New TV

[Raj]

We've never had problems  with our Panasonic and had it about 7 years 

Edited 27 July 2023 by Raj

[Brenfox]

I got the LG oled 65" & 55" both are absolutely fantastic. I would always but LG. 

[Wolfox]

All research points to LG OLED

 

there are relatively few manufacturers now (margins are low as it’s been commoditised), in fact LG make a load of stuff for other manufacturers 

 

Get yourself onto Hotdealsuk and have a search…. I managed a LG 48” for about £550

 

Also unless you have it in a truly huge room, 48” is big enough…. The trend for huge TVs is beyond me…. They look awful and are totally unnecessary 

 

My major bug bear is the sound….  Most TVs have awful speakers…. Invest in an AV receiver or a reasonable quality sound bar…. It’s night and day

[WigstonWanderer]

My Sony 75 inch isn’t bad, but soon after I got a 65 inch for my father and his picture seems much better than mine, and I’m not really sure why. Presumably some different tech. I think it must be about 5 years old by now. Anyway, neither was top of the range. It’s got me itching to upgrade to an 83 inch or bigger OLED. In the showroom the OLED picture quality is stunning.

 

Having had a TV based on Android (now branded Google TV I believe), I probably wouldn’t opt for anything else. It’s quite flexible having access to the Google play store.

[Daggers]

Thanks for the pointers, links and experiences, people. Much appreciated.

 

The 2020 version of this Samsung garnered rave reviews from that geeky AV site, so I reckoned the 2023 model must be at least as decent. Got the £50 discount on top for sacking off the sack of shit broken LG. 

 

Just finished setting it up and I reckon it's very decent straight out of the box. Cracking image, reasonable sound, cracking interface and a shedload of freebie weird Samsung TV Plus channels. Can't say I'll ever need 24hr access to non-stop smurf cartoons - but you never know what the future holds.

 

Hopefully the girls will find something to do and I can see how it performs with the XboxX later on.

 

Thanks again FT.

 

 

[Parafox]

Sony we had was under par but our current TV is LG OLED 4K 54" smart TV with the curved screen. OK the magic remote is a bit poorly thought out and can be annoying to use as the cursor seems to be all over the place and the only way to re-centre it is to get it to the edge of the screen and try to position the controller so it points directly at it. We rarely use the magic remote as we get our TV via  broadband, mostly. And our PS4 supports most other TV providers.

Picture quality is excellent especially in 4K UHD (when you can find a broadcast that supports it such as BBC iPlayer). 

Gaming is good. The screen refresh rate is good, there's no stalling or pixelation.

 

Sound-wise... mmm, well if you don't have surround sound, invest in a sound bar. Otherwise the TV sound is what I call a bit "thin". Very little bass notes and can be quite difficult to get the volume right to properly hear dialogue or sound effects without it being too loud for comfort.

 

Sound bar, we have a Denon and it's excellent. Pretty much plug and play and it has a sub woofer. Has it's own remote although the TV recognises it as well, Different settings for sound, Great for films.

 

If I were you, I'd seriously look at LG

 

I'm not a geek 

[weller54]

Once you've had Philips 4 sided ambilight there's no going back. 

[ian__marshall]

Sorry for the long post but It's a difficult conundrum and very much a personal preference thing. 

 

The LG OLEDs are certainly some of the best screens around with the deepest black tones on the market as they are capable of turning off individual pixels, however unless you're buying the premium priced latest models OLED struggles with brightness levels which is problematic if you have a room with a reasonable amount of natural light. Screen burn-in/image retention historically has been an issue too for OLED. Most sets don't seem to have issues these days as the TVs have protection systems however you will still see issues being reported (albeit a lot fewer) if you research OLEDs. Also be mindful that LG don't have the full range of TV app/catch up services commonly used/found on other brands. 

 

I ended up going for a Samsung Neo QLED in the end. These use quantum dot technology and the screen is split into around 1500 zones grouping pixels together with each zone having an independent back light. The idea is that it works in a similar way to OLED by being able to turn off the back light on clusters of pixels in dark areas of an image. This is an important difference between Neo QLED and LED technologies as LED can't turn off individual/groups of pixels instead reducing the brightness to achieve image darkness. However although LED reduces the brightness the single light source is still delivering light to the pixels albeit at a massively reduced level, but even with such low levels of light it leads to a phenomenon know as 'Light Bleed' which reduces the detail in dark scenes and prevents blacks from being truly recreated on screen as the pixels are still lit. 

 

The big benefit of LED technology is the brightness levels massively exceed OLED. Some techies argue that this enables better colour reproduction on light images and gives a more natural image on scenes displaying sunlight. Also screen burn-in isn't really an issue on an LED screen so theres a argument the display will last longer. More importantly the added brightness negates any issues with the amount of natural light in the room so you don't have the same concerns as you would with an OLED screen. 

 

Whilst Samsung will say Neo QLED offers the same level of blacks as OLED with the benefits of improved brightness, some experts argue that although their panels have a high number of dimming zones, the level of blackness isn't quite a match for OLED as the Samsung panel still has pixels illuminated within the active LED clusters meaning any dark areas within that cluster aren't completely black as those pixels are still receiving light leading to very minute light bleed, whereas this is not possible on an OLED display.

 

The latter point was a concern for me when I bought my Neo QLED as I didn't for one second believe the hype of Samsung's marketing claims, however having had the TV for about a year now, in my opinion unless you were to freeze the video and examine the screen with a magnifying glass you'd struggle to spot light bleed. The blacks on this TV are phenomenal and exceeded my expectations. 

 

Ultimately, I think a lot of it comes down to budget (I got mine via a ridiculously good Perks At Work offer but the retail price would have prohibited me otherwise), what your intended use is (movies, video games, both), what kit you'll be connecting to it (do you need a panel that will let you run a PS5 or Xbox Series X on max settings along with a sound bar/audio system capable of outputting Dolby Atmos), and how much of a visual perfectionist you are (will you notice if a single pixel is outputting a sub-optimal amount of light?).

 

TVs in my opinion are a very personal and subjective purchase as everyone has very different expectations. Also the technology is moving so quickly that sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and dive in otherwise you'll never buy a TV as there will always be rumours of improvements in the next iteration. 

 

Good luck! 

 

Edited 27 July 2023 by ian__marshall

[Clever Fox]

I bought an LG years ago, I paid something like 3000 Thousand for it at the time.

It lasted less than 3 years and I was rightly pissed off when I heard how much they wanted to repair.

So I'd take a lot of persuading to buy another LG product.

I replaced it with a Panasonic which lasted 15 years and I decided to replaced it with another Panasonic which is still going strong.

Phillips are great inovators and produce a lot of the Tecnology used by all Manufacturers today.

So I don't think you can go wrong with a Phillips Tv either.

[1972 Fox]

1 hour ago, Clever Fox said:

I bought an LG years ago, I paid something like 3000 Thousand for it at the time.

3 million quid for a TV is too much I would say. That's about what we pay Vestergaard a year which is also way too much. 

[Zear0]

Just got an LG C1 as I'd fancied an upgrade for a while. Excellent so far even if it damn near crippled me mounting it on the wall. 77"... missus is absolutely delighted (no innuendo intended) 

[Daggers]

10 hours ago, Zear0 said:

Just got an LG C1 as I'd fancied an upgrade for a while. Excellent so far even if it damn near crippled me mounting it on the wall. 77"... missus is absolutely delighted (no innuendo intended) 

She appreciates a good mounting?

[Zear0]

1 hour ago, Daggers said:

She appreciates a good mounting?

You tell me... 

[Daggers]

29 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

You tell me... 

Well, if she’s like my wife - no. She appreciates nothing.

[Wycombe Fox]

On 27/07/2023 at 20:02, weller54 said:

Once you've had Philips 4 sided ambilight there's no going back. 

I bought a 70" one of these last August from Richer Sounds (they offer 6 years warranty).

 

Great experience with the Ambilight on and the room lights off, especially for football.

[weller54]

7 minutes ago, Wycombe Fox said:

I bought a 70" one of these last August from Richer Sounds (they offer 6 years warranty).

 

Great experience with the Ambilight on and the room lights off, especially for football.

Yes, got mine from RS for that same reason. 

[Ashley]

LG Tvs 🍆🍆

 

 

[Daggers]

Can confirm I'm delighted with the Samsung UE65CU8500KXXU.

 

 

[Zear0]

18 minutes ago, Daggers said:

Can confirm I'm delighted with the Samsung UE65CU8500KXXU.

 

 

Rolls of the tongue

[wattolcfc]

If you have a fairly bright room then Samsung QLED are probably the best as they are brighter than OLED TV’s.

However, if you don’t and are a big film buff then OLED is the only way to go IMO. They have perfect blacks and whites which show details you can’t see on other screen types.

Sony are pushing the best OLED TV’s out on the market at the minute (same panel as LG but have a slightly better brightness, which helps in bright rooms) but I’m not a fan of the android TV software. 

Personally I always would go LG OLED. There’s a range for different budgets too.

[WigstonWanderer]

Just replaced a 2017 Sony 75” with a Sony 85” X95K. This one has mini-LED backlighting so allows finer control for better black levels. Decent upgrade, and looks great with true 4K material, but tends to expose lower quality video which is most broadcast stuff. Google TV O/S.

 

The OLED version would have been about twice the price, so went with this.

Edited 11 August 2023 by WigstonWanderer

[FoxesDeb]

On 27/07/2023 at 22:47, ian__marshall said:

Sorry for the long post but It's a difficult conundrum and very much a personal preference thing. 

 

The LG OLEDs are certainly some of the best screens around with the deepest black tones on the market as they are capable of turning off individual pixels, however unless you're buying the premium priced latest models OLED struggles with brightness levels which is problematic if you have a room with a reasonable amount of natural light. Screen burn-in/image retention historically has been an issue too for OLED. Most sets don't seem to have issues these days as the TVs have protection systems however you will still see issues being reported (albeit a lot fewer) if you research OLEDs. Also be mindful that LG don't have the full range of TV app/catch up services commonly used/found on other brands. 

 

I ended up going for a Samsung Neo QLED in the end. These use quantum dot technology and the screen is split into around 1500 zones grouping pixels together with each zone having an independent back light. The idea is that it works in a similar way to OLED by being able to turn off the back light on clusters of pixels in dark areas of an image. This is an important difference between Neo QLED and LED technologies as LED can't turn off individual/groups of pixels instead reducing the brightness to achieve image darkness. However although LED reduces the brightness the single light source is still delivering light to the pixels albeit at a massively reduced level, but even with such low levels of light it leads to a phenomenon know as 'Light Bleed' which reduces the detail in dark scenes and prevents blacks from being truly recreated on screen as the pixels are still lit. 

 

The big benefit of LED technology is the brightness levels massively exceed OLED. Some techies argue that this enables better colour reproduction on light images and gives a more natural image on scenes displaying sunlight. Also screen burn-in isn't really an issue on an LED screen so theres a argument the display will last longer. More importantly the added brightness negates any issues with the amount of natural light in the room so you don't have the same concerns as you would with an OLED screen. 

 

Whilst Samsung will say Neo QLED offers the same level of blacks as OLED with the benefits of improved brightness, some experts argue that although their panels have a high number of dimming zones, the level of blackness isn't quite a match for OLED as the Samsung panel still has pixels illuminated within the active LED clusters meaning any dark areas within that cluster aren't completely black as those pixels are still receiving light leading to very minute light bleed, whereas this is not possible on an OLED display.

 

The latter point was a concern for me when I bought my Neo QLED as I didn't for one second believe the hype of Samsung's marketing claims, however having had the TV for about a year now, in my opinion unless you were to freeze the video and examine the screen with a magnifying glass you'd struggle to spot light bleed. The blacks on this TV are phenomenal and exceeded my expectations. 

 

Ultimately, I think a lot of it comes down to budget (I got mine via a ridiculously good Perks At Work offer but the retail price would have prohibited me otherwise), what your intended use is (movies, video games, both), what kit you'll be connecting to it (do you need a panel that will let you run a PS5 or Xbox Series X on max settings along with a sound bar/audio system capable of outputting Dolby Atmos), and how much of a visual perfectionist you are (will you notice if a single pixel is outputting a sub-optimal amount of light?).

 

TVs in my opinion are a very personal and subjective purchase as everyone has very different expectations. Also the technology is moving so quickly that sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and dive in otherwise you'll never buy a TV as there will always be rumours of improvements in the next iteration. 

 

Good luck! 

 

We´ve just ordered a Samsung Neo QLED, very much looking forward to it arriving next week

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/samsung-qe55qn85catxxu-55-smart-4k-ultra-hd-hdr-neo-qled-tv-with-amazon-alexa-and-bixby-10248422.html?searchTerm=samsung neo

 

Very happy with the price, too, it was €795, so the equivalent of £689

[Daggers]

1 hour ago, FoxesDeb said:

We´ve just ordered a Samsung Neo QLED, very much looking forward to it arriving next week

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/samsung-qe55qn85catxxu-55-smart-4k-ultra-hd-hdr-neo-qled-tv-with-amazon-alexa-and-bixby-10248422.html?searchTerm=samsung neo

 

Very happy with the price, too, it was €795, so the equivalent of £689

Ordered? Pah.
 

Live footage of Deb getting her Black Friday TV…

 

 

[ian__marshall]

1 hour ago, FoxesDeb said:

We´ve just ordered a Samsung Neo QLED, very much looking forward to it arriving next week

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/samsung-qe55qn85catxxu-55-smart-4k-ultra-hd-hdr-neo-qled-tv-with-amazon-alexa-and-bixby-10248422.html?searchTerm=samsung neo

 

Very happy with the price, too, it was €795, so the equivalent of £689

Congratulations, I hope you enjoy watching your new TV as much as I enjoy watching mine. I don't think you'll be disappointed, it's an excellent display. Enjoy! 

[FoxesDeb]

11 minutes ago, Daggers said:

Ordered? Pah.
 

Live footage of Deb getting her Black Friday TV…

 

 

Haha I'm far too old for that kind of shit, plus I don't think the Spanish could be bothered