new tv time as our 2 tv’s in house 32″ & 40″ toshiba 1080p is playing up after 7 year, we want smart tv around 40″ & 49″ but is 4k really necessary? we just watch freeview tv and iplayer and the odd dvd, also would prefer both same make, also only see it that in 5 years time we will need to replace again as technology moves on so quick, any recommendations and dont really want to spend more than £800/£900 on both ? cheers

We’re similar to you and got a 4K 49″ LG something. It’s great, with built in iPlayer, Netflix etc, but being a big screen means that older programmes not broadcast in HD or whatever looked fuzzy.
HD stuff is great though.
It was this one https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertainment/televisions/televisions/lg-49uj634v-49-smart-4k-ultra-hd-hdr-led-tv-10161612-pdt.html?srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~0045%20(DSA)%20Televisions~LG~Exact&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=c&ds_kids=39700014397516841&tgtid=0045%20(DSA)%20Televisions&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIh6zXmMCu1wIVdSjTCh3U7wZcEAAYASAAEgIlKfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Was <£500

+1 for LG TV’s. We have one and the built in apps are great.

No reason not to get 4k, a 43″ LG will cost you £450 in Currys right now. Might as well future proof it now. Iplayer are trialling 4k content.

4k is not really necessary for you as you have no 4k sources, although 4k is fairly ubiquitous on larger screens now and the streaming services are offering 4k (albeit not that high a bit rate atm).

Definitely get HDR though.

We just brought a 49″ LG from Richer Sounds as the price was competitive and for £10 extra it came with a 6 year warranty, which if you don’t use, you can have your £10 back. Plus was a local store to us.

You may want to factor in a sound bar, particularly for the main set or both.

4k is not really necessary for you as you have no 4k sources

except for iplayer. Why wouldn’t you get 4k?

£479

cheers, just looked on richer sounds and some good deals and all seem to have 6 yr warranty

The view around a year ago when I went through this was that 4K had become the norm and the decreasing choice and interest from the manufacturers in 1080 would increase the production costs vs 4K. I’d expect that situation to have changed even more in favour of 4K now so just go for it. A year back people had only just started banging on about HDR so as per up there ^^ I’d expect the discussion to be more about that now.

However all you really need to know is go an buy whatever you like from Richers and budget for a soundbar or other decent speakers.

except for iplayer. Why wouldn’t you get 4k?

iPlayer at 4K? What are you talking about? (other than 1 min of Planet Earth II beta test footage).

iPlayer at 4K? What are you talking about? (other than 1 min of Planet Earth II beta test footage).

They are testing in beta now. I think its fair to assume that there will be content before the OP gets round to replacing his new tv again in 6-10 years time.

timmys – Member

except for iplayer. Why wouldn’t you get 4k?

iPlayer at 4K? What are you talking about? (other than 1 min of Planet Earth II beta test footage).

Above a certain size/price point most tvs are 4k and have “smart” functions and come with youtube, netflix etc all pre installed. Even if you just use the Netflix free trial twice a year (and your partner does the same) that’s potentially a lot of 4k content.

I have an LG smart tv similar to the one linked above and it’s great. Apps work well and the smart remote is well worth getting.

I just upgraded a 10 year old Sony 40 inch HD set to a Sony 55inch 4K HDR all bells and whistles set. Ive been blown away by the quality improvement but that’s with sources like a PS4pro etc.

Not convinced about 4K, there’s not been a massive surge in content produced.
Just take a look in your local supermarket and you’ll find LOADS of DVD’s, a few Blurays and 2-3 in 4K.
Unlike 3D, I think 4K will take off and become mainstream eventually, but eventually could be 5-10yrs down the road.

Above a certain size/price point most tvs are 4k and have “smart” functions and come with youtube, netflix etc all pre installed.

This…

Besides, how often do you replace your TV? You might not make much use of 4K now, but I bet it’ll be all over the place in 3/4 years time, by which point you’ll be glad you already bought a 4K ready TV!

I bought the predecessor to this earlier this year in a sale for £369. It’s an awesome bit of kit! Like you I’d imagined that to get anything half decent size (I didn’t want any bigger than 40″) with decent quality, a few features thrown in etc. would necessitate an £800 or so spend unless it was Tesco/Curry’s own brand… I was so wrong it was a joke! The Panasonic I bought has won awards for its quality, and at £369 that I paid for it it felt like I was robbing them!

If you’re nit-picky, I’d suggest asking if you can have a try if the one you want in a dark room.

We got a 43″ LG 4k smart TV and it’s very good, except when it’s dark. The amount of white light bleeding into dark scenes can be pretty off-putting, and if I’d known I’d probably have shopped around a bit more.

fifeandy – Member

Not convinced about 4K, there’s not been a massive surge in content produced.
Just take a look in your local supermarket and you’ll find LOADS of DVD’s, a few Blurays and 2-3 in 4K.

The selection in a supermarket is probably aimed at people who haven’t fully cottoned on to streaming so they’re counting on impulse buys/one off purchases.

If you don’t know that most of those titles are available to stream, or you can’t avail of those streams then you probably don’t have blu-ray or aren’t that interested in tech in general. VHS hung around for a long time after DVDs were mainstream.

People are probably more likely to spend £7.99 on a dvd because they are bored than £17.99 on a blu-ray.

We’ve had an LG TV for about 4 years and the screen is full of big bright blobs now, I don’t think I’d have another.

We’re looking at getting a new Samsung one, probably will go 4k for future proofing but the biggest issue is getting a 42″ TV these days, anything bigger would look daft in out house.

Above a certain size/price point most tvs are 4k and have “smart” functions and come with youtube, netflix etc all pre installed. Even if you just use the Netflix free trial twice a year (and your partner does the same) that’s potentially a lot of 4k content.

Totally agree with you – having just spunked over two grand on a LG OLED set. I was just questioning the poster who seemed to be saying iPlayer was available at 4k.

Totally agree with you – having just spunked over two grand on a LG OLED set. I was just questioning the poster who seemed to be saying iPlayer was available at 4k.

I wasn’t saying iplayer is available in 4k. I was saying it will be available within the life span of the op`s next tv and seeing as he quoted it as one of his content sources…..

As I said way up the thread, the question is really why wouldn’t you get a 4k tv? The answer, no reason.

trailwagger – Member

As I said way up the thread, the question is really why wouldn’t you get a 4k tv? The answer, no reason.

Just looking at John lewis as well, good prices with 5yr warr on samsungs a nice 49″ curved one? any one have experiance of the curved tv’s?

When I briefly looked into reviews they seemed to think the curved screens offered no better viewing and were a bit of a gimmicky fad. Do many manufacturers offer them in their 2018 ranges?

In don’t think 4K is a good enough reason to change a perfectly good telly for on its own due to lack if content, but if you are replacing your telly anyway you’d be bonkers not to get 4K.

Edit: don’t get curved. It’s rediculous. We need to kill the demand and eradicate curved TVs.

Is a cheap 4k better than a higher end 1080p? Make sure your broadband is up to speed if your streaming Netflix etc – Cheap 4k’s don’t always do a great job of upscaling lower resolution content – ATSC 3.0 is a new broadcasting standard that will be rolled out and your current model will be somewhat redundant – Personally I would shop for a great deal on a higher end 1080p right now.

If you look at the high-end models this year both curved screens and 3D are pretty much non-existent, which tells you all you need to know about those two horrible fads.

We bought a 55″ curved 4k HDR Samsung last Christmas

The equivalent model was available in flat also, but I liked the look of the curved. Turned off, it looks lovely in the corner of the room and turned on, you’d do well to notice the curve. The purists on AV Forums etc, would plump for the flat, but it was agreed that the curved is very slightly more immersive. BUT, it is a high end award winning Samsung – has a moth eye filter to reduce reflections and meets HDR10 standard. Many ‘HDR’ tv’s don’t meet the standard – this is defined by the difference in NITS between the darkest blacks and the brightest whites. Lower end TV’s will be ‘HDR ready’, so will display the content, but not to it’s true potential. It was a toss up between this and an LG OLED, which displays slightly deeper blacks, but has issues in other areas, such as image retention.

I don’t regret getting a curved TV and it’s not the car crash that many would have you believe. However, viewing angles and room reflections may not make them ideal. I’ll probably go flat next time – although that won’t be for a few years.

The PQ is absolutely stunning in 4k and upscaled 1080p – only SD content looks a bit iffy, but that only gets on the screen when the Mrs has the remote and is quickly put to bed

the question is really why wouldn’t you get a 4k tv?

Because 8k is coming – duh!

(in 2018-2020)

Is there much difference between the iPlayer, Netflix type apps on different manufacturers tvs? I notice iPlayer gets updated periodically by Auntie Beeb – do the manufacturers quickly push updates out when this happens?

I have also been looking at Samsung and LGs and wondered if you get a better overall smart tv by going Sony or one of the other’premium’ manufacturers?
For example, are the in-built processors faster and do you get a snappier response when changing channels, apps etc?

Other way round imo.

Our LG is more user friendly and much quicker than the Sony.

Better picture quality on the Sony, but not much in it.

On balance, I’d go Panasonic next time for the best of both.

Yep, if you consider the availability of the iPlayer 4k test footage as a sign of manufactures favoured by the beeb then you are looking at LG and Panasonic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/programme-availability/programme-availability-info/planet_earth_4k

For Netflix they have a list of TV’s offering ‘next gen’ experience, which mainly seems to be having a Netflix button on the remote; LG, Samsung, Sony.

https://devices.netflix.com/en/recommendedtv/2017/

The common one of those is LG, which is handy as their OS is by far the best as well.

4k looks impressive, but at the bandwidth available will arguably not look any better than HD on most channels. As one of the engineers put it, its like standing on top of a remote hill and shouting really fast, its not the fact that you were talking slowly that made you unintelligible its the lack of signal.

That’s why DVD’S still look better than a lot of HD broadcast/streaming.

Still worth having though, streaming bandwidth will get cheaper.

I don’t know, understand or particularly care about the technical aspects of TV viewing, but the Blue Planet II programme looks amazing on our 4k TV.
The trailer is 4k I think, while the program is only HD. But, I can’t tell the difference between the two comparing back to back. The TV is obviously upscaling the program to 4K. It does a good job, everything is crystal clear.

The 4k TV falls over a bit when you start watching SD stuff on it. It’s obvious that a lot of the gaps are being filled in.

Ours in an LG, which I think was reduced from £700 to £450 in the Jan sales this year from Richer Sounds.
The LG smart interface is very good. The only thing that I don’t like is that the Freeview TV guide takes ages to start-up rather than being instant like it is on our HUMAX freeview & it doesn’t run in RAM, so has to start up every time you hit the guide button. Frustrating, but not a show stopper.

Interesting, thanks Stumpy.

I keep hearing Panasonics are very good, do they have this problem too, does anyone know?

Go to a very big Tesco and have a play.

Ours had all the recommended ‘best buy’ models set up and just handed us the remotes so we could check all the software, programme guides etc.

Had a good play for about half an hour before making a decision, no pressure and price matched too.

trailwagger – Member
iPlayer at 4K? What are you talking about? (other than 1 min of Planet Earth II beta test footage).
They are testing in beta now. I think its fair to assume that there will be content before the OP gets round to replacing his new tv again in 6-10 years time.

😆 they might try streaming 1080p with adequate bitrate first! F me, it’s like watching a DivX video from Limewire back in 2002 sometimes.

The TV is obviously upscaling the program to 4K

Of course it is, otherwise your picture would be in a quarter of the screen and the other three quarters would be black.

Cougar – Moderator

Of course it is, otherwise your picture would be in a quarter of the screen and the other three quarters would be black.

Alright, smart arse. I know that.

My point was that the upscaled image of the Blue Planet II program was incomparable (to me) from the 4k trailer.