Well, an end of an era, as i’ve just ditched my CRT telly after 17 years of service!

So, what features does my new telly have to have these days?

I’ve got no interest in sky or whatever, just want Freeview (perhaps freesat??). However, it makes sense to me to get as much capability as possible for internet connectivity doesn’t it?? Basically a PC with a big screen??

What do people recommend (budget max is around say 800 or 900 squid)

Get the best screen you can afford. Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung. For “smart” features you’re almost certainly better off with an external box, Now TV or Amazon Fire Stick or some such.

As above. Plus, John Lewis. Delivery, installation etc. Oh, and their warranty.

a remote control defo, and not one with a wire.

As above but not Toshiba as they’re not great anymore, add LG into the mix.

Do “internet” TVs run Chrome or similar browsers??

At that price range you’ll get a great telly. I got a 49″ Sony XD80 for £579 from John Lewis this month and it’s amazing. Particularly enjoy watching 4K (ultra HD) stuff on Amazon Prime – not that is relevant to you if you just want Freeview.

I got the Sony as I’m a brand whore. But the Samsung in John Lewis at the same price level (model 6400?) had a better picture.

Free standing or wall-mounted?
Screen size?
TV inbuilt speakers are poor; consider soundbar or dedicated speakers.
John Lewis and Richer Sounds for range, in store knowledge and tech support.
JL still have some special deals available.
Richers run permanent deals.
As above warranty is a consideration; IMO JL are best but Richers supercare is better than most.
Go into stores for some demos; if staff don’t have good technical knowledge think twice about buying.
Sony, Panasonic and Sansung would be my go-to brands.
Flat screen or curved?
Decisions decisions……

Soon after you buy it will seem small, so as long as you are satisfied with the pic quality buy biggest assuming you have the space.not sure if you can get rj45 connection without being smart-are there any non smart tvs available nowadays anyway?, so I would go with smart so you can run kodi on your pc with no extra cost for addon boxes etc

Flat screen or curved?
Decisions decisions….

That’s not a decision, curved screens are a gimmick unless you’re building an IMAX.

not sure if you can get rj45 connection without being smart

Not sure why you’d need an Ethernet connection if it wasn’t smart.

not sure if you can get rj45 connection without being smart

yeah my bad, forgot my htpc was connected via hdmi

There’s firmware updates I suppose.

My Samsung SmartTV seems to need to update every time that I want to use the Smart features.

It’ll also update in the background, but when complete it will say “Smarthub update complete” in a large box right in the middle of the screen, which requires a prompt from the user to go away. Very annoying.

Will not be buying another Samsung.

My Panasonic is pretty good.

However, the best addition is an Amazon Firestick with Kodi on it.

It does have a very annoying and pointless green led that lights up when it’s switched on. Why would you need an indicator to show you that a 47″ TV is “on”?

Neither of the 3 smart Samsungs in our house do that, just a little drop down notice that can be cancelled.

Looking for a little over 40 inches, as 50 would be too big for the room.

My ex-Sony CRT was a brilliant telly, but i’ve heard they are beaten on screen quality by samsung

Will pop in Lewis’s tomorrow for a look see. It certainly seems tellys are a lot cheaper than when i bought my last one!

ARC, CEC.

Definitely buy from John Lewis or Richer Sounds for their no quibble 6 year warranty.

49″ or thereabouts seems to be the sweet spot for size. We bought a 40″ and I wish it was a bit bigger (although the price was a steal so not that fussed).

In my opinion, UHD / 4K is a bit pointless at the moment unless you want a mega size screen and / or plan on buying a 4K games console.

As others have suggested, a standalone non-smart TV with a box / usb plugin works best although most new TVs come with some form of “smart” features anyway.

Just bought my parents their first EVER tv, as my dad is now pretty immobile, I persuaded mum to relent and let him watch fishing and sports.

I got them a JVC from Currys – 39″ for £189!!! Non smart, but 3 HDMI ports

We bought a new telly recently – have had it a little under 2 weeks now.

We went for a 43″ LG. Richer Sounds and JL had it at the same price but JL was out of stock.

We went for this one….

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv—all/lg/43uh661v/lg-43uh661v

although it was £70 cheaper when we ordered.
Pleased with it so far, although a lot of features still to get my head around. This is our first flat screen tv.
Silly things we can do on our Humax box, but not on this like skip a whole day on the tv guide. I’m sure there’s a way, jus not found it yet.

Pic quality good, and sound better than I thought it would be…

Delivery through Richer Sounds was also painless…

Just looking at LG 43UH750V on JL. Not sure what the difference to the 661 is? Probably just a newer model as the numbers gone up a bit

I bought a 49″ Samsung 7000 series just before Christmas at £900. Very happy with it and Excellent picture and features. Price seems to be 50-100 less now (grrr) so I’d say a good buy for that. Original Rrp was £1200.

My ex-Sony CRT was a brilliant telly,

The Sony CRTs were superb, I’ve had a couple. My ex used to tease me as to why I had such a big one*, it was a 26″ or similar.

I resisted upgrading for years because I loved it so; when I finally did, holy poo, why didn’t I do this years ago?! Now I’ve got a 42″ Tosh that I sit two metres away from when Xboxing, and find myself on the edge of my seat leaning forwards.

I’m currently limited on size due to room dimensions, as and when I move I’m going to have a panel the size of Belgium.

(* -they write themselves sometimes, don’t they)

Looking for a little over 40 inches, as 50 would be too big for the room.

You’d think. Until you’ve had it a month, when it doesn’t look so big any more.
Been there, etc.

Price seems to be 50-100 less now (grrr) so I’d say a good buy for that. Original Rrp was £1200.

Tech prices always fall as ‘The Next Big Thing’ is ‘Just Around The Corner.’ Best advice is always to get the best you can, when you can; if you’re hanging on for upgrades you’ll do it until the heat death of the universe.

3D, Curved and SD are dead. 4k and UHD or similar is best for future proofing as content is limited – much like HD used to be.

Standard size is 55″ and it takes about an hour of, wow it’s big, before you recognise it as normal – unless you are in a tiny bedsit. We replaced our 10yr old top end 32″ as the panel was having issues and I said to the wife you need a massive room for big screen tv’s but we walked past a 32″ tv in Costco and it looked like it belonged on the back of a planes seat!

Also, seating distance is reduced now. Meaning you don’t need to sit 12ft away for a defined picture.

Hisense m7000 and Samsung K something or other can be got sub £800.

Oh and either JL or Richer have the best warranties but look on av forums for reviews with impartiality.

Very disappointed with our Samsung smart, started ok but both the remotes now work on a fairly random basis and it seems to hang up a bit fortunately John Lewis are coming out tomorrow to look at it wouldn’t recommend Samsung

With an £800 budget I’d spend £500ish on the TV and the rest on a soundbar (assuming you don’t already have something external to plug it into), built-in speakers really are dire (even on £1000+ models).

Decide what size you want (as others have said, what looks massive in the shop you soon get used to, no regrets with my 50″ Samsung although the stupid stand design meant I had to get a new cabinet for it as well).

You may as well get 4k (for around £500ish I think you’d struggle to find a non-4k anyway), it will give you some future proofing is you intend having the TV for 5+ years.

Other than that I’d stick with a Samsung, LG or Sony and within their ranges the more you spend gets you a faster signal processor (slightly better picture) and faster CPU for the smart features. But once you have a short-list just google them for reviews and when you buy one google the recommended picture settings for it and try those as a starting point.

My advice:

1. Go one size up than you think you need and the OH “says” you need.
2. Go with the best image quality you can afford. I picked up a Sony 850 series a couple of years ago. It was the one TV that every shop I walked into it just grabbed my attention, I checked out the reviews and everyone praised it for it’s image quality. Also don’t be afraid to mess with settings in the store.
3. Following on from messing with settings in store turn off all the motion compensation rubbish. I run my Sony in the pure state with no processing. When I turn it on it all looks fake and it might look good in store to make images pop but if you have to do that then the panel is rubbish.
4. You will probably end up with smart stuff if following my advice number 2 as the best panels don’t come on the entry level TVs. The smart stuff costs peanuts to add. Accept that you will probably want to buy a stand alone smart device anyway but having it built into the TV and controlled by the remote is not to be sniffed at either so do try out the smart stuff. Not all have the same channels, youview generally has the best complete selection and the ability to go back through the EPG and automatically find the on demand program, some Panasonic also have this. It is very handy.

The main benefit of a stand alone smart box is you can leave it running and just switch over to it as an input on the TV. The in built ones will be closed when you go back to the TV broadcast.

Most TVs will have their own branded version of control over HDMI. Most will work with each other but obviously same brands will work a little bit slicker. My approach was get a samsung bluray to go with my sony TV as the smart apps complemented each other (one has ITV, one doesnt and vice versa with another one but I prefer to use the youview box anyway!)

The main benefit of a stand alone smart box is you can leave it running and just switch over to it as an input on the TV. The in built ones will be closed when you go back to the TV broadcast.

I’d argue that the main benefits are a) they’re generally better / more feature-rich and b) if it becomes obsolete you can replace it for £20 rather than needing a new TV (though you can add one later for the same reason if you don’t do it at the outset, of course).

Most TVs will have their own branded version of control over HDMI. Most will work with each other but obviously same brands will work a little bit slicker.

CEC is, at least in theory, a standard. It should all interoperate. Where it falls down is when devices don’t support all features, or don’t support it at all (like my bloody Xbox One which relies on the Kinect’s IR blaster istead), but that’s a device issue rather than a compatibility issue.

TL;DR there’s almost certainly nothing to be gained for being brand-loyal to a given manufacturer.

Maybe include a decent soundbar in that budget unless you already have some sound system you can hook it up to. Flat screens don’t generally have great sound so you may end up noticing that more than marginal gains in screen quality.

And a soundbar that has the ARC / CEC functionality so you don’t need two remotes…

I bought a 49″ Samsung 7000 series just before Christmas at £900. Very happy with it and Excellent picture and features. Price seems to be 50-100 less now (grrr) so I’d say a good buy for that. Original Rrp was £1200.

Tech prices always fall as ‘The Next Big Thing’ is ‘Just Around The Corner.’ Best advice is always to get the best you can, when you can; if you’re hanging on for upgrades you’ll do it until the heat death of the universe.

New ranges have just been announced at CES so prices will drop – now is a good time to buy, although prices have crept back up, post Christmas sales – they’ll come down again in a few weeks. We paid £1400 for a £2000 tv and got a free 4k BD player chucked in. We’ve got the 55″ KS9000

With an £800 budget I’d spend £500ish on the TV and the rest on a soundbar (assuming you don’t already have something external to plug it into), built-in speakers really are dire (even on £1000+ models).

Decide what size you want (as others have said, what looks massive in the shop you soon get used to, no regrets with my 50″ Samsung although the stupid stand design meant I had to get a new cabinet for it as well).

Whilst I’d agree on the soundbar, I’d still be looking to spend my budget on the panel initially – there is a definite jump in PQ as you go up the ranges, you aren’t just paying for daft features.

We’ve just gone from a 40″ to 55″ and it looked big for about 24hrs – looks normal now!

3D, Curved and SD are dead. 4k and UHD or similar is best for future proofing as content is limited – much like HD used to be.

Whilst many would agree, we went for curved – mostly because I like the look of it. Despite what you might read, there are no detrimental effect to viewing (certainly in our set-up) and it’s said that at least the curved Samsung gives a more immersive picture in 4k/UHD

Yet another vote here for “bigger”.

Our first flat telly was 42″ and seemed amazing after a 28″ CRT. Then we went to a 50″ when we moved house. Which was also amazing, for a bit. That has done sterling service but I’m hankering for a 60″ now. The old one has quite a wide bezel, so although a 60″ screen is +10″ it’s barely any bigger in terms of the space it occupies.

Regarding the soundbar thing….depends on your circumstance, I reckon.
I was all set to get a soundbar at the same time as our telly, but then thought I might as well get the telly bought and all set-up before deciding on a soundbar…..and to be honest, I am not sure there is any point in getting one at the moment.

Whenever we would likely crank the sound up for watching a film, our daughter is asleep so we can’t turn the sound up particularly loud. Her bedroom is directly above the lounge where the telly is.

It might produce a richer sound, but like I say – for the volumes we are listening at it would be marginal at best I reckon.

We previously had our DVD player hooked up to my NAD amp & floorstanders & that was great for watching an action film with, but now it would just wake the baby and be a pain in the arse.

Regarding the soundbar thing….depends on your circumstance, I reckon.
I was all set to get a soundbar at the same time as our telly, but then thought I might as well get the telly bought and all set-up before deciding on a soundbar…..and to be honest, I am not sure there is any point in getting one at the moment.

I was going to post something similar. My 28″ Sony CRT finally died last autumn, and we got a 49″ LG something or other. I’d heard (no pun intended!) that flatscreen sound was poor, but also thought I might as well give it a go – and it’s fine. I’m sure a soundbar or a full surround sound setup would be better, but for watching series or movies it certainly isn’t a necessity.

Another thing I’ll echo: go big. 49″ was massive when I first set it up, and now it just looks normal.

If it’s freeview you want then look at ones with Freeview play as you can do catch up stuff pretty easy without the need for another box. Panasonic do TVs with this built in and I think LG do too.
I know the consensus is to get a separate box but some of the features on the latest TVs mean you don’t need one.

If you’re planning on sticking one of the stick type digital tuner/chromecast/FireStick gadgets into one of the HDMI ports, then most of them can run off USB ports so having a couple of those can save on extra transformers/power cables.

Firestick uses an external power supply though.

Personally, I think OLED is the future (fairly sure CES just about agrees with me).

Whilst money wise it’s tricky to get OLED at this price point, I would go for something like an 55EC930 over anything else on the market. From a picture quality point of view, the black levels are beyond anything LCD can offer.

Might have to stray into the second hand market to get one within budget.

Personally, I think OLED is the future (fairly sure CES just about agrees with me).

Whilst money wise it’s tricky to get OLED at this price point, I would go for something like an 55EC930 over anything else on the market. From a picture quality point of view, the black levels are beyond anything LCD can offer.

Might have to stray into the second hand market to get one within budget.

Yes, due to the nature of the diodes, you get a true black, but OLED is still being developed – they suffer from smearing, image retention and screen burn. My edge lit Samsung has a 10yr screen burn warranty – no OLED manufacturer will give you that.

An edge lit, or FALD panel meeting HDR10 spec will reach well over 1000 nits of peak brightness, whereas an OLED can only manage 600. Where an OLED will go to 0.00 nits an LED can only go down to 0.05, but that is still pretty close to black.

There are issues with traditional led, such as blooming and haloing, but set up correctly with a decent panel and you can all but eradicate these.