New TV - Does anybody have the answer??

It's been 48 hours now since I posted my first message as a new member ie. what can you recommend as a new 32" widescreen tv.

I'm disappointed so far with the response - those that post a positive review are immediately cancelled out by poor reviews of the same product.

Why is it that with all the professional reviews we read, no one actually comes out with a head & shoulders verdict of " this is a great buy"

Look, lets make this simple, it there anybody out there thats prepared to put their k**b on the line & recommend a model with a great picture & a proven track record?

Going through the historical postings suggests that there is no single model that stands out.

Is it because the industry is still playing with this technology and therefore we must assume that all of the products on offer are liable to fail in the short term?

In which case should we look at going back to renting or investing in long term maintenance cover?

I would remind you all; the cost of a replacement tube is £450+!!!

Come on someone, I need a new tv for Xmas.

 

It's simple really, there is no answer. I have been searching for a big screen tv for about 6 months now and after going through 5 tvs i gave up. The state of new tvs these days are disgraceful, no matter what you buy the product will not match the quality of older tvs. All this new technology just brings a whole host of problems with it and from what i have personally experienced you can't go too much wrong with Toshiba and Sony but haven't said that you will have to be prepared to live with little imperfections that depending on what kind of person you are will determine whether you are happy with the set or return it. All i want from a Tv is one that doesn't have any bends (perfectly rectangle/Square) and no Vertical bands (faint whitish band running down the middle of the screen which is only noticable during certain scenes where the camera is panning). It's not as easy as you think, especailly with the former.
I am back on the hunt for a 28 inch tv, if i find a decent one i'll give you a heads up and you can consider the 32 inch model.

 

The problem is that people want the cutting edge technology but do not want the issues that go with it.

I am possitive that you will be able to go down to your local TV store and buy a perfectally respectable mid-ranged low featured TV and get a fairly decent picture from it. Unfortuantly then compare this to the all singing all dancing top of the range, feature packed set and no the picture wont be as good, the set wont have as many feature stickers plastered all over it.

Whilst the manufactures do need to test the sets for reliability you cannot really expect them to attempt to hold back releasing a set for 3-5 years to make sure they have done complete and reliable stress testing on the producted - if they did this then the set would almost certainly be automatically in the mid-ranged low feature aisle straight away as others will have done a reasonable amount of testing and have an 'acceptable' failure rate.

At the end of the day you must balance features (which can effect things like PQ) against reliability - in a technology that is still evolving it is unlikely to find any manufacturer that would put its name against something that claimed it had 100% of current technology and would have 0% failure rate.

 

I don't think that you need concern yourself unduly with reliability. My own experience (Toshiba) & what I've read here suggests that it's not an issue.

What ARE issues are appalling quality control (or lack of it) together with features that simply don't work properly.

I'm surprised that you can't find "professional" reviews proclaiming best buys, they were everywhere when I was buying. However, these reviews will invariably have been carried out on a TV that has been specifically selected as the best from a batch by the manufacturer & then tweaked endlessly by an experienced engineer to give the very best picture quality. This TV will bear no relation whatsoever to the model that you buy straight off the production line.

The feature that causes me most problems is 100Hz scanning. Now maybe this is my fault for not fully researching the subject first. I only discovered this forum while looking for answers to my problems after buying. My understanding of 100Hz processing was that it eliminates flicker. What I didn't understand, & Toshiba certainly didn't warn me, was that this comes at the cost of disjointed horizontal movement, the inabililty to display horizontally scrolling text & the inability to display a diagonal line without breaking it up into steps. Had I known this in advance I wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

What really compounds this though is the manufacturers willingness to lie to it's customers about known faults. At the same time that I was trying to get some sense out of Toshiba & being told that "they'd never heard of that before", there were threads on this forum discussing the same issues. Eventually, after tracking down Toshiba's product specialist & confronting him with the problems I had, his reply was a glib "oh yeah, they all do that". This was half an hour after yet another one of their technical specialists advised that the set must be faulty.

So, for what it's worth, my advice would be to avoid top of the range models, 100Hz processing & anything over 32" or be prepared to reject a number of sets before getting lucky with one.

 

Anything Sony mate. They have a good track record.
Why not buy a few Home cinema mags and take a look at their model round ups. If all the mags give the same set a good review you cant go far wrong. Welcome to the forum.

 

There are quite a few Panny PD30 owners on this Forum who would disagree!

 

Ok, but in general it would be the way to go if making a 'blind' purchase.

 

You will find the Toshiba 32ZP48 has a lot of supporters here, including me.

However I do agree with the previous comments that, when comparing current sets with those of 5 - 10 years ago, then the general build quality does not appear to be as good. Also, the increased use of electronics to 'enhance' the picture quality is also a very personal preference. (For example, I was watching the tennis on BBC2 yesterday afternoon, using the 100hz setting. I was very impressed with the picture quality, and whilst accepting that issues with horizontally scrolling text, am prepared to live with this for the clarity of picture.

Ultimately, it's down to personal choice, which is a much indicated by how the set looks when turned off as performance when on.

My advice, go into one of the larger retaillers, where hopefully they have numerous sets, all running the same programme or channel. Note which one's you like the look of, and then look elsewhere. If the same set keeps coming to the top of your list (as the Tosh did with me), then you can start using the net to find your desired purchase at the right price.

 

I thoroughly recommend the Toshiba 32ZP48. Regards, yt

 

Sony TV number 7(in 11 months) is coming soon.HQ100 has great PQ but has lip sync problems! 2K TV with crappy QC

 

Never had a problem with em! If I were you gwladok5 I would forget about a TV and make your own puppet shows acting out your fave TV programs.....

 

Much of this is down to production issues...quality:cost. I got rid of a 16:9 earlier in the year, this resulted in an old 29'' Sony 4:3 being brought out of retirement and tbh, i'm in no rush to go and replace it.

 

As far as I can tell you got four responses within 5 hours to your first post, 3 of which voted for the same Tosh telly. Not much to be disappointed with there, you're obviously a hard man to please

People look for different things in a TV, we all have different requirements and there's no "one size fits all telly". You've thought carefully about what *you* need and obviously searched here for answers. Soooooo, make a list, weigh up the pros and cons and go look carefully at those you can find. Buy the one you like best and send it back if you hate it.

Personally, if you can fit one in I'd say go for a rear-projection TV. You get a big screen for much less money than the equivalent plasma. Newer ones are no deeper than a 32" CRT and you can get a really great picture from one.