Which 37" - 40" TV would you get for xbox360 and SD TV

okgaz

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Hi!

We're looking to buy a new TV, 37" - 40" to play xbox 360 (elite) games on and watch SD programs through sky. It's possible in the future we'll get Sky HD or HD DVD so it's probably best that we get a 1080p one? We don't get freeview so we don't need that built in. The absolute max I want to spend is £900. The cheaper the better though as we've just bought a new house + have tons of other stuff we've gotta buy :S

What do you guys reckon, should we get LCD or Plasma? Which brand is best in terms of picture/sound quality vs price? Is it worth paying extra for 1080p/24Hz etc?

:)

What kind of difference would I see between:

37" Elonix 1080i (£379) @ eBuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132693

37" Technika 1080p (£549) @ Tesco
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.202-5644.aspx

or one of the 1080p Toshiba, LG or Sony TVs @ Comet for ~£800?
 
As you're going to be doing a lot of gaming then you'll be going for an LCD.

The elite allows for full 1080p display (unlike my crappy 360!!) so I would give it a decent full HD model - like the panasonic lzd70 perhaps. I've seen this recently for £799 on the net whcih seems like great value.
 
I'm in the same boat and have been advised to go for the Sony KDL-40T3500
 
ive been looking in the same price range for the same uses.

Panasonic 37PX70 and Samsung LE37R87 are my finalists.

the PX70 is a nearly perfect TV but plasma isnt recommended for gaming

Very interesting!!!

I am also looking at getting the TH37PX70 or the LE37R87BDX - those exact models!

Mine is mostly for SD and I think I will go for the Panasonic! I really cant decide!
 
Samsung M87 is best for gaming and SD television. Also includes 1080p, 3 HDMI, swival stand etc. Solid reviews
 
I would say the SHARP X20E is the best i have seen for SD
 
http://www.richersounds.co.uk/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=HITA-L37V01U £499 for a Hitatchi 1080p has to be better than Tesco crap!

£549 gets you it with a 5 year warranty.

I'd want to see the Hitachi running something hd in a shop, as the contrast ratio seems a bit low. I know you have to be somewhat careful these days as some claim really high ratios but then you see they're dynamic so the backlight is changing its brightness. For the price it seems pretty good.

As for that Tesco crap... I have one lol. From the sofa the ps3 picture looks grand, the pc has an hdmi and that looks grand, it has a vga-in but that seems capped at 1360 x 768 (high enough for sofa-controlled-windows to be honest). One rather annoying I've noticed is that when the ps3 changes modes the tv sometimes says "No signal" and it's near impossible to get the picture back reliably without resetting the ps3. Resetting the tv (hard off and back on) does nothing to get the picture back, so could this be a ps3 fault? It works fine with my previous 1080i set, which is in another room.

As for the digital tv picture, don't know as it's not connected to an aeriel. Uk digital is 576p so it's probably rather blocky on a 37 inch.

Graeme
 
I went with the Panasonic TH37PX70 in the end, £700 inc 5yr warranty and PED stand

Amazing picture quality but its not as care-free as LCD, got to watch out for leaving it paused for hours etc.

Whoever said the M87 is good at SD....i doubt it. But if i was just going to play games i would have got the M87, but i want to watch plenty of movies and SD tv so i had to go for the 37PX70 and it does do a superb job.

So if you want decent gaming (with still a bit of motion blur) and tolerable SD, and a care-free TV, the samsung LCD is a good choice.

But if you want great movie playback, deep blacks, good motion, great SD and smooth gaming, the PX70 is top. As long as you can handle being careful with still images and logos, although i've been told permanent burn is quite rare
 
I went with the Panasonic TH37PX70 in the end, £700 inc 5yr warranty and PED stand

Amazing picture quality but its not as care-free as LCD, got to watch out for leaving it paused for hours etc.

Whoever said the M87 is good at SD....i doubt it. But if i was just going to play games i would have got the M87, but i want to watch plenty of movies and SD tv so i had to go for the 37PX70 and it does do a superb job.

So if you want decent gaming (with still a bit of motion blur) and tolerable SD, and a care-free TV, the samsung LCD is a good choice.

But if you want great movie playback, deep blacks, good motion, great SD and smooth gaming, the PX70 is top. As long as you can handle being careful with still images and logos, although i've been told permanent burn is quite rare

Congrats on your new purchase!

Not sure how it applies with plasma, but certainly with more modern design crt's screen burn took days although it depended on the intensity of the image you were 'trying' to burn into it lol. I imaging a bright logo with the contrast right up would take less time to burn in, whereas a darker picture would probably not burn in before the tv broke down with age. Plasma is a different technology so perhaps it's more like older crt's. Anyway we were using a tv 25 years ago for a BBC Micro computer and that never burn't its crt with gaming use.

Graeme
 
well done, I just bought a TH37PX70 myself today so glad to see your happy with it, I got £699 with Ped also, cracking bargain as the Toshiba 37Z3030 i bought before xmas was £1100 incl 5yr warranty:thumbsdow:mad:
 
does yours make any noises? im glad to say that ive yet to get any buzzing or high-pitched sounds out of mine
 
What is the sound like on the PX70?
 
well done, I just bought a TH37PX70 myself today so glad to see your happy with it, I got £699 with Ped also, cracking bargain as the Toshiba 37Z3030 i bought before xmas was £1100 incl 5yr warranty:thumbsdow:mad:


Are you replacing the Toshiba 37Z3030? :confused:
 
absolutely:suicide:
but not with an lcd they cant hack what I need just now within my budget

Exactly what is it that the 37Z couldn't "do" for you? Just wondering as I'm considering getting one for my bedroom. I'll mainly use it for 360/PS3 gaming, Blu-ray/upscaled SD DVD's and the odd bit of SD digital tv. Thanks!
 
for what you want Henry, I think you wont go wrong, I however watch a lot of SD and upscale DVD's (Denon 1940) and the 37" lcd was just too grainy and blocky as the 1080p panel has to downgrade to SD and it really isnt meant for that.
 
I have had a 37z for a few days now and its great. i currently use for sd and gaming but will also use for my pc which i am currently planning to build.
 
for what you want Henry, I think you wont go wrong, I however watch a lot of SD and upscale DVD's (Denon 1940) and the 37" lcd was just too grainy and blocky as the 1080p panel has to downgrade to SD and it really isnt meant for that.


I currently have an Oppo DV-970HD upscaling player and a pretty substantial collection of SD DVD's which aren't going anywhere anytime soon! Do the upscaled SD-DVD's not look good on the Toshiba? :confused:
 
does yours make any noises? im glad to say that ive yet to get any buzzing or high-pitched sounds out of mine

My Technika 37 1080p beast does buzz when the screen comes on, but after about 30 seconds it fades away to nothing, presumably as it warms up.

As for upscaling... it's a strange beast. All I can say is that 720p actually looks nicer on my 1080p set than it did on my 1080i set. I think since the 1080i screen had 768 lines vertically, the upscaling was rather noticable given the bigger dots on screen. The 1080p set has smaller dots to work with, and more of them vertically, so it looks somewhat nicer.

As for upscaled dvd's, yes they do look rather fuzzy on both screens I've had personally, but they were both relatively cheap panels. The old one was a Technosonic 32 inch lcd. I imagine if you shell out for a Panasonic, which have been widely praised for screen quality, the fuzzyness will be less pronounced. Also, any kind of dynamic contrast mode will do its best to make fuzzyness stand out... I turned it off.. or at least change the colour mode so it's reduced.

Graeme
 
What is the sound like on the PX70?

great, i'm usually quite picky with sound but this tv does a good job, i can play games on it and i'm happy with it

i will eventually upgrade to 2.1 or surround though as it does lack a bit of kick in big movies, its perfectly good for all normal TV viewing though, and the speakers are invisible in the front
 

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