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Hi folks
We are about to buy a 32" flat screen tv, but I have no experience with these. I think our options are Panasonic, Sony and Samsung. Some we have seen are LED and some are LCD. Does anyone know if one sort is better than another. I forget which was which, but some seemed a little pixelated, although much brighter.
Any help offered would be great. I have tried to google a little but have not really found any good sites yet which review these tellies.
Cheers
Si
Essentially, lcds are normally lit from the edges of the screen, and LEDs are lit from an array of tiny LEDs across the back surface of the screen, which often makes the LEDs thinner.
Picture quality , one is not necessarily better than the other, it's certainly worth reading up.
Personally, most modern things are decent from the brands you mention, and unless your really into all out picture quality I like the super thin samsung led ones for the simple size of it.
No - I am after something simple that will last for as long as possible but that has a good picture quality. I wanted to buy second hand but was told that in Brazil there is just no history of buying second hand, so we have to go for pretty much everything new (we are moving into an unfurnished apartment next week).
I might be wrong, but I think the LED ones are a bit more energy efficient . . . . my LED computer monitor certainly uses about 50% less power than the LCD one it replaced (and it has a slightly larger screen size too).
I recently seen a Mac LED screen side by side with an LCD monitor, and the LED one was just so much sharper and the colours more intense. I have no idea if that proves LEDs are better though.
The quality of screens now staggers me. Just when I think picture quality can't possibly be bettered, something else new comes along and pushes the bar up another notch.
And the thin-ness of screens is mad; they'll be wafer-thin soon, like a piece of paper!
Good riddance to CRTs is all I can say.
Oooh look flat screen telly!
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No but you lie.
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LED's new tech, less power. Individual pixels lit by LED.
LCD - Older, cheaper, use more juice with a flourescent tube to light it.
There is a hybrid LED backlight LCD tv. Be careful, as I've seen some LED-lit tv's advertised better than they actually are. (ie as Full-on LED)
It's a minefield, there was a guide on Richer Sounds if you need more info.
led for me.. bought mine by accident and its smashing..
As scottchegg says, a lot of the stuff you will see advertised as an LED TV could just be an LCD with an LED backlight.
There is a massive difference in price between LED panels and LED backlit LCDs. And only a marginal difference in cost between and LED backlight and a flourescent backlight.
Well obviously I am interested in energy efficiency - that is a good point about the LED tvs.
Also, I had seen some talk about LED tvs not being real LED tvs, so again that is useful info as I had not quite grasped the point.
LED TVs give truer blacks and therefore better contrast as they are not backlit, each pixel is an individual light source whereas LCD (normal or LED backlit) is blocking a constant light source which it never does with 100% efficiency.
We bought an LED telly last week from Tesco. I didn't know it was LED, I just wanted a 16" telly with a DVD built in for the caravan. I too it back as the viewing angles were terrible, unless we were sitting right next to each other the colours were inverting all over the place. I'd ideally like something that can be watched from either end of the same sofa without issues.
Are there any specific models you're considering? I can have a quick shifty on the Which website if you like
There is little difference between the two. Both are LCD technology, the LED element refers to the backlighting (it used to be fluorescent tubes)
A proper LED TV is called an OLED panel which costs the earth but the picture quailty is in a totally different league.
Biggest size is currently 15 inch and it will set you back £1500.
Probably larger sizes next year.
I just bought a Panasonic Plasma 3d TV, (after very little research) and I'm blown away by the quality of the picture compared to my four year old Sony LCD TV! It's stunning, but I'm dreading how much electric it consumes as it's like running a 2Kw heater all the time!
Plasma?
One of the things I look at is the screen surface. Some of them are just too reflective, others handle reflections really well but don't seem 'sharp'.
These are the TVs I think we are considering:
Are there even OLED tellys properly available yet? Last time I saw they were silly money.
"LED" has to be one of the most misleading descriptions in recent years. Yes they have LED backlights, but they're still LCD displays. Some have an LED array, but others are still side-lit with LEDs (eg the really skinny Samsung ones) like conventional LCD, so you might get better power consumption, but don't gain with the ability of the panel to dynamically alter the backlight for better local blacks etc.
IMHO buy the one that looks the best and ignore the LED stickers on the front, unless saving a few Watts is very high on your list of requirements.
Well my main requirement is something along the lines of not too expensive and eco friendly - although I am always dubious about believing claims about eco friendliness.
I guess I also need to worry about the viewing angle a little, and will go back to the shop to check these things.
Make them show some real TV in the store too. Straight off a satellite or whatever receiver. Here they have a habit of showing either cartoons (which don't show up any flaws in screen processing), or demo loops with no more than about 2 sec of action per "clip", so you can't judge how well the screen processing works or judge motion blur etc.
bought a sony bravia 32 inch LED which has been brilliant so far. built in freeview, added a wifi dongle which means it's also got built in iplayer and channel five and a few more internet channels.
the LED's in the one we bought are only at the side which made it cheaper than the full LED ones but i'm dead chuffed with it having resisted for many years.
plus it's 32mm thick so takes up a tiny fraction of the space the old one did.
IMHO buy the one that looks the best and ignore the LED stickers on the front, unless saving a few Watts is very high on your list of requirements.
Yup - I'd agree with that. For that reason, I ended up buying a 50" plasma. It may not have some of the features that others have, but the picture quality and size is brilliant for my liking.
However, when looking around, as already said, I very nearly walking out of the shop with an LED one.
One last point .... also look into getting a 100Hz TV ( or 120Hz ). There is a difference between the smoothness of a 100Hz TV when sat next to a 50Hz TV of a similar display type. I thought I wouldn't notice it until I saw them sat side by side.
just like andytherocketeer, "LED" TVs are TVs with LCD panels and LED backlighting. Usually better contrast control than fluorescent backlit LCD TVs of the previous generation. LED backlit TVs are certainly a lot more energy efficient, are thinner and produce less heat and noise than fluorescent backlit ones.
As folks have mentioned, there are some genuine LED TVs that use LEDs to produce the picture directly. These use Organic LED (OLED) panels. Come in relatively small sizes and are V expensive.
Do compare models, the higher end ones feature much better graphics cards to process the picture and give you less image 'drag' and better color and contrast control. Lower end models tend to make regular TV look less good than your old TV. without an HD source of excellent quality all of them will look worse than an old top end CRT as they try & 'make up'/interpolate the image data in all the noise. If you're relying on Freeview or satellite then you'll need a good signal for your TV/box.
My new camera has an OLED screen - it's quite remarkable. Looks like a TV like that would (at last!) be better than a CRT...
