[CrystalAvenger]

Hi everyone, hope you can help me out here

Basically the last couple of months I've been using quite an old Samsung 24" 16:9 CRT TV as a stop gap for a Philips 24PW6006 which blew up at the start of Feb. I'm basically got completely knarked off with the Samsung as it takes an absolute age for the picture to appear from pressing the on button (a good minute sometimes) and when it gets a widescreen switching signal on Pin 8 of the SCART, it cuts off the sound and picture for a second, and to make things worse, it doesn't actually change the picture shape...

So, basically I'm hoping to finally get a proper replacement in the next month or so. I braught the 24PW6006 last September for £200, and since then I've saved up a bit more, but I still have the same space constraints, so, I'm thinking of paying a little more for a flatscreen TV - probably £400 is my limit now. At this moment I'm just trying to get a feel for what's available - I know 24" is not a popular size of 16:9 TV for whatever reason, and for only a bit more you can get a 28" TV - but to be honest I think a 28" for the size of the room would be overpowering...

Thanks in advance

[ratam]

Just how small is this room? A 28" may be too much for your bathroom
but if you can afford a bigger flat screen ...

[CrystalAvenger]

Heh - well, at most I will be sat perhaps two meters away as that's about as wide as the room is. The 24" TV's have seemed about right and also it has to go upstairs...

[ratam]

Guess thats it then unless the prices fall drastically for LCD TV's. Hopefully others can
be more helpful on a set selection but I just had to ask about the room size. Too bad you can't recess it into a closet.

[jcx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrystalAvenger

So, basically I'm hoping to finally get a proper replacement in the next month or so. I braught the 24PW6006 last September for £200, and since then I've saved up a bit more, but I still have the same space constraints, so, I'm thinking of paying a little more for a flatscreen TV - probably £400 is my limit now. At this moment I'm just trying to get a feel for what's available - I know 24" is not a popular size of 16:9 TV for whatever reason, and for only a bit more you can get a 28" TV - but to be honest I think a 28" for the size of the room would be overpowering...

Thanks in advance

You are right; this is an unpopular size, I can only find these two which fit your description:
http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/CatalogueItem_9999.html
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/453_879441.html

I am not a big fan of Phillips, so I would go for the Toshiba any day. You can easily get a 28 inch for your price, but if size is your biggest issue then these are all I can see. Both will offer a nice picture.

[Fred Smith]

Argos do a 24" Beko.

I have one in the bedroom OK for the money.

[kwilliams]

I'm sure Currys/Dixons are selling a 24"JVC WS TV instore , not on the web.
My son bought one 2 years ago.Pretty good TV 3 scarts with 2 of them RGB.

[David (2)]

Sony do a nice silver flat widescreen 24" (50Hz) set. But you may not like Sony's as they take "an age" from pressing the ON button and a picture appearing on screen. Also quite expensive - £447 is the cheapest I have seen it

Dave

[CrystalAvenger]

How long are we talking about Dave? The Samsung is taking a VERY long time sometimes from pressing the on button to when you get a picture - the other day I think it must have been nearly 2 minutes as I listened to most of a track playing on The Hits before the picture finally appeared

Something reasonable given degausing and warm up - say upto 30 seconds - would be fine...

[David (2)]

Yea, I guess 30 secs would be about right for the Sony - certainly less then 1min. You just get a black screen (but with the tv sound on), then the picture appears at full brightness (it doesnt gradually get brighter and brighter like some tv's).

Dave

[Craig_E]

I think it varies from sony model to model. I have a flatscreen 14" Sony (2 actually!), and it comes on within 5 seconds, perfect picture. My friends 32" sony flatscreen takes about 20 seconds, and comes on all washed out, and then calms down.

[CrystalAvenger]

First of all I just wanted to thank those of you that replied to this thread originally, and also thought I'd give you a bit of an update.

Basically my search for a new TV was prompted with major new imputous when the Samsung take much longer than before to 'warm up' the other day - taking over half an hour from pressing the power button until a picture finally appeared on screen... Clearly, the only logical reason this could be happening is something has worked lose and is having to get quite warm before a circuit in the tube is complete... Eitherway, it is going back to my brother so he can fix it as it is his television, and in all honesty I've had just about enough of it

Yesterday I went around various shops that sold televisions, including Currys and Comet at Fosse Park. Whilst at Currys I noticed a Philips (28PW6517) which caught my eye, but it was part of a package including DVD player and video, which I really don't need, for £499, alternatively the TV was £449 on it's own.

This was a little over my budget, and having not seen anything else that really took my fancy (it seems the latest fad with widescreen TV's is to make the surround of the screen very thick to actually make the actual viewing screen quite small) I decided to have a look on the net to see if I could find a better deal.

A couple of hours searching confirmed in terms of size and weight etc, it was reasonable, and from my experience in the shop I was satisfied it would fulfill my viewing requirements, and I found a very good deal - the set is available currently from anything-direct.com for £309 including delivery and without stand (I already have a stand for it, so no need to spend the £36 extra to get it with a stand).

Got a call back from anything-direct this evening around 6pm, and whilst they are out of stock at the moment they should be getting stock in next Friday, and at the moment it looks like I will be expecting delivery a week on Monday.

So at the moment I have to say I'm very happy - I have located a very good television, and found an exceptionally good deal on it for a considerable saving on the 'high street price', and I still have £90 of my budget left over. In many ways, quite a rewarding experience already - let's just keep fingers crossed this one doesn't suffer the same fate as the last Philips and we don't have any problems getting it up the stairs

I know I said before that I thought a 28" inch would be rather too large given it's only for a bedroom, however, I basically came to the conclusion that it was better value to get a slightly larger screen for a few pounds more.