recommend me a 40-48" telly please...

[AW10]

Any thoughts/recommendations - looking for a 40 to 48 flat panel. Picture quality is paramount. Budget is perhaps £750 but can go higher if warranted.

[morrisk1]

I'm a week into owning a Samsung UE48H6400 -very happy with it. £599 Richer Sounds with 5 yr warranty.

Go and look at what you prefer. Sony 829 may be another option.

[Qwert1e]

AW10 said:

Any thoughts/recommendations - looking for a 40 to 48 flat panel. Picture quality is paramount.

Yes, but what additional "features" do you need? If any.

For a basic TV I still think Panasonic are hard to beat in terms of value for money. But for your £750 you may be thinking of something more fancy.

[craigjm]

Ive just picked up a Samsung UE40H6770 very good for the price

[AW10]

Qwert1e said:

Yes, but what additional "features" do you need? If any.

For a basic TV I still think Panasonic are hard to beat in terms of value for money. But for your £750 you may be thinking of something more fancy.

Lol! My thoughts exactly. Current telly is a 32" flat panel Panasonic circa 2005. Although we have a blu ray player it rarely gets used. Virtually the only input source is a 4 year old humax Freesat HDVR. We're not big on 3D and have never bothered streaming through the blu ray player; basically there's already enough live and recorded content available for the relatively limited times when we want to watch. So saved my pennies and bought a 42" Panasonic non-smart 2D LED TX42A400B for £320 after various discounts. Picture quality looks to be fab and is roughly 30% bigger than the current telly yet is no taller and only 2 inches wider each side so won't dominate the lounge. It's being delivered later today - will give some feedback once we've used it a bit.

I did look at the Samsung H6400 series as well as the Sony KDL42W829 but decided that 3D and the all the smart features were of little real value as they were likely to see little use. I do wonder how much use 3D and the smart features get in the typical household after the novelty wears off.

[craigjm]

AW10 said:

I do wonder how much use 3D and the smart features get in the typical household after the novelty wears off.

3d I agree with you but the smart features of the samsung sets are better than the competitors. It includes all the catch up services and amazon prime etc. In my house these get used a lot rather than recording stuff

[benters]

can I join in. . .my 10 yr old Samsung 43" is now only able to produce a picture which resembles a colour bar code
I don't watch a lot of TV. but do like to watch in HD via my Sky HD box. . .is there such a TV that has this built in or am I best to replace like for like and continue with the Sky Box (subscription has expired)

[LordHaveMurci]

AW10 said:

So saved my pennies and bought a 42" Panasonic non-smart 2D LED TX42A400B for £320 after various discounts. Picture quality looks to be fab and is roughly 30% bigger than the current telly yet is no taller and only 2 inches wider each side so won't dominate the lounge. It's being delivered later today - will give some feedback once we've used it a bit.

We've had the 39" version of that TV for a few weeks now, had a 32" CRT before it & only changed because you can't connect anything to a CRT
The width is identical to the old 32" CRT, it's sat on the CRT stand until we find a new stand we like.

Picture quality & sound are both better than I expected, I have adjusted the brightness & colour a little. Would have preferred the 42" but the 39" was on offer on Amazon, paid £287 inc next day delivery.
Not sure why it has an ethernet port though? Only 2 HDMI ports too so I need to buy an HDMI switch box as I stream films from my NAS via a PC.

[stevoknevo]

benters said:

can I join in. . .my 10 yr old Samsung 43" is now only able to produce a picture which resembles a colour bar code
I don't watch a lot of TV. but do like to watch in HD via my Sky HD box. . .is there such a TV that has this built in or am I best to replace like for like and continue with the Sky Box (subscription has expired)

There are a few TV's with inbuilt freesat that'll allow you to do away with your sky box. I ended up buying a Sony kdl42w654 about 5 months ago as it had freesat/freeview, and got rid of the clunky sky box. It was also one of the very few tellies that will output dolby digital 5.1 via the optical output to support my legacy Denon receiver; great for Netflix, Wimbledon and the world cup on the BBC output in DD 5.1 which was a surprise, as are movies on ch4/film4. The viewing angle is st but doesn't affect for my use. Apparently a really good gaming tv due to very low input lag?
I also managed to get it for £60 cheaper from Costco than I could manage anywhere online.

[bodhi]

AW10 said:

Lol! My thoughts exactly. Current telly is a 32" flat panel Panasonic circa 2005. Although we have a blu ray player it rarely gets used. Virtually the only input source is a 4 year old humax Freesat HDVR. We're not big on 3D and have never bothered streaming through the blu ray player; basically there's already enough live and recorded content available for the relatively limited times when we want to watch. So saved my pennies and bought a 42" Panasonic non-smart 2D LED TX42A400B for £320 after various discounts. Picture quality looks to be fab and is roughly 30% bigger than the current telly yet is no taller and only 2 inches wider each side so won't dominate the lounge. It's being delivered later today - will give some feedback once we've used it a bit.

I did look at the Samsung H6400 series as well as the Sony KDL42W829 but decided that 3D and the all the smart features were of little real value as they were likely to see little use. I do wonder how much use 3D and the smart features get in the typical household after the novelty wears off.

We have the 50W829 in our house, and if I'm honest, the smart features get used as much as any other part of the TV. We're always on Netflix or BBC iPlayer, and the Media Player is great for streaming stuff over the network. Only used 3D once, but the Smart stuff gets used all the time.

Two nifty smart features it has which I like are Social View (picks up what you're watching on Freeview and displays tweets below the picture related to what you're watching), and Track ID, which you can use if there is a tune on TV and you want to know what it is, hit the button and it looks for it for you.

Oh, and the picture quality is bloody stunning too.

[CRB14]

morrisk1 said:

I'm a week into owning a Samsung UE48H6400 -very happy with it. £599 Richer Sounds with 5 yr warranty.

Go and look at what you prefer. Sony 829 may be another option.

Snap!

I'm also very happy with it. The little wand type remote control is genius! I got in just before the price was increased.

[JulianHJ]

My wife's 12 year old Sony 32" CRT is on the way out so I'm looking for something similar to the OP, maybe 50".

Can I do better than the Sony W829 for under £1k? I'm not interested in 3D, use Sky mainly, but would start using Plex and streaming from the BBC etc. I'll get a BD player to play my DVDs and a new AV receiver to run everything. Budget all in is £1.5k max.

[TEKNOPUG]

JulianHJ said:

My wife's 12 year old Sony 32" CRT is on the way out so I'm looking for something similar to the OP, maybe 50".

Can I do better than the Sony W829 for under £1k? I'm not interested in 3D, use Sky mainly, but would start using Plex and streaming from the BBC etc. I'll get a BD player to play my DVDs and a new AV receiver to run everything. Budget all in is £1.5k max.

A suitable BD player for £100 of so will be able to handle all the SMART and streaming duties. So just go with whatever has the best picture. Does £1.5k include speakers?

[bodhi]

JulianHJ said:

My wife's 12 year old Sony 32" CRT is on the way out so I'm looking for something similar to the OP, maybe 50".

Can I do better than the Sony W829 for under £1k? I'm not interested in 3D, use Sky mainly, but would start using Plex and streaming from the BBC etc. I'll get a BD player to play my DVDs and a new AV receiver to run everything. Budget all in is £1.5k max.

The W829 is tough to beat for the price. I have a similar set up to what you're looking at, with 50W829, PS3 and a Yamaha RX359 amp. Was around £1300 all in, and performs bloody superbly. You could probably do it even cheaper going for a dedicated BD Player rather than a PS3, would give you a bit more to spend on the amp.

The W829 is a lovely telly though, and will run everything you ask very well. It doesn't have a native Plex app but can access it all through the media player, seems a bit less flaky than the Plex app too.

[TEKNOPUG]

Decent BD Player and AVR can be comfortably had for less than £500. Then spend the rest hunting down the best Panny Plasma you can find.

40-48" is a bit specific. You would have more choice if you had room upto 50"

[JulianHJ]

My budget doesn't currently include speakers. As much as I used to love the idea of a Panny plasma, I'm not so sure any more.

[kurtmcgill]

AW10 said:

Any thoughts/recommendations - looking for a 40 to 48 flat panel. Picture quality is paramount. Budget is perhaps £750 but can go higher if warranted.

AW10 - I started off with the same budget as you, then went mad in Richer Sounds and bought one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/samsu...

Absolutely no regrets though. Picture and gadgets on this TV are awesome.