Good online shop for a TV? Also, goo reviews source

[northwind]

i'm looking for a 32" or 28" traditional-styles widescreen TV- none of your overpriced LCD rubbish or HD ready for me, I'm tight... Found some good contenders in the £300-£450 range in Comet and Currys, just wondered if anyone's got any recommendations for an online source. Also, if there's a good source for reviews etc, that'd be handy...

[Anonymous]

I bought a Sony traditional* widescreen with digital built in about 6 months ago and couldnt beat comet on price when free delivery added in etc. About £350. Other place I ahve used us quality electrical direct.

*tv's go in room corners, right :lol:

[northwind]

Yeah, Comet look pretty good. Plus, i wouldn't need to muck about with delivery, I can just send my dad to pick it up ;)

[Valman]

For a bit more, £490, you could get this:

http://www.dabs.com/images/product/uni2/3t/3tlw_large.jpg

DabsValue 30" Widescreen LCD TV (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3TLW&CategorySelectedId=11229&NavigationKey=11229&ExposedRefinement=11006)

Also has a DVI input so you can use a PC with it too.

[Anonymous]

I think it was cheaper online than in store. And make sure you dont get scrwed over for a stand (of you need one). I really dodnt want to belive comet would be cheapest :lol:

[northwind]

Out of my range Valman... But thanks.

Comet seem to be giving away a freeview box with the website deal, but the inconvenience of home delivery puts me off a bit. Plus, I want one NOW! ;)

[Anonymous]

Mines not there. But you wouldnt go wrong with one of these
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/453_252018.html
TBH the inbuilt digital with my Sony is crapper and less easy to use when drunk than my el cheapo argos digi box on my portable.

[kinesin]

http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/ Recenlty got plenty of recommendations in the discount & bargains newsgroup when the same question was asked.

I was looking earlier - as I don't have a TV :shock:

[jenni]

what about tesco, i haven't looked but they are quite good with free delivery, amazon are usually worth a look too

[coombest]

CRT televisions are inherently techincally 'better' than LCD or Plasma but their size and appearance is what has pushed them out of the market.

However, it has also meant that fewer are being made and they're starting to be made more than ever to a cost, as they are the minority of television manufacturer's sales.

Don't get anything from a brand you've never heard of or one that's only available in one store - it'll be something cheap and nasty from the back end of Korea with a lifespan of a year or two... It may be cheap in the first instance but if it on;y lasts half as long as something a bit more expensive, is that more expensive in the long run!?

Don't bother with loads of bells & whistles - they get in the way of a good picture and it means there's more to go wrong!

Panasonic still make some of the best screens on the market, Philips needlessly over-(re)invent things, which means they'll go wrong quickly, Sony make good screens but they're over priced for what you get now... The picture isn't up with the Panasonic nowadays and the body of the television tends to be badly finished - I also can't get on with the high-pitch whistle they emit when turned on! JVC are part of the Panasonic (Matsu****a) group and also make some good sets but they tend to be lesser spec and quality than the Panny for not a lot less cash!
Toshiba tend to have overly-rich Reds and the sound is generally a bit thin. Thomson are very cheaply built (French based!) and I've never been impressed with their screens. Haven't seen the latest crop of Samsung screens but they tend to be overpriced too.

Currys have a great deal on a Panasonic 28" pure flat 100Hz TV - £319 in store and £299 online with free delivery. You even get a half price deal on a digital television tuner!

One last tip...

When you get any new screen, go straight to the setup menu and turn off all the digital picture 'enhancements' - they make the picture worse, then turn the contrast down, the colour down and adjust the brightness to suit (Panasonics tend to need it turning down!), turn the starpness control down as far as possible - off is best but the picture will probably fall apart at anything less than 10% or so. Television sets are shipped from the factory with bonkers settings so that they can be plonked out on display in a big shed (Comet/Currys) with loads of bright lighting and look OK. Your living room is nothing like a Comet showroom, so these settings need tempering! Doing so will improve definition and give images detail - you'll lose the 'lego hair' and see strands of hair and so on... It will also greatly increase the life of your television!

Diatribe over - Hope it helped!!! :lol:

[Well Oiled]

Northy - Got a big ASDA near you?

I've found them to be tremendous value with good warranty. My two and a half year old 28 inch telly had a picture fault. It had a 3 year warranty from ASDA, which I couldn't find. Took it back, asked them if they could do anything. They said sure, we do that model and we believe you when you say its less than 3 years old - you can choose another of the same type or pay the difference for a more expensive one. So now I have a 28 inch widescreen that cost me 50 quid plus my old faulty telly. Well happy with that !!

Cheers Keith

[embee]

Coombest sounds like the expert here. :thumbsup: Dead right about the factory settings! :shock:

I'd certainly suggest Panasonic as probably best quality/price compromise. All the reviews I've read will rate them highly. I have a 32" Sony (which doesn't whistle :-dd ) and I like the picture. I like 100Hz, a good digi signal will produce a totally stable image. I find 28" looks too letterboxy, but it depends how big the room is.

One thing to remember, these things are heavy! :shock: The Sony 32" comes in at 67kg IIRC. 2 man job to shift those lumps!

Comet+Curry have awful customer service reputations, but do sometimes have good prices.

[Demonz]

I brought a small one a month and ended up and commet and currys after checking the online prices which were similar after delivery added. Went with Commet purely on the service at the time of purchase and I could take it home then and there. I went with Toshiba only because prices were much cheaper than Sony/Panasonic and I've always had Toshiba laptops which have never let me down in the past. Also consider Grundig and Thompson which are similar.

[northwind]

Went to Currys today to pick up the one I wanted... They'd lost the stand :roll: So I'm going to have to last a couple of days with no TV! Or stream everything on the PC down my shonky web connection ;)

Cheers for all the advice folks, much food for thought now I'm back in the market, so to speak. I was going with a 100hz 32" JVC at £50 but on reflection it's too big for me, so the number one contender is this :

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0937496628.114036410 7@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdaddgmmkfhiecflgceggdhhmdgmk.0&page=Product&sku=522524&fm=20&sm=2&tm=undefined&tabIndex=2
(link might expire, don't shout at me if it does!)

At that price I can look at getting a decent DVD player to go with it, instead of using my PS2. It's last year's model, but frankly I could care less about that... My brother had the model before, or the model before. which was very grainy, but this one seems to have a better screen.

[northwind]

Ah, but that Pan that Tim mentioned looks pretty nice too, also 100hz refresh... Hmm.

[northwind]

I think the Pan wins it. It's all going on my newly-cleared credit card so what's an extra £50 ;)

[coombest]

Coombest sounds like the expert here. :thumbsup: Dead right about the factory settings! :shock:

I'd certainly suggest Panasonic as probably best quality/price compromise. All the reviews I've read will rate them highly. I have a 32" Sony (which doesn't whistle :-dd ) and I like the picture. I like 100Hz, a good digi signal will produce a totally stable image. I find 28" looks too letterboxy, but it depends how big the room is.

One thing to remember, these things are heavy! :shock: The Sony 32" comes in at 67kg IIRC. 2 man job to shift those lumps!

Comet+Curry have awful customer service reputations, but do sometimes have good prices.

Err... Well, I was selling Televisions at an independent HiFi store for over 2 years and have been installing Home Cinema systems for the past 3 years (now have my own business doing that) so have had to set up most makes of screens you can think of!

The 32" Sonys do tend to be heavier than anything else on the market for some reason, which has alwars confused the hell out of me!!
Most 32" screens are about 50kg and 28"s around 35kg, IIRC.

I used to sell Panasonic and Loewe very regularly and we had a repair agent as well who repaired anything... Used to get about 2 Panasonics a year and tens of every other make!

I have 2 Panasonic screens at home here and have never once been let down by them (well - one dry joint fixed, FOC by my engineer!)... My big one is a 29" 4:3 screen and it's been going strong for about 12 years now... It still has a beter picture than the majority of CRT televisions on the market and better than any LCD... The NEC Hi Def Plasmas (currently the cream of the crop, IMO) are just coming vaguely close - and a Runco plasma is very nearly as good - but that's £4,500 for a non-HiDef 42"!!!

[russg]

yeah i have to agree with coombest i would go with panasonic :thumbsup: but the down side to panasonic crts just now is there crappy tv stands that come with the tv very flimsy not the safest stands on the planet i think

as for installion its very easy most tvs are

i feel sorry for all these people who buy lcd or plazma and they think there picture
is great when it is complete p**h i dont have the heart to tell them when i install them

i know all this cause i work for 1 of the companys mentioned before

if u need any advice northwind on buying from these companys then let me know

:D :D :D


cause there is always extras they want to sell u :wink:
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[northwind]

I won't be buying much in the way of protection/extended guarantees, I know that much- I saw figures for one of the policies in, I think, Comet, which was almost a quarter the price of the set :roll: It's like playing the lottery with £50 tickets.

The stand will be wedged between a hefty table and an inexplicable Big Wooden Box that I wa given when I was 10, so it should be solid enough.

Next question- DVD/VCR players. I might just use my PS2, but I'm tempted by a DVD-R recorder. I know the media are flimsy, but I can't be doing with video tapes now that everything else I have is disc or drive-based. I do still have a lot of good stuff on video, some of which I'd want to transfer to DVD, so I'm tempted by one of those dual decks. Yay or nay?

[russg]

me personally i would buy seperate units but if u have a video recorder just now u could buy a dvd recorder and connect them with scart and play the video while recording on to dvd so u could put ur video collection on dvd may take a while though for all ur videos but it can be done

there isnt much choice on dvd/vcrs

more choice on dvd recorders

the way i look at it if it was me and i bought a dvd/vcr if the dvd bit broke then am stuck with the video and vice versa


hope this helps mate

:D :D :D

ps not completly sure bout pic quality if transfering video to dvd
________
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[northwind]

That's my thought too... Don't own a VCR though. I suppose the real question is, are the cheap DVD-R recorders any good? realistically I can afford about £250 for the two.

[russg]

i suppose it comes down to the old sayin u get what u pay for mate but me personally i wouldnt buy any phillips tv or dvd recorder etc i think they suck

:D :D :D
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