Not bought a TV for about 20 years, and that was some cheapo crt thing from asda.

We’re ready for a new one, 5-700 budget. We’ll be plugging a ps4, wii, sky box and old school dvd in.

What’s good these days?

Personally I’d stick to either LG or Sony. I think Sony even use LG screens. The colour replication just comes a lot more natural. I find Samsung’s very oversaturated, faces that look sunburned, grass that looks like acid etc.

I’d also seriously think about earmarking some of that budget for a soundbar.

Everything else varies on price, and price varies based on screen size.

I’ve taken to techradar recently for this sort of consumer stuff.

I’d be looking for a QLED or OLED, in the biggest size you can afford. Check hotukdeals

I find Samsung’s very oversaturated

If only there was a way of adjusting saturation.

Nigel Farage is on GB news, 5 mins of that you will be looking for the receipt to take it back.

I’ve just bought a new telly – my old one was a 10 year old (ish) Samsung LCD. I ummed and ahhhed for ages before buying.

99% of what you are reading is just marketing guff.

For me it came down to oled (LG), or QLED (Samsung) – everything else is just noise, and most reviews and articles your read are just shills anyway.

It seems like Oled is universally recognized to be significantly better than QLED – but is significantly more expensive – certainly is in Australia. We went for the oLed LG in the end, and are super-happy with it.

Things I like:
Size. It’s bigger than the old one (55″ vs 42″) so that’s automatically 13 better
Picture quality. Just amazing. It seems to do a good job of upscaling too. Very happy.
Sound output. I have a decent Samsung sound bar, which was connected to my old telly via optical.
The same soundbar is noticeably better when connected to the new telly – I think because the new TV is able to output Dolby DTS via HDMI or something. Not sure, but it sounds twice as good.

Things I don’t like:
The remote: not good. Spinny-clicky thing in the middle is just annoying. I use my apple remote for everything, so not an issue. Other people might like it, but not me.
The interface: Also not good, but also not relevant to me as watch everything through the apple TV anyway. LG uses the remote as a “pointer” – which some people seem to like – I found it borderline unusable when I had to navigate the menus for set-up.
The ports: This was unexpectedly annoying. The top half of the tv is very thin (VERY – like <10mm….. see next issue), but the bottom half of the TV is “normal” thickness. All the ports are in the bottom section of the TV, but the way that the wall mounting works means that standard HDMI cables foul on the wall – making all but the reasonably slimline ones unusable. It does have ports in the site which you can use.
Handling: The tv manages to be super heavy, super expensive, super fragile….. and super awkward to handle. Again, because the top half of the screen is so ridiculously thin (for no benefit, because the bottom half is normal thickness), you can’t easily maneuver the thing without risking calamity. Might not be an issue if you are putting it on the stand (you’d still need two people to do this) – but I wall mounted mine, and it was a major ball ache (particularly combined with the above ports access issue).

Anyway, in summary: For me it came down to Qled vs oLed, I went oled and am super happy with both the sound quality (via soundbar) and the picture quality. I don’t like the remote or interface with the LG, but I don’t use them. Wall mounting the thing was a major pain – but it’s done now, so I can just enjoy the excellent sound and picture quality (which are the primary considerations).

If you aren’t that fussed about having all the latest tech then there are loads of 2nd hand TVs on Facebook marketplace and the like being sold by people who do want the latest tech. There’s not much to go wrong so you can save a lot of money and a tiny bit of planet

We just replaced a 10 year old Sony LCD with a “low-end” HDR/4K TV (one of the many on https://www.lg.com/uk/ultra-hd-4k-tvs). Yes I’m sure the thousand pound plus OLED screens are great, but in my living room next to a window this is still a massive improvement.

I do recommend picking up a reasonable sound bar too, I quite like our Yamaha YAS-109: good looks, good sound, and it’s Alexa/Spotify/etc connected if that sort of thing is useful to you.

However…

We’ll be plugging a ps4, wii, sky box and old school dvd in.

So that’s three HDMI and component input for the Wii. Sorry to say but that’s actually going to be a little tricky, be prepared to hunt around. More than two inputs (one of which might be used as audio output if you have a sound bar) appears to be a premium feature these days, and composite inputs are quite rare.

What size TV are you looking for? A Samsung or LG 55″ or 65″ model would be my choice for you budget, e.g. https://www.johnlewis.com/lg-55up77006lb-2021-led-hdr-4k-ultra-hd-smart-tv-55-inch-with-freeview-play-freesat-hd-dark-iron-grey/p5543874

Factor in the stand design to though, that LG model above won’t work on a narrow-ish cabinet

If you’re going to be plugging a PS5/Xbox Series X in anytime soon, maybe get one with HDMI 2.1.

Got a 65″ Samsung last year and agree with the earlier comment about awful cartoon colours. However, in the setup there is an option to switch this mode off.

After that everything has been good.

At least LG has the option on first power on of “home” or “showroom” to turn off the crazy. You still need to turn off the motion smoothing horror though.

As above, get a second hand one from a known make, especially if you’ve not bought a telly in 20 years. Our current telly is ten years old, and it’s fine. Ideally could do with more HDMI ports, it only has two, but otherwise it’s, well, fine.

I’m sure someone will tell me that it’s not got the richness of colours, or black density or yadda yadda somethingorother, but for, you know, just sitting down and watching some telly it’s, guess what? Yep, it’s fine.

You still need to turn off the motion smoothing horror though.

So much this. I hate going to someone’s house (or I used to anyway) where they’d left it on – you either have to look a bit of a **** telling them they’re watching their TV wrong or just put up with it. :-/

Handling: The tv manages to be super heavy, super expensive, super fragile….. and super awkward to handle. Again, because the top half of the screen is so ridiculously thin (for no benefit, because the bottom half is normal thickness), you can’t easily maneuver the thing without risking calamity. Might not be an issue if you are putting it on the stand (you’d still need two people to do this)

Hah just noticed this. I bought a 65″ LG OLED earlier this year and had to set it up myself (luckily I have reasonably long arms!). Was a bit of a nightmare and I actually dropped it whilst setting it down on my glass TV stand (I had to squat and bend forward a bit whilst lowering it but didn’t account for the weird stand that relies on a heavy weight at the back, once the centre of gravity changed it flipped forward and I couldn’t catch it in time). I was sure I’d just written it off but the only damage was to the plastic screen protector – the TV itself is fine and more robust than I gave it credit for (although try to avoid dropping them if you can…). I’m also going to stump up the extra £45 for John Lewis to do the set up when it comes to replacing it…

Don’t get a soundbar get a pair of active stereo speakers instead. That’ll eat up your TV budget so you’ll need them for listening to the radio or your favourite albums whilst you contemplate life without a TV.

If I were in the market for a new TV I’d be looking at a Philips ambilight because I’m a fool for pretty lights. Seriously though at your price point I’d be reading reviews and/or visiting my local Richer Sounds.

Not sure you’ll get much for a fiver 😕

Seriously though, i thought 4K laser projection TV’s were the future now.

OP you missed out on curved TVs which came and went, proof that like the bike industry, the TV industry will come up with all sorts of shite to get the fickle to part with their cash. Unhelpful I know.

After a fair bit of research I bought a Sony BRAVIA KD49XH9505BU from Richer Sounds back in Feb and I’m well impressed with it for both ‘council telly’ and app-based stuff (Netflix, Disney, NowTV, YouTube etc).

One word of caution though, to operate it, the telly will be nothing like its 20 year old predecessor – it’ll take some time for you to figure out what/where/how.

it flipped forward and I couldn’t catch it in time

holy shit balls – I bet that was a tense few moments while you reassured yourself it was ok!?

Getting it wall mounted was a bit of a fiasco – it really needed 3 people: 2 to lift, and one to plug the cables in while they are doing so. Had I have know that you can drop the **** thing on the screen and it would have been fine, perhaps I would have relaxed a little!

For sound, 20 years ago I put in surround sound, chiselled out the walls etc and installed speakers and speaker points. Brilliant sound with a decent Yamaha amp.

When we moved here 10 years ago, I did the same (as we were totally stripping back the lounge anyway (parts of it back to stone). Still the best thing I’ve done – and when the original amp failed after about 15 years, I just got a more powerful one (as the room is big and over 2 storeys tall).

Consider proper surround sound.

i used to have a proper surround sound system but got sick of speakers and wires everywhere plus couldn’t use its full potential as would end up upsetting the neihgbers. ended up with a soundbar under the tv with a wireless sub, doesn’t sound as good but it’s good enough.

got a 65″ panasonic OLED at the start of the year to replace the 9 year old 50″ panasonic plasma(now on the bedroom wall), picture quality is stunning. with OLED panasonic and sony are regauded as best for picture quality(i know LG make the panels but there’s a lot more to it than just the panels), LG better if you’ll be using them for gaming.

If you aren’t that fussed about having all the latest tech then there are loads of 2nd hand TVs on Facebook marketplace and the like being sold by people who do want the latest tech. There’s not much to go wrong so you can save a lot of money and a tiny bit of planet

This, especially if you haven’t bought a TV for as long as you claim, and don’t really give that much of a poop about them. Our friends and family have taken pity on us a couple of times and donated their old TVs.