To my dismay, the faithful old TV went out with a small click tonight so I am forced to joined the flat screen revolution. I have been lurking around mediamart, migroelectric and interdiscount for a few weeks but the range has baffled me.. do I need 200 hz or is 100 enough. What about contrast, reaction time and so forth. So my questiion is, what is the best TV you can get for around 1000 chuffs.

Simon

there's a brand new electronics superstore called Saturn that just opened up in Voletswil near Zurich. Huge range and good prices.

They had a special on a 40 inch Akai HD LCD... it looked really good to me for 480 chuffs.

I'd run there and take a look before they sell out

I saw an AKAI in Conforama on sale around xmas, but after watching it for a few minutes, the picture quality was really crap compared to the others.

Generally speaking, I think Full HD (1080) is good enough, the 100 or 200hz maybe helps smooth out fast moving images, but if it raises the cost of the TV by 20% or more I don't think it's worth it. Brand on the other hand may be. Samsung and Philips are probably the best in my opinion. But go look at the picture quality in person in the store and decide for yourself.

Also consider that most broadcast TV is not in Full HD right now, but usually up-scaled, so even if you get the best 5000CHF TV out there, it doesn't matter because most media is still not in full HD.

I wouldn't choose a TV based on the picture quality I saw in store.

Many TVs won't be set up optimally and certain brands may falsely look better than others.

I got a 40" Sony Bravia for 999CHF at Fust...

I don't think I have it all plugged in right but it looks pretty

There are so many options, and quite frankly Media Mart on any given Saturday is a scary thing, almost like running the bulls....

Thats nice, Im glad it looks pretty, but what about the picture

If all the TV's are showing the same broadcast from the same source, then I think you can get a good feel of which set has better picture quality. On the 200hz ones I could definitely see the edges were more smooth on fast moving images when up close, but when standing 2-3 meters away it didn't make much difference because the tiny pixels blur together.

...anyway, how else would you judge the pic quality other than looking at them in the store? Buy the lot of them, take them all home and tune them individually?

Not the mention the blurring effect of the ever present beer googles

I started a thread about buying an HDTV a few months ago. After a lot of comparison shopping, I purchased from Digitec. They had the best price at the time and delivered it a few hours later.

There are some bad experiences with Digitec's after sales service, but I have not experienced anything negative (knocks wood).

Media Markt/Fust/Migros all have pretty good prices, too. And might have a better return policy. Again, there are stories here if you search.

For 1000CHF, you should be able to get a high quality 42" from any of the major manufacturers. For a bit more, you can even get a 50" plasma, which I prefer to LCD. I got the Samsung PS50B650 for about 1300chf and am very happy.

Good luck...there are a lot of choices out there!

fduvall

I'd read around online . . . There are many many many settings on TVs these days, it's not simply enough just to have the same broadcast source.

Can some one tell me in laymans terms the difference between plasma and lcd, I was under the impression (whether or not its true ) that plasma was the old technology and used a lot more power..

I've just bought a relly nice LG 42" full HD 1080 LCD TV from Saturn in Volketswil for 599chf.

Sounds like I should go to Saturn...

LG are always a good shout for bang-for-buck. We got a Full HD 1080p 50" LG plasma (exact model escapes me for the mo) from Digitec in December for 1400.-. Same model is going for a lot less now IIRC.

I recently got a Sony HD-Ready TV (roughly 500 Fr) which was quite a bit cheaper than Full-HD. I figured as the screen wasn't too big it wouldn't make much difference. So far I'm very happy with normal DVDs (haven't seen any HD stuff yet)

Funny, I searched on-line for days/weeks reading all kinds of articles, reviews etc. and convinced myself to buy a Toshiba. When I got to Conforama I saw the Toshiba side-by-side with a Samsung and the Samsung blew it away in all aspects of picture quality (in my eyes at least). They were the same price, so I bought the Samsung, been very happy with it. If I would have blindly bought the Toshiba, I feel now that I would have regretted it...

Full HD is even too good. If you are looking for 50 inch and sit less than 3m away from the TV, Full HD is useful. If you sit further away, you won't notice the difference. Also for TVs smaller than 42 inch, full HD is wasted. There are plenty of charts online to illustrate this. For the average living room in Switzerland, HD Ready is good enough.

As for 100hz, 200hz... 100hz is more than good enough. More important is the 24p... but we are getting into unnecessary details are this price levels. Btw, if you get plasma, the Hz thing is irrelevant!

Agree that if you stick to the usual brands like samsung, Panasonic, Phillips, Sony, Sharp, you should be ok. These guys do not make bad TVs anymore, the techonology is quite stable already. LG is probably the best bang for buck at the moment.

Most TV shows are Full HD, but the stations downscale (not upscale) them to SD. Then your TV or set top box will upscale the signal again to Full HD. With SD broadcast, full HD TVs try to extract too much detail that is not there, so it looks worse than HD ready TVs. Furthermore, plasma is usually better with SD.


Nice TV, congrats!

For me the rule is simple - if bigger than 42 inches, get plasma, unless you play a lot of video games.

LCD has a plasticky look from my eyes - so Toy Story would look much better on LCD, but people's skin tones look a bit.. plasticky. In the end it is a matter of taste.

Exactly, as mentioned above, if you want to save money, go for HD ready. Unless you are sitting very close to the TV, you won't notice the difference.

So to summarize:

- if bigger than 42inch, go for Plasma, unless you play a lot of video games
- if sitting very close, take Full HD. Otherwise, you can save a lot money with HD ready
- stick to the more popular brands, you should be ok.

I wouldn't suggest blindly buying, but I also wouldn't suggest solely using a showroom viewing either. How do you know that the Toshiba wasn't simply badly calibrated?

Er... it looks like pictures moving around on a screen.

<see previous conversations about me being a girl and not knowing anything about this kind of stuff. Ask me about a car, no doubt I'll say something like "I want the blue pretty looking one please">