Help me spend a £1000 for Xmas.

Evotion

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I thought this would be simple. I wanted a 3D TV for the family and by the time I had started looking round the shops and online by brain was frazzled. :(

I want to spend no more than a grand.


I expect the following:

A decent 3D TV.
A surround sound system.
Wall stand.
3 Years warrantly.
5 pairs of glasses.

I would like the following:

Plasma (got an LCD and my mate's plasma murders it)

Use:

90% watching 'normal' TV
10% watching 3D family films and Sky Sports.

It will not be used for video gaming as we have another TV for that.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Many thanks in advance.
:lease:
 
Forgot about the size.... anything from 42 to 50 is okay.

The Panasonic looks great but it doesnt come with a home cinema sound system and is at the top of my budget or is there a deal out there that has one with it?
 
not seen a deal with surround sound...

Though Sevenoaks have some surround bundles on their website, and they have a few good clearance tv's (i.e last years Panasonic and Samsung) maybe you could just squeeze 5.1 sounds and a 3DTV out of a £1000...
 
panasonic gt30 42" bundle .bluray player with 2 3d glasses with warranty for £899 in john lewis
 
The 5 year warranty is probably worth £300 when you compare it to Currys and Comets warranty extras so thats actually pretty good. A lot of people on here seem to rate that particular set.

However, my surround sound is out the window and there are 5 of us in this family so we would need another 3 glasses at least and I am guessing they are £70 or so.

Do you need to be smack in front of the TV to watch Sky sports 3D or a 3D film or can the whole family watch it at once around the sofa? Sounds like a silly question as I write it but a mate mentioned something about a problem from some angles on some sets.
 
you can buy two pairs for 60 odd pounds in ebay. I read somewhere that they are as good as the original panasonic glasses
 
Argos are doing a good deal on the excellent LED Passive 3D 42" LG450U @ £559 and it comes with 7 pairs of glasses.. which leaves you with aprox £440 to choose a 5.1 system. ;)
 
Argos are doing a good deal on the excellent LED Passive 3D 42" LG450U @ £559 and it comes with 7 pairs of glasses.. which leaves you with aprox £440 to choose a 5.1 system. ;)

Yeah, I like LGs, thats the make my mate has but his is a normal plasma.

I dont mind paying a bit extra for the plasma at 600+

But then I dont know if LED or plasma is best for my needs. I was kinda settled on Plasma.
 
The LED LG's seem to have a better picture quality than the LG plasmas but they will probably have more lag. Can't say I notice it at all but other hardcore gamers say they can feel it. The Passive LED Toshiba uses the same LG panel but has less lag than its LG counterpart, might be worth checking out the reviews on it.
 
Downsides are only 50hz screen and no 2d to 3d conversion but the most important thing is the general screen quality and would I only regret the purchase and wish I'd spent 200 quid more on an LG, Pana or tosh.
 
Allthough the tosh does have better lag and a few better things going for it the 450u i had last did play movies alittle better than the tosh i have now and as you want it for 3d films and 2d i'd suggest not bothering with a tosh.
For me it's 3d gaming, 3d films, 2d so the tosh suits me best.
You want 2d, 3d films so the lg is suited more to your tastes.
You def do'nt want a active, that is a warning! ;), maybe seriously expensive plasma active sets have the same performance as passive sets half there price, i can't comment as i have only seen budget 3d plasma's at shops and friends and there all garbage compared to passive.

You won't want to buy from budget manufactuers, there specs are usually very low in real life.
Lg seem to have the market at the moment and there's a reason for that, they produce great 3d.
Last years sammy active looked like 2 images it was that bad, these lg's are like gods compared to sammy actives ;)
If you buy a sub standard 3d set it will ruin your experience ;) but you do'nt need to buy the best, you just need something that does'nt show noticable crosstalk, i can piont out xtalk here and there in most scenes if i really l;ooked but the fact is with passives the crosstalk is so low you cannot notice it so the joys are abundent, if the set is bad enough you will notice the xtalk and that will be that .....................

The guys know things on these forums so trust what they say 99% of the time ;)
 
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Downsides are only 50hz screen and no 2d to 3d conversion but the most important thing is the general screen quality and would I only regret the purchase and wish I'd spent 200 quid more on an LG, Pana or tosh.

Just bought an LG 47" LED from Dixons. It's £799 in Tesco.

Dixons is £699 and if you enter the code FIVEOFF you get 5% discount. That price includes next day free delivery and when it arrives send the receipt to Sky www.sky.com/lgoffer and you'll get a £50 cashback. With a Quidco cashback the net price for me was £605.75.
 

Ah yeah, thanks.
It seems it would be good as a 2nd 3D TV, perhaps for the kids in the den but for the main family TV it would be wiser to spend more.

just checking out john Lewis and Richer Sounds.
JL offer 5 year warranties on ALL their TVs which leaves me just having to worry about the cost of extra glasses and a 3D BluRay + sound system.
Although, I am thinking of getting a second PS3 machine which can play 3D bluray ayway.
 
Id go with a GT30 or ST30 bundle with glasses and player then go to your local RS and get a deal on some 5:1 kit sure they'll be able to do something for you for a few hundred, old stock or discount deal(its fun being cheeky and asking for deals, dont ask dont get:) ). Also ask your nearest Sound and vision if they have old stock speakers somewhere in the back of the store room, I prob saved a couole of hundred pounds at my local when we agreed a price on an old set. If you prefer plasma stick with it, 3D is fantastic on these sets and 2D is better on plasma IMO too.
Glasses wise there are cheaper non brand glasses out there that are meant to be good, a few posts in the 3D section about glasses I think.
 
Thanks - keep hearing the GT30 is great but it really stretches my budget.
 
Thanks - keep hearing the GT30 is great but it really stretches my budget.

Yeah its up there, ST30 or Samsung D550 are the next to look at. Id also look in the for sale section , maybe get a bargain on some good sound kit?
 
I went into the Panasonic store in Guildford today.

They had a 42'' GT30 on demo but listed at £1049.

They had some 5.1 sound system which included a BluRay 3D player at £299.

I mentioned my budget and he directed me to the ST30.
Its not as attractive, about 2 1/2 times thicker and the only real difference is no Freeview HD, no DIDA or something like that, and no THX support.

No biggie really. The 'engine' is still the same and it did look the dogs nuts in the store.
The 2D and 3D looks damn impressive, it had a lot of other features.

The ST30 was £699 so the whole setup was in budget by a wonderful £10.00 ! Yay.

The big selling point is not just the quality of the set but a full 5 Year warranty.
This in itself is probably worth a few hundred quid and suddenly this all looks and feels right.

I intend to pay in one but others may wish to know that they do offer 0% finance.
 
Even John Lewis is cheaper than the Panasonic store. :facepalm:
 
Yeah, seems you can get the ST30 for up to 200 quid cheaper if you look around.

Thankfully I didnt buy it on the spot.

Got caught up reading all the Passive vs Active threads and now my brain is frazzled and its really putting me off.
Bloody nightmare.

I'm tempted now to just get the cheaper set I can and, in my mind, write it off over 2 years when the real winner will be clearer and I can then invest in the best.
 
Yeah, seems you can get the ST30 for up to 200 quid cheaper if you look around.

Thankfully I didnt buy it on the spot.

Got caught up reading all the Passive vs Active threads and now my brain is frazzled and its really putting me off.
Bloody nightmare.

I'm tempted now to just get the cheaper set I can and, in my mind, write it off over 2 years when the real winner will be clearer and I can then invest in the best.


That' what I'm doing, bought the GT30 nice enough just not that impressed, so got the lg 47"550 coming in a mintue, will cost a shade under £700 after cash back, keep for a year or two years then hopefully there will be something out without glasses or high end passive..
 

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