Buying TV Opinions?

Energizer

My parents want to get a new tv as the old one busted.

I have been looking on komplett at the various tv's but i haven't a clue as too which are the better ones.

My parents are looking for a 32in tv with hd ready and such!

Which is the best tv in komplett range at this size?

Also my parents are fairly wary of buying off the net, is there anywhere in ireland thats good for prices and range?

Energizer

Anyone?

JackieChan

You need to spread you sights further than komplett .
Why not check out Dixons/Currys and other small shops(eXpert,DID,etc...)

andy1249

I was in Currys , Dixons , and DID recently , and to be honest , these guys are severely lacking in presentation , they all seem to split the one Standard Definition picture across all the TV's , and the resulting picture is dreadful.

One or two models will actually be hooked up to a high definition source and will have excellent pictures, and these are usually the units that are being pushed.

Currys was in Liffey Valley and finding a member of staff was a job in itself , when I did the guy knew nothing !! And I mean nothing . They mostly show LG units and these dont do so good in reviews . Panasonic units do great but they mostly only had 37 inch and up on display.

Dixons is a joke , I would stay well away from them. The staff actually fought in front of me for a sale , both of them under 20 and neither of them with a clue about TV's. I walked out ! ( Dixon's in Blancardstown SC by the way ).

DID again had the split signal but at least the staff knew what they were talking about. Talking to these guys made me sure that the Panasonic LCD models were the best for me. Panasonic do great in reviews and have excellent 32inch lcd displays.
Sharp units were on display too , the aquos units are good.

Arnotts also has a good section but mostly do Philips stuff. Again , in reviews philips do great in high end stuff only , thats 3000 euro plus , the low end stuff barely rates a mention.

Sony was on display in all these places but the problem here is that I have yet to see a good review of a Sony Display , the best of them describes the units as decidedly average , and the prices are anything but.

Just to mention , Buying in a shop is going to add considerable to the cost , there was a difference of nearly 500 euro on some models between online and bricks and mortar purchases ,

Regardless of what way you buy , the unit is going to ship to you , no shop stocks all the models and you have to wait a couple of weeks regardless.
That means that you are paying a premium for whatever extra warranty you get and also the convenience of bringing it back to a shop should anything happen.

Lindaloo

I've been looking and PowerCity have 32inch starting with a Beko at 349, they have a Sanyo at 429 Euro too (doesn't include stand and comes with 12 month parts and labour with Sanyo in home service)

quazzy

Hey Andy,

You never mentioned a budget but from what little reseach I have done it appears that Panasonic get good reviews more often then others - but they do cost more.

I have a 32" Samsung LCD and I thinks its great. I bought mine in Power City for about 1400 ish. Didn't fancy buyoing such a big item from komplett.

Just ask for a discount and they NEVER say no.

A lot of other users on boards have Sammys and swear by them
- Sparky-s has one.

-Then there's branners who has a Pioneer. (He got it from Richersounds.ie I think.)

- Maxwell bought his screen online also, cant remember what tho...?


Regards,
Q

andy1249

My budget was 1500 , to be honest your not going to get a good LCD screen for much less than 1000 , the no name brands are known for bad backlighting that will be lucky to last a couple of years.

The shops I went to just had the brands mentioned , most of em seem to have one main brand that they push , for instance Arnotts are dead nuts on Philips , DID on Panasonic and Sharp , and Currys on LG.

Ive heard and read some good things about Samsung but I couldn't find any , I needed to see the units before I would consider buying , but never went near Power City though.

Lindaloo

Power City seem to be the only ones with a website and with special offers on it too, I emailed them a couple of questions and they replied within about 10 minutes.

Idleater

andy1249 wrote:

I was in Currys , Dixons , and DID recently , and to be honest , these guys are severely lacking in presentation , they all seem to split the one Standard Definition picture across all the TV's , and the resulting picture is dreadful.

The one plus for that is that you can see how a HD screen displays a poor signal. I.E. if they only showed HD, and you take it home and plug in your aerial then it looks nothing like what it did in the shop. At least now you know how it compares to your current CRT (or whatever).

andy1249 wrote:

Dixons is a joke , I would stay well away from them.

Dixons, currys and PCWorld are the one and same.

andy1249 wrote:

They mostly show LG units and these dont do so good in reviews . Panasonic units do great but they mostly only had 37 inch and up on display.

I have an LG (26lx2r) and it is fantastic. The only downside in all the reviews that I have seen thus far are for the speakers which I do admit are not great. But, anyway, who doesn't have a "proper" speaker system for a "proper" tv nowadays anyway???

andy1249 wrote:

Regardless of what way you buy , the unit is going to ship to you , no shop stocks all the models and you have to wait a couple of weeks regardless.
That means that you are paying a premium for whatever extra warranty you get and also the convenience of bringing it back to a shop should anything happen.

I hummed and hawed about the online purchase too and eventually went with the normal shop. Reason: if something goes wrong (and it still is new technology) I can go back with it without hassle. That said, I would have saved about €100 max online so it was not worth it to me. If I was saving €1000 then maybe.

Like andy says the salesmen don't know what they are talking about half the time.
My advice for buying a TV is:
1) Research the technology and decide what you want (HDMI/Component/RGB... etc)
2) Look on the web and find the model numbers that interest you.
3) Do a search on www.avforums.com and see what they say.
4) Look out for reviews on whathifi or homecinemachoice etc.

L.

quazzy

andy1249 wrote:

My budget was 1500 , to be honest your not going to get a good LCD screen for much less than 1000 , the no name brands are known for bad backlighting that will be lucky to last a couple of years.

The shops I went to just had the brands mentioned , most of em seem to have one main brand that they push , for instance Arnotts are dead nuts on Philips , DID on Panasonic and Sharp , and Currys on LG.

Ive heard and read some good things about Samsung but I couldn't find any , I needed to see the units before I would consider buying , but never went near Power City though.

Currys/Dixons group defo have them. So its shouldn't be to hard to find.
And as i said earlier Power City

The one i have is LE32R41B
Its like this
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313313

Good Luck with the purchase.
Let us know what u decide

Q

Energizer

Thanks for all the information, big decision. Want to spend at most 1500 on the TV.

Knowing my parents they will want it to last till the end of time itself.

I have heard a lot of good things about Samsung, panasonic and LG tv's.

I'm not a big fan of philips- can be very cheap feel and average performance.

What is the situation with Sony LCD'S and Plasma's, r they overpriced and underperforming?

Idleater

Energizer wrote:

What is the situation with Sony LCD'S and Plasma's, r they overpriced and underperforming?

The Sony models in your pricerange are the klv s and r bravia ranges. (they are the black and grey 26" & 32"ones). The black is the more expensive and uses "better components":rolleyes: or so the nice sales man told me.

The main problem I found with these sony tv's was the location of the Component input (possibly the HDMI too but not sure on that). The RCA sockets are directly flush with the left edge of the screen so if you connect anything into it, you get 3 or 5 wires hanging out the side of the TV. All other tv's that I saw have all the inputs on the back where the wires can be hidden better from view.

I also discounted the sony's on price. Feature for feature, the LG/Samsung are the biggest names for features on price. The LG has HDMI and DVI (both can be used for computer or HD sources) the samsung has HDMI and VGA for HD sources and computer respectively.

Don't know how much difference all this makes to your folk's decision but anyway...

L.

Energizer

Jaysus, that was a quick response!

Thanks for the info man, very helpful.

Komplett has a very good range and i trust them having dealt with them a lot in computer components.

Samsung and Lg seem very tempting

YoYOPowder

Yes, DID and Powercity aren't great and tend to only have older stock. Manufacturers known for their lcd's are Sharp, Philips, Sony and Samsung. Best VFM, id say is Samsung. Do not discard Sharp, they are well known for their LCD's. I heard from a Sony worker he wouldn't touch their older LCD's, only go for the W series in the Bravia range. Philips are also very good, but expensive. If you are going for the Samsung, I believe the one to go for at the moment is the R7 series, do not go for the R5 or R4. Panasonic are expensive and are concentrating on Plasma. Visit AVForums.com, click on Forums, scroll down to LCD Televisions and you will see a fairly long list of reviews on lots of different brands.

Energizer

Thanks for the info man!!

Makaveli

Don't Samsung make the screens for Philips and LG for Sony?

andy1249

Panasonic are not " Concentrating on Plasmas " , heres a link ,

http://www.panasonic.co.uk/lcd-tv/index.htm

They have an excellent LCD range , coming as one of the 5 of the best in HCC ( home cinema choice ) for the Viera range , new models are due about now and the LXD60 is a budget model with HD and Two HDMI's for about 1500 , the LXD 600 runs into the 2500 - 3000 mark and is the higher end of the range.

Komplett do both , and the prices are no worst than any other TVS in the list , the reviews on the other hand are way better , way way better !!!

Snake Plisken

I went with Dixons and bought a 32" Toshiba LCD, luckily I didn't buy on the net as the first set had a dead pixel in top left hand corner and only for a decent manager and sales man in the store I was able to swap it out for another set, this time no issue so far (Thank God), I also at time of purchase took out the mastercare option, but cancelled it within 14 days as it doesn't cover dead pixels and if say you took out a 4 year ext warrenty year your really being ripped off as year one is covered by manufacturer's 12 month warrenty!.

My rule of thumb when buying AV Equipment is
1) Go around all stores with pen and pad and take down a list of what each store has to offer.
2)Buying a couple of Mags like Home Cinema Choice & What Home Cinema to get ideas on whats out and whats coming out.
3) Check out AVForums.com to research models you are interested in.
4) If you've decided on the model and you are going to buy from a store here in Ireland, get them to bring your boxed unit out and start it up get a plain white or grey static screen when they start it up and have a close look at it for dead or stuck pixels.
5) Don't bother with extended warrenty, they will try to sell it to you but you can take it out any time in the 12 months if you so wish.

Cheers

Snake

adox

Another very good source for researching displays iswww.avtalk.co.uk/forum

Sparky

I have a Sammy lcd, 32" and its served me well. I have no complaints whatsoever with it.
Infact I trust samsung screens so much that all my pc lcds are samsung.
I payed €1600 in DID, last november, it was the latest model, as currys and dixons had the old model for sale. Also, currys model had a nice big black streak on the screen, so that was off putting.

The panals are going for around €1300 €1400 now

Energizer

Thanks for all the info people, very helpful

branners69

As Quazzy said above I have the Pioneer 436 XDE from richersounds and I love it but it aint the cheapest!!

I'm not too sure if LG/Samsung/Panasonic come with a media box. To me its great to have just 3 cables going to the Plasma!!

Otherwise having the cables from my xbox 360, DVD player, dvd recorder, sky+ and laptop running to the tv would make it look very untidy!!

By the way I was in Curry's in Blanch a few weeks ago and was impressed by the choice of plasma's and lcd they had out on display.. I didnt get a good look at them tho so I dont know what the quality of the picture was like on them!!

I also have a 32" JCV DS6 in the bedroom and am very impressed with that too. I got that here

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do!!

MOH

I got the Samsung LE32R41B from www.savastore.com last October for about EUR 1280, including delivery (only 30 euro delivery from the UK). Base price on the website was GBP 710, VAT and delivery brought it up to GBP 860.

Dixons/Currys etc. were all charging 1500-1600.

Ordered on a Tuesday evening, had it by the following Monday.
When they delivered it, it was actually the R41BD model, with the additional Freeview digital tuner (useless over here, but still).

Just looked now, it GBP 630 before VAT, so about EUR 1150 incl delivery + VAT (they only charge VAT at the UK rate, 17.5%).

I had ordered it off Dabs first, but after a week of 'in stock 1-2 days' I got fed up with them stringing me along and cancelled it. They were more expenseive anyway, and also charged 21% VAT.