Just bought the Sony. Another 5% off through my works perks thing, so £418.
Need a bracket for the wall fixing. And probably another one for the existing living room telly to go on the wall in the kitchen cos the existing kitchen TV is ooooold and that bracket’s probably totally incompatible.
Need new speakers, too, to replace the mid-90s JVC minisystem ones that are doing an unfathomably decent job considering the age/price/size of 'em. But they don’t fill the room in our new gaff. Still swithering as to whether a soundbar can be trusted to do as good a job as a pair of equivalently priced hi-fi separates speakers.
They cant. A pair of speakers will almost always outperform a soundbar in their price range. But youre paying for the convinence and aesthetic, noteveryone wants a pair of speakers in their room so at that point ir beomes a question if what you want, the best sound you can buy or the convenience
You’ve really got me with that “cigarette tip lighting up looks like its fucking leaping off the screen”. But what do you reckon your main way of viewing films is? I no longer have any means of playing blu ray, so would be mostly watching stuff from iTunes/Prime etc, or stuff I have on my NAS drive. Do you need to be viewing blu rays or those crazy 50gb rips to actually get the real benefit?
Got bored researching and picked up a 43" Samsung QLED the other day as we were passing a Currys. Watched quite few things on it and it’s great. Well happy with it, and it’s great that iTunes automatically upgrade all your films. Spider-Verse looks bonkers! As does, randomly, Ghostbusters.
Although really regretting not getting ethernet points put in when we did the loft.
QLED is basically a very bright LCD screen with improved localised dimming - these screens can really pop especially with HDR
OLED isn’t an LCD each pixel is lit up individually allowing for perfect blacks and infinite contrast ratio. It isn’t as bright as most QLED displays but usually offers more natural picture. Typicaly have superior pixel response rate meaning ghosting and blurring is basically eliminated allowing for clear picture no matter how much movement is on screen.
What do people think the “sweet spot” is in terms of spend right now for a nice HD TV? You know that spot where diminishing returns really kicks in rapidly if you spend any more. Had the same TV for 12 years now and I can get a much bigger screen in the space with a more modern set
48" screen is my limit screen size wise cos any bigger and it won’t fit on my chimney breast. Would prefer it to have decent support for all the streaming and whatnot built in
And a handy guide here (follow the other links in it to get a fuller explanation):
Now is a good time of year to buy 2021 TVs as they’ve dropped in price due to the release of the 2022 models. Keep a track of prices using PriceSpy and then pricematch in John Lewis or Richer Sounds.
Just to say that when we moved, we got a new tv. 65" Samsung thingy that still blows me away 4 months down the line. Thought it’d be too big but it is in fact actually perfect. DVDs look like crap on it but blu rays/4K telly/Xbox look ridiculously good.
Can’t remember what size ours is - I think 48". It’s a Samsung OLED. Really like it, but it’s backlit so you get that backlight bleed when you watch non-full screen stuff in a dark room (so, all films basically). Took me ages to get used to. Picture is amazing though.
Picture-wise, it seems like it’s quite hard to buy a rubbish TV these days, but worth having a play with the smart features. The Samsung Smart Hub is so bad - a barrage of video ads for their content the second you switch it on, really unresponsive UI, buggy apps that never get updated, questionable data gathering… I switched all of that off and don’t let the TV connect to the internet, and just use an Apple TV (questionable in their own ways I guess, but way nicer to use and slightly less dodgy than Samsung from what I read).
Prefer the aesthetic of speakers, tbh. Will assess the cabling issue one way or another.