So the big screen at Meister Manor has developed a dark vertical band. Concensus is that it's blown LEDS and to fix it will mean a new panel which is not economic to do. Bit miffed as this was a top of the range Telly 6 years ago when I bought it and the 5 year warrenty is up and this is an expense my part time salary can;t really afford. I spent some time in Currys at the weekend and AVforums over the last week, but can't really narrow my replacement choice down. The main annoyance is no-one does 60" any more so I've got to trade up to a 65". Requirements: Picture quality is utmost, must support 4K & HDR in all it's flavours so this rules out Samsung who don't do Dolby Vision. I have an AV amp so only need the 1 HDMI input and couldn;t give a fig about the sound quality as I won't use the built in speakers. Sources are Sky Q, 4K Blu-Ray, Fire Stick and a NAS. Budget - as cheap as possible but won't skimp on picture quality I like the idea of going OLED but lack of brightness, screen burn in and cost is shifting me elsewhere. Back in the day I was a massive AV nerd but been somewhat out of the loop for a while. Anyone recently purchased, has recomendations or some insight?
I haven’t been in the market for a TV for a few years, but I’ve always found Panasonic ones to be the best picture quality every time I’ve bought. I generally have always researched on AV forums too, and then also used it to find the best settings. My current Panasonic one is way better quality than a lot of my friends newer TVs, and was only about £600 at the time. As much as curry’s get a bad rep the model I bought was exclusive to them and was a complete bargain at the time for the picture quality. Don’t know if Panasonic are still as good but at least my last three main TVs were them. I might add I used to be a massive AV nerd as well but not really anymore, I just have my TV and a Cambridge audio sound bar. As an aside it’s amazing the amount of people that completely ignore PQ and just think a big new TV automatically means good. A mate recently bought an absolutely giant Bush TV for about £300 but the picture quality is truly abysmal, I haven’t the heart to tell him.
I bought a 50" 4K Panasonic from Richer Sounds in June. It was on a special offer at the time and I got it for £250. As @a19tgg says the picture quality is very good and it has more apps inbuilt than my previous LG did. If you're not aware Richer Sounds give you a free 6 year guarantee on TVs.
Cheers gents. Yep John Lewis offer 5 years on all TVs, Richer Sounds 6 years if you join their club and some of the Currys ones are 5 years. Preferably I'd go with one of them for the peice of mind as it's an expensive purchase but Box.co.uk have sprung up since I was last TV buying and they appear to be decent as well as damn cheap so maybe worth pocketing the difference. I'd almost decided on a Philips 65OLED707 but I think that the darker nature of OLEDs won't be suitable for my brightish room. The telly is infront of a window and whilst I have a blackout blind behind it, during the day I don't really want to have to close it. The brighter OLEDs that have heatsinks appear to be eyewateringly expensive. It'll be nice to have a shortlist for Black Friday.
All I can offer is that my latest LED TV has backlights that reflect what the screen is showing, so as an example if I'm watching a match and they're showing the football the backlight is green, if they cut to fans in red then the backlight reflects the change. It's hard to describe but we absolutely love it. Example:
Philips ambilight? Seems to be a bit marmite for some. My telly will sit on a glass topped stand and I reckon reflections will cause all sorts of issues. I had shortlisted a Philips set with the view to switching it off. I do have colour changing LEDs in my dining room if I want to go disco Been doing a bit more research today and this is coming out favourite at the moment: https://www.currys.co.uk/products/t...d-qled-tv-with-google-assistant-10240361.html Still a bit rich for my pocket, but TCL seem to be a newish player on the block and at the moment are one of the few that tick all the boxes. Another trip to Mr. Currys at the weekend methinks.
If you know anyone with Costco membership, TVs are good value there, with good returns policy. Cant comment on 65” TVs, all ours are smaller. We have an old 39” Panasonic, a 32” Sony and a 48” LG. All seem good to me. But the latest is the LG and it’s very good, sound and picture great, so a brand worth considering if the Phillips is not available.
We picked this up almost exactly a year ago: https://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-oled65c1pub-oled-4k-tv/reviews Absolutely brilliant picture. We paid a little over half of the currently discounted value shown as Amazon had a ridiculously aggressive discount at the time. Not sure what it would go for in Blighty (there's probably a 2022 model out now, too, which would change the model number).
