Our current 37″ tube TV is dying a slow death. We’ve started looking at flat panels to replace it. The good news is that size wise, we have an easy decision- it has to be a 40″ set because it needs to fit in the current TV cabinet. The screen would get clipped on the sides of anything bigger. For power and longevity reasons, I’ve opted to further narrow the criteria to LCD TV’s with LED backlights.
In that class of flatpanel, there aren’t a lot of options. Ideally, I’d like to get the full-array LED backlight as opposed to the edge-lit versions. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell which are which. It appears that Sharp has something, possibly Sony and Samsung, and that’s about it. Also, it looks like the full-array costs a pretty penny as well- possibly $300-400 more.
The guys at Best Buy said that the Sharp Aquos has had some problems and the Samsungs and Sony’s are superior. Price wise, they’re all in a similar neighborhood. My main hesitation is that I think the Sharp is the only one with the full-array LED and is priced a lot lower than the other two would be with the full-array. But I don’t want to buy a lemon either, or worse, something that dies in 6 months.
Decisions, decisions.
4 replies on “New Flatpanel”
Don’t sleep on Vizio…also, keep in mind to look at the horizontal measurement of the actual screen size, not the overall dimension of the TV. If the screen will not be blocked by the existing case, and just the edges of the TV surrounding the screen, you might have a little flexibility in screen size option and thus more options to look at for the purchase.
I’ll have to check out Vizio then.
I am going by the horizontal measurement of the actual screen. Technically, a 37″ diagonal is all that would “fit” by the case size, but a 40″ screen will fit horizontally in the opening- the case edges will be hidden by the cabinet. A 42″ diagonal is about an inch or so too large- I even considered setting it back since into the cabinet to try and get away with it, but that won’t work either.
My either option was to hack the front of the cabinet to accomodate the extra width of the 42″. Unfortunately, the cabinet has doors and it’s difficult to stretch those, or figure out something similar that isn’t more trouble than it’s wort.
Well, I can tell you, don’t focus so much on the LED option, they are nice, especially the TruLED arrays with one LED dedicated to each pixel, but in the grand scheme of things, I do not feel that they improve the image enough on a 40″ screen to justify the price. The contrast rations and refresh rates are high enough now that everything shows up really nice on whatever screen you get. On LCDs, even the 60, 120, and 240 Hz don’t make a difference in the sizes less than the mid 50’s”, it just isn’t worth the investment. If you were buying a 60″ screen, you would notice a huge or at least significant difference. It is the same as buying a 32″ with 1080p, yeah, it is great that it has it, but for what, the screen is only 30″ wide, there is no point in having that much definition on a screen that size.
It is up to you, get what you want, but just don’t get too hung up on the tech stuff, pretty much everything out there is going to do a really really nice job for you, so go with a brand you like and a price you like even more, you will be extremely happy.
The LED thing was more of a power/ longevity issue for me. I figure the less power the panel consumes, the less heat it generates which should improve the life of the panel. I’m not really looking for the TrueLED- just the backlit version.
BTW- Looks like Vizio doesn’t have anything in the 40″ class.