Got to face the fact our 15 year old rear projection crt tv is coming to the end of its life, 🙁 not sure what size to go for, not interested in 3d or 4k. Budget wise i would like to spend about £1000, but not set in stone.
Any nuggets of wisdom appreciated.

Recently bought a Samsung UE48H6500 48″ smart TV which has built in Freeview HD and Freesat HD. I didn’t check out the size first and it is a bit on the large size, but it’s ace. Does 3D (which I’ll probably never use) and the smart features are pretty nice – 4OD, Netflix, iPlayer etc all built in. Paid £629 which I thought was pretty reasonable, if doing again I’d get a 40″ for a bit less. Pretty amazing what you can get for your money these days.

Cheers, Rich

You should get a decent TV and some change for a sound bar or surround sound for that money.

Go for a decent brand with the backlit not edge lit LED technology.

If you’re just after a basic TV then don’t let the salesmen talk you in to the bells and whistles.

You’ll probably struggle to get a ‘dumb’ TV but Smart TVs are a bit cack as the vendors lose interest in developing software for them. You’re better off with a Roku/Chromecast/AppleTV/whatever plugged into your telly of choice for the ‘internet’ side of things as arguably these companies have a vested interest in keeping their products at the leading edge / bug-free.

Me – I only watch iplayer and 4OD on my Samsung. These work fine but most other things I’ve tried (Blinkbox, some other film thing) were hopeless. Netflix isn’t even ‘compatible’…

I’ve just bought a big screen for our new extension, went a bit mad and went for a 65″ in the end (started out after a 55″).

My take on the 4k debate: absolutely no doubt the picture of 4k is in a different leaguem especially on these larger screens. Its definately the future…..However, there is no pure 4k content about and there is unlikely to be for a good number of years to come (there is still very little pure 1080HD content out there now after all these years of 1080HD being around).

So despite wanting a 4k set initialy, and being prepared to pay the premium, I ended up with a decent 1080HD set as the SD content upscaled was better on the 1080HD sets copmpared with the 4kUHD sets. Also the 1080BR picture was better on the 1080 Sets vs the 1080 to 4k upscaled picture on the 4k sets. Also what sealed the deal for me was that in 5yrs or so that it will take for 4k to properly take off and for more content to be available, not only will we be looking to upgrade to 4k, but there will be a whole new screen technology that we’ll be wanting (OLED or something else), so I decided to hold off now for another 5 to 8 years.

£1000 will buy you a very good 1080 set with smart functionality – my brother got a decent Panasonic 55″ one for around that price. Though smart TV is rubbish, better off using an ATV or similar.

It’s only about two things:

1. Picture quality
2. Size (which is a function of domestic acceptibility and (1)).

Smart features can be good, but there are loads of ways to access the same content (albeit that mean more boxes beneath the TV). We haven’t made much use of 3D TBH.

We bought a Samsung 8000 series 46″ LCD last year. That replaced a 10yo 28″ CRT, which was fine but never felt big enough after we’d moved house with a larger sitting room.

The effect of the Samsung meant we also upgraded to Sky HD, and now prefer to buy films on Bluray rather than DVD.

Thanks a lot all, keep em coming, Wobbliscott what tv did you get, my current one is 56″ so 65″ does appeal, but i know it will bust the budget, i’m trying not to get carried away as i have a projector setup for films.

We bought a Sony 42W705B earlier this year for the bedroom and it absolutely kicks the hell out of the eight year old LG in the lounge that I’d been perfectly happy with up until that point ! And for <£500.

It has various smart features but the only one I’m interested in is Netflix and it works well. It even has a “Netflix” button on the remote to take you straight to it.

42″ Sony Bravia, with wifi, Netflix etc built in

Insanely good for the money (under £500).

clicky here