Help - I know nothing about TVs

[Dazed and Confused]

Hi,

We're moving house, and it's finally time for the trusty 28" JVC CRT to go. It's just too deep.

We have a budget of between £500 and £800, and think a 37" or 40" will go nicely. The thing is while we are not serious TV watchers, we've found 'flat-screen' images just didn't look as good as our CRT, even for casual viewing, when we visit shops. They looked a bit over the top and unnatural, or have a noisy picture. We know nothing about TVs though - are we spoilt by CRT?

I think we want 1080p, so we can connect a laptop to it for photo shows at high resolution, and if the colour is good enough, even edit on it.

We watch in the light - we don't usually darken the room completely. (I believe either plasma or LCD is better for this.)

We have Virgin media, with a couple of HD channels, but mainly SD.

We occasionally play Wii.

We don't have Blu-ray, but want this TV to be good for it when we do get it.

We cartoons (mainly hand-drawn, not Pixar stuff), so want them to look right. (Is that possible, along with natural looking 'live' TV? I want skin to look like skin.)

Don't watch sport.

Don't need good sound, as it'll run through the hifi.

Can anyone suggest a TV?

I just don't know where to start!

 

[Anonymous]

lcds tend to look better in a brighter room , although the latest panasonic g10 and v10 plasmas look fine too , unless the room is very bright , you could check out the samsung 40b650 , sony 40w5500 , philips 42pfl7404 lcds , and the panny 42g10 , 42v10 plasmas if you can find any , as they are discontinued ..

all of those are full hd 1080p tvs , there are some good deals around at the moment , as all the new tvs are due out soon , you could wait to see what the new models are like , but they will cost more , at least for a while ...

 

[Anonymous]

wow , thats a nice selection of tvs to choose from.If your looking for some fantastic deal m&s have a clearance sale on most of them and they include a 5 year guarantee, free delivery and installation.

 

[Anonymous]

Read the latest Tv Supertest in WHI. I bought the Samsung LCD LE40B550 on the strength of it and it is excellent value for money (as I've told anyone who'll listen!!). It was a step up in quality on the terrestrial content from our 3 yr HD Ready 40" Samsung LCD. Having good quality cables (coaxial) and source can make a big difference. Even my sceptical wife was shocked! In my experience with large(r) screen tv's is that they are designed to run HD content and people need to maximise their SD content with good cables, source, settings but generally dont.

Happy hunting.

Nick