TV buying Advice

[Grebfromgrebland]

Teach them well and let them get on with it as long as you don't find out, it fine?

 

You can block all the porn anyway from the settings.

[FoxesDeb]

18 hours ago, The Hitman said:

An example of what I mean is there’s no way of blocking movies that are age rated (not that I’m aware of anyway). Any adult programmes on Virgin or Sky require the pin code to watch them. 

 

I still remember sneakily watching Eurotrash as a young lad 😂

My IPTV has parental controls with a pin so it's definitely possible

[Sly]

Okay, so I’m after a 60 inch, wall mounted TV. 
 

Any suggestions? 

[The Hitman]

Noticed that Costco have an 85’’ Hisense in at the moment and it got me looking at tellys again. I currently have a 75’’ Samsung and don't really want to go any bigger so have been looking around. 
 

I know Hisense are frowned upon a bit but my bedroom one blows my Samsung out of the water. 
 

Amazon have the similar tv on prime deals, I was just first wondering if anyone knew the big difference between the two below. And then secondly is there any TV nerds that would recommend against them and maybe something better?

 

TV’s are pretty much disposable now so if the price started getting nearer to a grand I think I’d be happy with one of these. 
 

https://amzn.eu/d/12sBok5

 

https://amzn.eu/d/0Ouh5jK

[The Bear]

I noticed yesterday that Amazon Prime Day has a 65" LG OLED for £1k.

 

That's a pretty good price for that size/tech TV. 

[FoyleFox]

On 08/07/2025 at 07:42, The Hitman said:

Noticed that Costco have an 85’’ Hisense in at the moment and it got me looking at tellys again. I currently have a 75’’ Samsung and don't really want to go any bigger so have been looking around. 
 

I know Hisense are frowned upon a bit but my bedroom one blows my Samsung out of the water. 
 

Amazon have the similar tv on prime deals, I was just first wondering if anyone knew the big difference between the two below. And then secondly is there any TV nerds that would recommend against them and maybe something better?

 

TV’s are pretty much disposable now so if the price started getting nearer to a grand I think I’d be happy with one of these. 
 

https://amzn.eu/d/12sBok5

 

https://amzn.eu/d/0Ouh5jK

Why would a Hisense be frowned upon?

 

We weren't looking for a new TV but have a currys voucher to use and were shown a nice Hisence yesterday. A 55" Ultra HD ULED mini LED. £600. And a 5 year guarantee. 

Currently have 2 10+ ish year old Samsung 55" 4k curved tv's. One has just developed two small random pixilated dots at the bottom and the Samsung sound table is becoming unreliable. The Hisense we looked at had a built in sub so we'd not need a separate sound bar.

 

As we weren't looking for a new tv I've not done any research but I remembered we had a thread. 

 

We'd like 55" and don't think we need larger, good picture and sound are important. Having not looked at tv's for 10 years I'm not sure about what QLED, OLED etc are. 

Edited 3 August 2025 by FoyleFox

[The Hitman]

1 hour ago, FoyleFox said:

Why would a Hisense be frowned upon?

 

We weren't looking for a new TV but have a currys voucher to use and were shown a nice Hisence yesterday. A 55" Ultra HD ULED mini LED. £600. And a 5 year guarantee. 

Currently have 2 10+ ish year old Samsung 55" 4k curved tv's. One has just developed two small random pixilated dots at the bottom and the Samsung sound table is becoming unreliable. The Hisense we looked at had a built in sub so we'd not need a separate sound bar.

 

As we weren't looking for a new tv I've not done any research but I remembered we had a thread. 

 

We'd like 55" and don't think we need larger, good picture and sound are important. Having not looked at tv's for 10 years I'm not sure about what QLED, OLED etc are. 

To be honest I’m not sure I’ve just never really heard anyone say a good thing about them. 
 

To your last paragraph, I’ve gone for QLEDS and I’ve been advised (unsure of accuracy of this) that OLEDS are known for screen burn. So something like sky sports news which has banners in place for a long time can do it. 
 

If you buy a Hisense OLED then it is an LG panel which I know are well thought of. 

[FoyleFox]

1 hour ago, The Hitman said:

To be honest I’m not sure I’ve just never really heard anyone say a good thing about them. 
 

To your last paragraph, I’ve gone for QLEDS and I’ve been advised (unsure of accuracy of this) that OLEDS are known for screen burn. So something like sky sports news which has banners in place for a long time can do it. 
 

If you buy a Hisense OLED then it is an LG panel which I know are well thought of. 

Thanks. I was just reading an OLED V QLED comparison,  and it does say OLED - Can be more expensive, lower brightness than QLED and Mini LED, potential for burn-in with static images. For QLED - Can have some light blooming (light leakage in dark areas), not as good black levels as OLED. 

 

The one we looked at was ULED, so that helps...😂 or it might be mini LED...

 

It also mentions which is best for bright rooms, ours will go in a bright garden room, so that's actually good to know.

 

As with lots of tech stuff these days, there's a massive list of things we just don't need. All we use it for is standard evening tv through a Sky box and the weekend football. I used to like Sky sports news but now it's the same story on the banner repeated every 5 seconds....

[Bellend Sebastian]

Anybody got a relatively recent (within last 5 or so years) Samsung smart TV with a ridiculously slimline remote with about 6 buttons on? 

 

My father in law has been given one and I've set up the WiFi etc but what I cannot get my head round is selecting a high number channel on terrestrial TV - there's no keypad on the remote, just channel up and down, which isn't much use if you want channel two hundred and something.

 

There's a button with 123 on it that doesn't seem to do anything and I don't know what model TV it is to look up a manual. 

 

What am I missing? 

[FoxesDeb]

23 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Anybody got a relatively recent (within last 5 or so years) Samsung smart TV with a ridiculously slimline remote with about 6 buttons on? 

 

My father in law has been given one and I've set up the WiFi etc but what I cannot get my head round is selecting a high number channel on terrestrial TV - there's no keypad on the remote, just channel up and down, which isn't much use if you want channel two hundred and something.

 

There's a button with 123 on it that doesn't seem to do anything and I don't know what model TV it is to look up a manual. 

 

What am I missing? 

Yes we have those, the 123 button should bring up a number of options on the screen on the TV, scroll to 123 and this should bring up a number screen,  then you can choose the channel numbers with the arrow buttons and choose done to move to the channel you've typed in. 

[Bellend Sebastian]

3 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

Yes we have those, the 123 button should bring up a number of options on the screen on the TV, scroll to 123 and this should bring up a number screen,  then you can choose the channel numbers with the arrow buttons and choose done to move to the channel you've typed in. 

Thanks - yes, that makes sense, but I think the original remote has been replaced with a crappy after market one where that button doesn't work (it's sending a signal that the TV is not responding to).

 

We'll have to get another one and see if that works

[The Bear]

The model number should be on the back on a sticker near the inputs.

[ithuriel]

Are not OLEDs even worse than old Plasma TVs for screen burn if a still image is left on the screen?

[The Bear]

Just now, ithuriel said:

Are not OLEDs even worse than old Plasma TVs for screen burn if a still image is left on the screen?

Yes. Mine has some screen burn in because I use it to browse the I ternet on my PC. So the favourites bar, etc is showing up. 

[Bellend Sebastian]

2 hours ago, The Bear said:

The model number should be on the back on a sticker near the inputs.

I would've looked but the whole family were watching it at the time!

 

Found an e-manual in the menu system that confirmed the functionality that SHOULD be there 

[Grebfromgrebland]

14 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Anybody got a relatively recent (within last 5 or so years) Samsung smart TV with a ridiculously slimline remote with about 6 buttons on? 

 

My father in law has been given one and I've set up the WiFi etc but what I cannot get my head round is selecting a high number channel on terrestrial TV - there's no keypad on the remote, just channel up and down, which isn't much use if you want channel two hundred and something.

 

There's a button with 123 on it that doesn't seem to do anything and I don't know what model TV it is to look up a manual. 

 

What am I missing? 

Your should be able to buy a Samsung remote from eBay for a few quid that had the numbers etc. 

 

It'll have instructions to set up with your TV model 

[Bellend Sebastian]

5 hours ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

Your should be able to buy a Samsung remote from eBay for a few quid that had the numbers etc. 

 

It'll have instructions to set up with your TV model 

My sister-in-law ordered one off Amazon yesterday for the princely sum of three quid, so goodness knows what that's like. 

 

If that doesn't work out there's a slightly more realistically priced one for £13 that looks like a like for like replacement. We'll work something out. 

 

It was all a bit odd though - they were making me feel that typing in a channel number was some futuristic luxury that in no way had been completely standard on all televisions since the late 1980s

[Free Falling Foxes]

1 hour ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

My sister-in-law ordered one off Amazon yesterday for the princely sum of three quid, so goodness knows what that's like. 

 

If that doesn't work out there's a slightly more realistically priced one for £13 that looks like a like for like replacement. We'll work something out. 

 

It was all a bit odd though - they were making me feel that typing in a channel number was some futuristic luxury that in no way had been completely standard on all televisions since the late 1980s

They're getting less user friendly in my view. My Brother in law bought one recently that has freeview and Freely TV (internet based tv)

He/we could never get the freeview side to operate, even the 'techspert' in Currys was bamboozled by it. Consequently, he accesses the main channels via Freely, which necessitates creating accounts with each network to enable access.

This took an age.

Now, several weeks later for some unknown reason, it's not letting him access it ITV without creating an account - which did, and has even been watching ITV until yesterday.

 

[FoyleFox]

It does often feel that watching tv is unnecessarily complicated. With different boxes, sticks or subscriptions.

 

As an aside, we did go for the Hisense tv and very happy with it so far. 

[fox_favourite]

2 hours ago, FoyleFox said:

It does often feel that watching tv is unnecessarily complicated. With different boxes, sticks or subscriptions.

 

As an aside, we did go for the Hisense tv and very happy with it so far. 

Subscription after subscription just to watch anything is a right pain these days.