Ian Dudley
Established Member
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- Apr 28, 2006
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- Age
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Hi all, always come here for buying recommendations, although thanks to previous great advice from the forum it's been quite a few years!
My beloved Samsung D6900 59" plasma has started doing the dreaded power cycling and I suspect a board is dead. So I think I'll shortly be on the market for a new high end TV. I bought that in 2011 though, so I'm a long way out of the loop on where technology has gone, especially now Plasma is dead, which was previously my preference.
I've read through the guides in the forum, but a lot of the advice is five or so years old now, e.g. describing OLED as being a new breakout tech, so I'm trying to get my head around how have things moved on in that time? It sounds like OLED, QLED and Nanocell are the techs I should be looking at today?
I always do masses of research before buying, and expect to shortly be pouring over the owners threads, but it would be useful to get a quick shortlist of what people think the top three current TVs are in my market that I should have my eye on?
Requirements.
So the main thing I am looking for is a high quality screen that is going to deliver the traditional home cinema movie experience in as high a quality as I can reasonably afford. That's what Samsung PS59D6900 has delivered for the last 9 years and I want to at least equal that. Ideally I want it better, but I've read with interest the buying guide which say you might not actually see an improvement going from that generation to now.
So excellent colours (in natural mode, not Currys super-bright), deep blacks, good detail, no artefacts, smooth motion, all the stuff movie nerds obsess over.
Budget is in the region of £2k, but I don't want to spend that much just to get bells and whistles I won't use. I'm pretty much all about the screen, not the toys. Equally, if pushing up another couple of hundred would access a significant improvement in tangible quality, I'll certainly consider it. Also, are there any new toys I haven't listed above that you think would turn my head?
Absent anything else, I'll probably gravitate towards Samsung as the last set has been brilliant. I'd happily keep using it if it hadn't gone and died on me! But open minded to other brands, although nervous about funky names I've never heard of. Not bothered about the year, if last year's model is objectively the same or better quality than this years' (and bearing in mind I don't really care about toys), I'll happily go for more bang for my buck with a 2019 model.
Any insight appreciated. Not looking for someone to pick my TV for me, but if I can get a good shortlist of 3 that'll save me a lot of time in research. Thanks in advance.
My beloved Samsung D6900 59" plasma has started doing the dreaded power cycling and I suspect a board is dead. So I think I'll shortly be on the market for a new high end TV. I bought that in 2011 though, so I'm a long way out of the loop on where technology has gone, especially now Plasma is dead, which was previously my preference.
I've read through the guides in the forum, but a lot of the advice is five or so years old now, e.g. describing OLED as being a new breakout tech, so I'm trying to get my head around how have things moved on in that time? It sounds like OLED, QLED and Nanocell are the techs I should be looking at today?
I always do masses of research before buying, and expect to shortly be pouring over the owners threads, but it would be useful to get a quick shortlist of what people think the top three current TVs are in my market that I should have my eye on?
Requirements.
- I'm going push up the screen size to 65", can't go any more due to the size of the wall. I could stick at 59", but where's the fun in that?
- It will be wall mounted in a relatively dark room, even during the day, with three sofas in an arc of 120 degrees or so.
- Viewing distances is going to vary from 6ft to 10ft or thereabouts, with up to 6 people.
- I'm already assuming 4k, but not bothered about 8k. (frankly 1080p still looked fine, but you can't really buy that anymore)
- Not sure about stuff like HDR. My wife loathes the 'hyper real' look of some modern stuff (the 48fps Hobbit is the example she always gives), but if it can be switched off then fine.
- The main visual element of the old set that bothered me was some stuttering of side to side movement, e.g. a camera pan or someone running across the screen. Might just be my eyes getting old, but would like to improve smooth movement.
- I already have an amp, speakers and sub, so I don't care about built in speakers, etc, as long as there is an ARC connection.
- 90% of what we watch is from a 4K Apple TV, about another 9% is a Virgin Tivo box and every once in a while we breakout a Blu Ray, although that is becoming less frequent now.
- Blu Rays are all HD, we don't have a 4k disc player and I doubt I'll buy one now as I'm most of the way down the road of streaming vs discs. So being able to do a decent job of upscaling my existing HD disc collection to 4k would be very nice.
- A part of me would love to get another 3D TV, as I did like the active 3D on the old Samsung and have a load of 3D discs. But I am aware this is essentially a dead technology now, so will presumably have to abandon it. (sad face)
- Most of our watching is HD TV programs, Now TV, iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube, Apple, maybe Disney+ soon, all of which is via the Apple TV, plus the occasional movie. We don't watch any sport and we don't play any games on this TV. Movies tend to be action, Sci Fi, etc.
- At the moment all three devices are connected via my Denon AVR1912 amp, with a single HDMI to the TV and the Denon remote commander controlling it all. I'd prefer to replicate that setup if I can, as everything is wired in and one button switches screen and audio together, but I think I might need to upgrade the amp to support 4k.
- I never watch any over the air stuff, either aerial or satellite, so I don't care about tuners, etc. (barely watch cable tbh, mostly just the news)
- Not really bothered about Smart TV stuff, as I already have the Apple TV which I think gives me everything I need.
- I might be interested in being able to mirror from a PC screen, as the Apple TV only supports mirroring from IOS, but that's very much a nice to have.
- Don't care about things like voice recognition, in fact my wife refuses to have a smart speaker in the house.
- Not bothered by ambient modes and things like that, we use the animated screen savers on the Apple TV and love them
- Thin/no bezel is nice, especially as I'm going up a size, but not going to die in a ditch over a few mm.
So the main thing I am looking for is a high quality screen that is going to deliver the traditional home cinema movie experience in as high a quality as I can reasonably afford. That's what Samsung PS59D6900 has delivered for the last 9 years and I want to at least equal that. Ideally I want it better, but I've read with interest the buying guide which say you might not actually see an improvement going from that generation to now.
So excellent colours (in natural mode, not Currys super-bright), deep blacks, good detail, no artefacts, smooth motion, all the stuff movie nerds obsess over.
Budget is in the region of £2k, but I don't want to spend that much just to get bells and whistles I won't use. I'm pretty much all about the screen, not the toys. Equally, if pushing up another couple of hundred would access a significant improvement in tangible quality, I'll certainly consider it. Also, are there any new toys I haven't listed above that you think would turn my head?
Absent anything else, I'll probably gravitate towards Samsung as the last set has been brilliant. I'd happily keep using it if it hadn't gone and died on me! But open minded to other brands, although nervous about funky names I've never heard of. Not bothered about the year, if last year's model is objectively the same or better quality than this years' (and bearing in mind I don't really care about toys), I'll happily go for more bang for my buck with a 2019 model.
Any insight appreciated. Not looking for someone to pick my TV for me, but if I can get a good shortlist of 3 that'll save me a lot of time in research. Thanks in advance.