it’s usually neck-and-neck between Sony & Panasonic in Which? tests for quality, reliability, etc. All depends on what deals are out there and what particular features you’re after… then go buy from John Lewis 🙂

Got a 32″ Sony last week. I like it a lot.

Is the VAT back deal still on?

Panasonic plasma 42″+

Actually John Lewis is doing that Sony for £499 which is £100 dearer than anywhere else at the moment. My dad picked one of the 40″ ones up today actually and it’s a pretty nice piece of kit for the money.

Actually John Lewis is doing that Sony for £499 which is £100 dearer than anywhere else at the moment.

Two words;

Price match.

That is all.

Oh, but it’s not. What about a price match AND a free 5 year warranty?

I meant this one :-

http://www.johnlewis.com/230925667/Product.aspx

I they wanna sell it for £399 then they should advertise it as such, no doubt a lot of people will buy on price alone and won’t care where they get it from.

Actually Panasonics are better than Sony in the Which tests. They come out with better technology whereas Sony are now more of a ‘follow’ company. My Panasonic (bought initially off a Which recommendation) has LED backlighting, USB hard drive connection, Freesat and Freeview HD and DLNA connection.

Get a Samsung.

The End!

Seriously though, I’ve not done a comparison, apart from my Samsung being better than any of my friends/families tv’s and they consistently get good reviews – aside from that, can’t see you going far wrong with a Panny, or a Sony either. Do search on here though for issues had with Sony’s and using a games console (Wii IIRC) if you have one.

I think Sony’s are too colorful – when I got mine I did so as someone online had calibrated it and I could get into the system menu and change the grey levels appropriately – it is still a bit too colorful.

My old Sharp LCD had a much better balance and things therefore look more realistic.

Don’t get a screen that is too big for your viewing distance or you will see all the mpeg type nasties and upscaling artifacts.

People used to like Plasmas over LCDS for picture quality for ages when the res on those plasmas was 480p – because they had no need to upscale.

My Sharp was a 540P panel, so for PAL is just dropped 12 lines from the top and bottom of the picture and mapped it straight on, for 1080i it also mapped straight onto the panel, and for 720P and 1080P it had too much info for the panel, so downscaled.

It took me ages with the new Sony to get the picture quality as good, with the Sharp being fed through SCART and a TopField PVR and the Sony being fed through HDMI from a Virgin V+ box which has 2 300 MIP processors doing the upscaling. When fed HD through HDMI it is very difficult to tell the difference between the Sony and the Sharp.

The only problem with the Sharp was feeding a PC into it as the res was a bit low, so I sold it to my mate.

Not all TVs across a manufacturers range are universally good – my Sony was good but the 40 inch version had shocking ghosting and in my view was not fit for sale.

I always get extended warranties on Sony gear as well – whereas I would be happier getting a Panasonic with a standard warranty.

I’d go with Samsung or Panasonic (LCD) myself, mind you my 40″ Samsung LCD looks way better than my parents’ 50″ Samsung plasma (both about 18 months old) so you’d want to factor in the right screen size and panel type for your needs to…

If you’ve got a Richer Sounds near you, I’d highly recommend them. Went to the Liverpool branch this week and the service was excellent. They offer a 5 year guarantee for 10% of the TV cost too.

Walked out with an LG 32″ LED tv. 1080P, 4 HDMI ports, USB etc. Flush mounted on the wall, very happy 🙂

I wouldn’t recommend Richer Sounds…

If you are buying an LG a five year warranty is mandatory… It’s called Lucky for a reason.

In the near future tv will become more connected to the internet so some form of web enabled service is really usefull. Ours uses the Web to get Iplayer and 5 on demand and other video services in the future, Ours is 1080p but isn’t able to do 3D due to scan rates and because it’s a fad and will be gone before too long.
Hardly ever watch live telly and we use ‘catch up’ tv more than ever.
Richer sounds are good.

I bought one of the £399 Sony 40″ LCD’s yesterday (or rather my wife did, I was quite happy with our Phillips CRT). Got it from Comet, couldnt get near the electronics dept in John Lewis!

Reasonably impressed with it, although the picture isn’t quite as clear or bright as the CRT, and the sound isn’t as good. So now I need to buy a surround sound system, and the missus wants a new TV stand. So not so much of a bargain in the end! But at least my kids think I have finally entered the 21st century!

Bit poor when so many people reckon their CRTs gave a better picture 🙂

Especially true with the old cylindrical trinatrons – I look at the news on BBC HD and think “look I can see the news readers stubble”, but I used to think that with my old trinatron – and that was just with the women newsreaders…

Anyone know of a good hd tv with built in dvd player? Dont see the point of getting a flat screen if i still need fathoms of cables!
Ps. Sorry for the hijack..

Anyone wanting internet based services through their tv, i.e. BBC iPlayer / Sky Player etc, and wants to stream music/videos/pictures from their PC, remember that you don’t have to have a capable tv if you already use a next gen games console.

I’ve just set iPlayer up in the games room via the Wii, as we don’t have a tv feed in there just yet – anything else I’ve mentioned can and is done by the XBox downstairs.

If you haven’t got/don’t want a console, then fair enough. I was going to get a Squeezebox for the lounge until I realised I was getting an XBox and it would have very little use.

I’ve had my old TV connected up to my PC via DVI for years, but I have to say that DLNA is rather nifty.

Who knew picking a TV was so complicated. Ive been using my xbox a lot more recently so fancy getting an HD TV, but there is so much to take into consideration. It seems to get a low lag time you have to compromise on image quality (or at least in my price range). There is also the issue of how the TV processes SD content. Not a problem if i get one with built in Freeview HD (assuming my aerial is ok), but then you cant record so i need to keep my standard freeview STB. The issue of ghosting and not quite black enough blacks is another issue to consider. And if youre wanting to watch sport apparently you need a 100htz screen. Plus there is a panel lottery with some manufacturers which means professional reviews become useless if they have been sent an S-PVA and only inferior panels are available in the shops!

Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic.

I bought one a little while ago. The Samsung priced itself out of the equation, and when I demoed the other two the Tosh blew the Pana out of the water. Got the Tosh and love it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to Richer to buy my birthday present, new amp and blu-ray player. Anyone want to buy a well-loved Yamaha RX-V595? (-:

Aren’t Samsung supposed to be recognised as the market leader in the world of TVs.
I was looking at one of the Samsung 9000s the other day, so slim it makes Kate Moss look life a fat biffer. Damned expensive and seriousy not worth the money.

Niiiiiiiiice!

I’ll admit I’m a bit Samsung biased, but another thing to consider – they generally seem to go one step beyond sticking a screen in a square black plastic surround.

Mine for example…

Actually Panasonics are better than Sony in the Which tests. They come out with better technology whereas Sony are now more of a ‘follow’ company. My Panasonic (bought initially off a Which recommendation) has LED backlighting, USB hard drive connection, Freesat and Freeview HD and DLNA connection.

I think I must have a similar one as you and can’t recommend it highly enough. Connect up a USB HDD & it records TV (or allows you to pause live TV). Plays divx files and music from a USB drive (or laptop via DLNA). Picture quality is brilliant with the LED backlit contrast. Built-in freesat HD & freeview HD mean less wires, which keeps the wife happy.