So I have a PS3 and am looking for a lcd flat screen some where between 36-42 inch. 1080P Not looking to spend more the 1,000ish bucks. I am thinking Sony. Where would be the best place to buy a tv? I have herd of Ultimate Electronics being the cheepist around???? Your thoughts? Anyone?
myself and my close friends own about 4 Samsung tv's, never had a problem with any of them. Fantastic quality, i have seen that with Sony you are going to pay more for the same product, just for the name. Sorry to say, but unless you see a 40% to 50% off sale, very unlikely that you will get 120 hz. Never been a big fan of the Scarlets. Something put me off about the giant chunk of plastic under the screen, extremely ugly in my opinion. If i were you, i would look for a deal on a samsung, they seem to be priced pretty well for what you get. Price between stores really doesn't matter, anywhere will price match anything else, so go to whatever store you want, if its cheaper somewhere else, i guarantee you they will give it to you for that price. i dont know what Ultimate is running for financing, but best buy is doing 24 months interest free, if that is an option for you, could get you up into a larger size with possibly 120 hz.
This is not 100% true. Most places will, yes, but don't go to like, bestbuy and get a price and then expect like, walmart or radioshack to give it to you for the bestbuy price. This is part of the reason Circuit City went out of business. So just make sure that the stores you go to WILL do price matching for other stores. Also, Ultimate is having a clearance sale right now. You can get a decent size tv by sony or mitsu for pretty cheap.
What is the 120hz again?? I know 1080 is alot better quality then 480. I heard that ultimate electeronics is "cheeper" then all the other stores (best buy and walmart)...thats what they say....w/e in my book. dont mind too much on the maker, just want to to work with my PS3, o and look big hehe.
Get a higher end model Samsung, we got one (big scree) for the conference room at work and it is absolutely stunning. All we do is play games on it, we use it to show off new games for buyers (BB, target, etc) it should be plenty good for home gaming. We have a scarlet LG like the one some one else suggested, it's also a very nice TV which I would also recommend.
I just got out of some lg training a couple of weeks ago and there newer lcd model really impressed me with the light sensor on the front so it is always adjusting the white balance based on how much or how little light it is in the room. Other wise like others said sony and samsung tvs are good. I fix the most of samsung lcd's but that is probably because more are being sold not because they are bad. Sony would be the second and then mits dlp's. the 120 people are talking about is the refresh rate. It is supposed to make the image look as fluid as possible where the first years of the lcd they looked digital and choppy. thats just a tv techs point of view.
the refresh rate plays a pretty big part in regards to gaming, specially if you play FPS and racing games
120 hz "technology" is supposed to reduce the amount of blurring between frames. It is supposed to make movement much more fluid. And trust me, it does, go into any store and look at middle to high end 60 hz and then a 120 hz. its a day and night difference, and if any stores are like the place i work at, there will be a samsung 60 hz next to a 120 and same thing for sony and so on. it makes the upsell super easy. I have played a FPS on a wall of tv's, and the difference between 60 and 120 is huge. Total day and night difference.
I think it depends on how picky you are about your tv. MOST ppl will be impressed with even the cheapest, crappiest HDTV once you get in your living room (because then you are not comparing it to the 30 other higher quality tv's next to it on the showroom floor)... That being said though, I have a 32" Samsung 720p, nothing special, but the picture quality is awesome, but I previously had a 27" boob tube, so this is a huge upgrade for me... Just my $.02
Well All this is helping... I do play NFS, Dirt, NHL, Call of Duty. So to me its sounds like: ~120hz ~ 42" ~1080p ~LCD ~ not sure on maker yet. I have herd on the radio a commercial about the Toshiba Regza>>> So maybe I am looking at a Sony, Toshiba Regza, or a Samsung... Most likely going to get it at Ultimate due to the fact they are haveing a clearance sale....
You can't go wrong with Samsung...I owned an early model 32" HDTV for 3 years with 0 problems. Once I stopped gaming I got a lot more for it than expected...
Samsung 1080p is what I have and would go for again. I purchased it from Ultimate Electronics and was very happy with my experience there; I'll be a repeat customer.
Get a Samsung you won't regret it. I bought like 50 of them for my department at work and we haven't had a single one break yet.
I agree with the general consensus, go with a Samsung. I own 4 HDTV's ( Employee discount yippe!) 2 Sharps, 1 Sony, and a Samsung. The Samsung although the smallest in size is always the one I find my self watching; that could be due to the fact that it is conveniently located in my bedroom :biggrin:. But never the less, the black levels and colors that It produces are phenomenal and build quality is unmatched. /my two cents
You should definitely check out Sam's Club for deals on TVs. I work for Sam's here in Grand Forks and there's always stuff getting marked way down and getting sold for ridiculous prices. Had a 50" plasma recently get marked down to like $800 just because it was the last one and wasn't selling. May have been the display model, but they're actually taken care of pretty well while they're on display here. Worth a look!
amazon has great prices, and in most cases you can get free shipping. We saved about $800 by not buying from best buy, and ended up with a really nice samsung 750 series. /consumerwhore.
Hey man I was gonna make a similar post like this too. I would like to know what other people have for HD TVs, their own reviews, price range, pros cons, it would be helpful as I am looking into purchasing a HD TV as well. If you got the money go with Samsung or Sony However if you dont want to spend or have enough money and want to get a lower end hdtv with good quality, look into Vizio hdtv's I plan to purchase a 42 or 47 inch vizio xvt series by fall, like someone else suggested if you have a Sams Club account check out their tvs Whats great about them is there is life-time return policy i think? and you could easily return and exchange the tv within years but just make sure to keep reciepts and original boxes Another brand one of my coworker says he's happy with the quality for the price is Sharp I do know that there are other hdtv and electronic forums with lots of reviews
Do not buy vizio. Parts are not made for repairs and they will brake. Also do not by a display plasma, there is only so much life in the screen and a lot ofthat gets wasted by them running at the stores!
Yea good point I forgot to mention about that For alot of people they've been fine with it I guess its a hit or miss with Vizios but purchasing it at sams-club made it seem "safe" to me
I have 2 Vizio's for over a year with no issues. They are a decent bang for the buck tv. My next TV will be a higher end LCD or a Pioneer plasma though.
Also i have had my upper end Philips lcd for a year now, my only regret was not waiting another couple of weeks for the 120hz model to go on sale. otherwise it has been doing very well.
I have a 41" Vizio in my office and one at home, never had problems with them, they are very good value tvs.
if you buy a vizio buy an extended warranty. that way when the part is not available the tv will get replaced.
I'm very happy with my samsung 1080p 120hz, although I think 120hz sucks and makes stuff look like its moving unnaturally. If I were to buy again I'd probably ditch on the 120hz mode unless you watch a lot of sports in HD on TV. Also amazon and newegg both have tvs for far cheaper than retail and free shipping. Amazon even sets the tv up when the bring it to you, and offers to take the garbage away for you.
If you had the budget, an "LED" DISPLAY with 120 hz refresh rate is just totally awesome, go to Best Buy to checkout the contrast and color out put ratio, it will blow you away. and they save power, produce less heat, lighter, and thin.
Dealing with warranty stuff with Samsung is a NIGHTMARE!! That's all I'm saying. I still hold strong with anything from LG tho.
For even more superior quality and extreme multi purpose use and if size doesn't matter, just get a "COMPUTER" 30 inch lcd display with all the necessary hdmi inputs. make sure its not a TN panel, anything besides a tn panel is relatively good. PS3 gaming looks great on computer lcd displays, check it out on the net
+1 to whoever mentioned not needing a warranty at Sam's Club. You're not really supposed to know this, but because of their "100% Satisfaction Guaranteed" policy, all you need is the original receipt to go with the TV/item you purchased. Makes for a pretty good deal if you end up deciding you don't like it however many years down the road, and the TV isn't worth as much, because you get back what you paid for it. And yeah, didn't think about the fact that plasma's have a short lifespan...probably why the price was so low. :laugh:
Costco is the same way, but they both have new rules on electronics, I think it's a one year limit on electronic returns.
:laugh: Yeah, manipulate the system...hell, I'd do it :hsugh: I'll have to ask one of the electronics guys next time I go to work, see if anything has changed for sure or not. I haven't heard of anything, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised. Lots of money is lost because of that policy I'm sure.
The guarantee is good for everything, like DVD movies for example. I've heard that if you don't like the movie after you watch it you can take it back. Some people even copy the movies before they return them, not that I ever did that when I was broke in school...:ugh:
only when dealing with a company that is new to working with samsung. I have never had that problem dealing with them in the 5 years I have been fixing their tv's. He just got lucky.
i deal with manufacturer warranties everyday at work, and believe me, Samsung is one of the easiest ones to deal with, they have intelligent service techs who actually know what they are doing, this has not been my experience with other manufacturers. When is comes down to it, the TV you are going to like the best is what you think is the best. If you cant tell a difference between the 42" 720p 60 hz set and the 42" 1080p 120 hz set, there really isn't a reason for you to get the better model Some people will say that 120 hz gives an unnatural movement, some will think just the opposite. Only buy what you can justify getting. If you cant tell a difference, isn't what you can see all that matters? And Shibbs, when i purchaced my TV, i hooked my 360 into the main controls for the televisions at work, and it was broadcast to all of them. So yes, it was a wall off TV's.
Here are 2 posts, I wrote too much I guess:ugh: I was going to jump in on this thread when it was posted and forgot and didn't have the time to write everything out that I wanted. But now I feel compelled to add and correct some misinformation as well as add some insight. I've sold TV's at a couple Electronics stores (Circuit city until the day they closed wned and can positively say that I know them inside and out. I'll throw some stuff in here for you to help you make the best decision for your wants and needs. I'm unbiased towards brands/models since I've owned almost every brand of LCD and have had good experiences with each bringing the price/features into account on what it was. As I've always told customers, you're the one buying the TV and will be the one watching it, always take others' opinions with a grain of salt and go see for yourself what looks good and what looks bad. Everyone sees differently and will perceive how the same tv looks differently. As for the size, LCD's are generally found in 37", 40", and 42" in the range you're looking, 40" is by far the most popular. 37"s don't have many benefits since the price to manufacture and implement the same technologies isn't much lower than a 40", and in some cases 37" versions of some LCD's cost more than their 40" counterpart (customers questioned this all the time). 42" are somewhat of an odd size for LCD's, you generally see 42" only sold by smaller companies trying to gain a competitive edge with size over the bigger brands who are focusing on technology in the TV. Although there are known brands who make LCD's in 42", Sony, Sharp, and Samsung focus primarily on a 40" size and these are generally considered the 3 best LCD brands. LG, Toshiba, Vizio, etc sell 42" screens. Also, 42" is a standard size for Plasma panels. As for the manufacturers of the LCD components themselves, Samsung is the largest (Actually largest Electronics Manufacturer in the World overall). Surprisingly, Samsung currently manufactures Sony's LCD panels for them. This will change when the plant that Sharp and Sony partnered in building starts cranking out the next generation of Large LCD's (think 60"+) in about 6 months or so. LG makes a lot of parts for some of the off-brands, and is actually the 2nd Largest LCD Panel Manufacturer (the LCD panel itself, not the TV) in the world. Overall, a lot of companies share technologies and components to make it cheaper to manufacture and sell to customers. As for the place to buy, it depends on what you're comfortable with. I personally buy everything online from a reputable website/seller like amazon. I read up on a few specific models I'm interested in on AVSForums.com, go look at them in action at Best Buy or wherever its on display, then order online. This works for me, but I may be an exception since I don't need assistance with what to buy since I generally bury any "salesman" at Best Buy in knowledge/salesmanship and am annoyed easily by their lack of information even though they claim to be an authority of the products when they sell. 1080p is resolution, 1920 x 1080 progressively displayed pixels. LCD's are a progressive technology so they never are able to display an Interlaced signal without first de-interlacing. Although almost every LCD I know of can de-interlace before displaying, it looks like garbage. Stick to Progressive material as much as you can. Another note, although its a bigger number, 1080i is a LOWER effective resolution than 720P! When given the choice between the 2, like with HD Cable/Satellite, go with 720p over 1080i if 1080p isn't available to display from the source. 120 hz has been covered decently here, but are just re-iterations of simple explanations on what it is. I'll dive deeper for those who want to read. 120hz is the refresh rate of the LCD panel, simply the Frames Per Second. Standard broadcasting in the USA is 60hz. The issues that come up with 60hz mainly have to do with movies. All movies are shot at 24 frames per second. When you have a 60hz display trying to show a 24hz movie, the frames don't sync and there's much fail. To overcome this DVD players implemented 3:2 pulldown correction to proplerly line up the frames. This causes juttering issues and blurring which I won't go into here for space considerations. Simply, it isn't optimal, but necessary for tv's running 60hz. Where 120hz comes into play is that 120hz is an even multiple of 24hz (24 x 5 = 120) and the pulldown correction doesn't need to take place. This for the most part gets rid of the juttering. Also, a few 120hz tv's/dvd/blu ray players have a specific 24p mode where the player and the tv will operate at 24fps giving you a true 24 frames per second. Another thing about the 120hz is that it employs Motion Interpolation to create "fake" frames from the movies' actual frames to create even more fluidity and smoothness. It simply takes 2 frames that are supposed to be shown, and throws in a middle frame that is somewhere between the two. The TV throws in a fake frame between real frames to effectively double the frames to produce the 120hz, 60hz x 2 = 120hz. Some refer to it as the "soap opera" effect (Since soap operas are shot at 60hz to create the most realism on tv's and have a distinct look), some people hate it while others love the look it gives. I'd say it was about 60/40 split of people who didn't mind it to people who couldn't stand it. True cinema buffs and reviewers of movies generally curse it and keep it on a minimal setting to not get the effects of the motion interpolation. Overall I think its cool for content you want to look super realistic like nature shows (Planet Earth Blu-Ray is epic with 120hz), sports, news, or some movies. But for regular movie viewing I like it on a low setting to really see the film grain and the blurring that was INTENTIONALLY directed into the movie and keeping it feel as the director intended. Also note, no matter what you may hear from some sales people (i used to call out my co-workers a lot here), 120hz can be very hard to discern with material other than movies for reasons I listed above. They may say that you can notice a huge difference in everything you watch, but honestly its barely noticeable on a lot of stuff I watch on TV. It's main focus is to improve movie playback but the manufacturers obviously want to sell TV's to the most people so they advertise it to improve everything. You'll have to go see for yourself if you can notice the effects on regular tv broadcasts and decide if its worth the money. Finally, 120hz really only applies to LCD's. Projection TV's don't use the same mechanics/theories to display and don't have a Frame Rate in the same sense as LCD and Plasma. Recently Plasma manufacturers have been advertising "480hz" panels to compete with and try to steal the fire of 120hz LCD's. This is simply misleading since the plasma models have 8 subfields running at 60hz creating "480hz". They are still 60hz panels and aren't 4x faster than 120hz LCD's as you may read/hear. The light sensor feature is an old thing concept but rarely used today. My parent's 12 year old Mitsubishi Projection TV has that, they called it IRIS back then. You generally don't see it on Samsung, Sony, or higher end tv's from other companies. Overall I think its lame and messes with settings that I made specifically to my likes. I'd rather have a good calibration done and keep it there. In response to your second point on 120hz, see above.
Continued from above Its true that 120hz makes some games look great, but there is a trade off. Since the TV has to process and add frames to what it is getting from the console for 120hz, there is even more lag between the time the console sends a signal to the tv and the time it is displayed on it. This may cause issues with gameplay, especially if its a life or death situation in fast paced games like Halo 3 (from personal experience, I can't competitively play H3 with 120hz, the millisecond lag means death since you have to react instantly). This is also the reason that "Guitar Hero" has a calibration option to sync up what you are seeing on your display and what the console is doing by strumming your guitar when the screen asks you to. The very small lag can throw off what you're doing and seeing. Its also a reason that some TV's have a "Video Game" mode that turns off any unnecessary and excessive processing the tv does to a signal that normally may give a better picture but will negatively effect gameplay. Its kind of like my view on using 120hz on movies, on some games it will look great and may not effect gameplay of some games, but for other applications it detracts from the experience and will be better turned off. You'd think the upsell is easy, but in my experience selling TV's recently, it wasn't that big of a feature for a lot of people. The price increase between successive models of LCD's with one model having 120hz and the other not having it was about $300, but its hard to say the exact price for only 120hz since that isn't the only improvement/feature added between the models. The premium you pay for that feature wasn't worth it for certain groups and as stated some people hated it and were happy to pay less for a model that didn't have it. Another way to look at it is that you may be able to see very minute differences in the store between the Tv's, but the second you get it home you will have no idea of anything you may be missing out on or how minimally different another set is since there isn't a comparison right next to it. It may be hard to understand, but customers made this point all the time and I completely agree. :laugh: :rtfm: You can turn 120hz off, and depending on the model you have there are different levels of intensity of 120hz the tv can use (on current models go to menu->picture settings->picture options). On their latest models, Samsung has 5 settings: Off, Low, Medium, High, Demo. Try the different settings and see what you like. For reference, most movie buffs and review sites keep Samsungs at "Low" for movies to get rid of stuttering and some small improvements in smoothness yet still keeping the movie looking natural and as cinematic as possible. PM me if you have any other questions. I'm more than happy to help. You are right about some points here. There is a reason that highly paid MLG(Major League Gaming) Halo 3 tournaments use small computer screens for competitions. But you have to bring into account that most Computer Monitors don't have NTSC/ATSC tuners sothere's no way to tune in broadcast TV. They also don't have built in speakers so you'll have no sound unless you have a separate home theater system. I think this only works for very specific situations/people, but to the general consumer it won't. Your theory for the "multi-purpose" can be turned around and applied in reverse since almost every LCD sold now has an RGB (regular old computer monitor input) as well as HDMI inputs. Since HDMI is the successor to DVI, which was/still is used by computers as a digital output, it easily converted to HDMI. Some computers now have HDMI outputs too. The laptop I bought a month ago had an HDMI output that can go directly into my TV or Home Theater A/V reciever. So you can use most LCD TV's as a computer monitor, I've been using mine for a couple of years as double duty :biggrin:.
Not even close to true. Go read the actual terms of most retail Price Matching Policies. Most retailers clearly state that in order to price match it has to be a "brick and morter" store, not an online vendor. For obvious reasons a retailer has a price diasadvantage to online stores since they have to pay a lot of costs a small online store doesn't; property taxes, rent, electricity, insurance, payroll, etc, etc, etc. For this reason most retailers won't match online stores since the overall price of operation is more expensive and they need to make up the costs by having higher prices. They may also say the product has to be "in stock" at the store your trying to price match and has to be a regular sale item, not a closeout, mail-in rebate, etc. We used to deny price matches quite a bit when a competitor would run an ad for a product they didn't have in stock and people would come over to us to price match. I see it as keeping another retailer honest; if you state you'll match any price regardless if its in stock or not at the retailer putting the item on sale, then one company could purposefully create a crazy-low sale price on something they know isn't in stock and the other guy is pretty much forced to match and will lose money. Who wouldn't want your main competitor to lose money while you sit by and laugh since you made a phony price they are matching and losing money on and you have no risk. I see your reasoning, but in practice isn't true. The products carried at Best Buy are aimed at a completely different demographic than Wal-Mart, and thus the models carried at each are almost completely different. When I was at Circuit, Wal-mart only carried 1 Sony, 1 Samsung, and a few off-brands that we also carried. The sony and samsung they did carry were the very low, baseline model that we sold as well, but rarely. 99% of the TV's we sold were carried only at Best Buy, Ultimate Electronics, and online retailers. Just like you may be able to buy Clothes at Wal-Mart and Barney's of New York, Wal-Mart's brands will be no where near price/quality/style or manufacturers/models at Barneys. Wal-Mart really presents no competition to the demographic and customer base that Barney's is aimed at. I'm not even sure if radio shack sells tvs:laugh:. Not even close to true. They lifespan of both LCD's and Plasmas are pretty dang equal now, which is ~15 years with ~6 hours of daily use. The thought that plasmas don't last that long is an old thought that was around when they were first sold to the general public. Its true that back then they had their issues with longevity, but this is no longer the case. There are advantages of Plasma over LCD if its the right settings and the right activities. Currently, in regards to the technology of both display types for sale to the general public, Plasmas DOMINATE the LCD technology in response speed of pixels, color gamut and warmth, and contrast ratios. On the other hand they still can glare if its a bright room and are a dimmer technology than LCD's to start with. Because of this people shy away from them since most people put their large flat panels in a central living room with lights and windows. LCD's are the more popular technology, but there are pros and cons between the two.
