Afternoon folks,

Last week I was fortunate enough to win a £500 voucher to spend at Currys PC World.

Now, after giving it some thought, I've decided that I'm going to upgrade my TV. However, which one to go for...

I'm thinking of getting one between 42 and 50 inches, as the prices seem to escalate quite rapidly above that mark. I'm happy to put a bit towards it if it means getting the best value set for my money. I currently have an LG 32LV550T that I am hoping to sell.

Smart features aren't really necessary, although I know that it's difficult to get a TV without them these days.

I want Full HD, an optical output for my LG soundbar (model: NB4530A), at least 3 HDMI slots, and the ability to play videos through my hard drive (I currently connect it to the USB ports on my current LG set, and it's very handy sometimes).

I'll mainly be watching sport and drama stuff, with the occasional Blu-ray.

So... Do any of you guys have any of this year's sets to recommend? Last year's sets are fine too, although I don't think Currys PCW have many of those left now...

Thanks in advance.

Seeing that no-one has answered..... are you intending to add any money to the £500 or is £500 your maximum budget? Can you narrow the TV size down some more, because there are lots of TVs in this size range? Do you want a plasma or an LED?

Do you know that £500 isn't going to get you a really good picture. The better TVs are going to be £800+.

Your best bet is to have a look at reviews online or in mags and see what the expert reviewers think. If the TV is a good one, probably all the reviewers are going to recommend it, so that might help. With the new models only having been out a couple of months probably a lot of people haven't yet purchased and are still waiting for reviews.

Once you've got your choice narrowed down, 'phone your local Richer Sound, see if they have some or all your TVs in stock and ask them if you can make an appointment for a demo. Say you'd like to see the same content on all the TVs and that you going to bring a Blu-ray or two with you (and take an average quality DVD as well so you can see how well the TV upscales), so can they arrange that as well.

There's no obligation to buy incidentally. I arranged a demo with the Liverpool branch earlier this year and they were very accomodating. I didn't buy a TV, but I was able to find one that I liked, and would have bought, but the stand was too big for my unit at home.

You should go to John Lewis as well but note in Liverpool in their multi-million pound brand new flagship store, their demo facilities were non-existent and the Blu-ray player didn't work! They were totally disinterested even though I was looking for a top of the range TV. At least you can see what the TVs look like in the flesh and check out the connections.

As regards last year's models there are lots of threads in this forum already. When it comes to manufacturers, some of us will say that Samsung are better than Sony, and LG around the same as Panasonic. Others will say that Sony and Panasonic are better than LG and Samsung, etc. etc.

Mainly though I think we are all agreed that either Sony or Samsung or LG or Panasonic make the best TVs. That doesn't mean though that every TV they make is a winner, just that these makes are consistently of a higher quality and should last the longest, and that using the TVs will probably be easier.

Anyone in the trade will tell you that Sony and Panasonic are far ahead of Samsung and LG, in terms of quality and reliability (notice that Sony/Panasonic offer 5 year warranties on many of their sets, LG/Samsung only offer 12 months) - with the rest trailing even further behind.

Panasonics are hobbled. Samsung are known for poor quality capacitors. Sony often have satellite tuners they don't tell you about. LG no comment.

Rather misleading, without specifying what you mean - which is they are COUNTRY SPECIFIC - that's all, a UK TV for use in the UK. As opposed to Sony (and many others) which are pan-European.

You pay your money, you take your choice

But if you live in the UK I would expect almost everyone would want a UK TV? - so it's a pretty minor 'complaint', that might only affect an incredibly small number of people.

No longer true.

5yr warranties are used for advertising/promotions........

Shop at Currys/PC World, Richer Sounds, John Lewis or one of the many online retailers and you'll find they offer a 5yr warranty on many of their sets, (RS/JL offer 5yrs on all their TV's) not only for Sony/Panasonic but for LG/Samsung too.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...04762-pdt.html

http://www.johnlewis.com/electricals...and/c800005013

None of those are an actual manufacturers warranty - they are simply inferior 'insurance' type policies by third parties, nothing like a manufacturers warranty.

We'd like to think so

I've no evidence either way for modern sets, but Samsung certainly knowingly continued producing sets with known sub-standard capacitors for many years.

As far as I know Domestic and General are the third party on Panasonic extended warranties.

Why are they inferior- they cover the customers TV in the event of a breakdown and give the same amount of cover.

The warranty with my Panasonic TV was directly with Panasonic themselves, all the documentation went directly to Panasonic in Bracknell. That was a few years ago though so might have changed now.

Documentation did go directly to Panasonic, but D&G were mentioned in the small print, this was in 2008. Have you still got the original documentation?

Looks like things have changed, Sound and Vision offer the 5yr Panasonic warranty on selected models but say they will carry out the repairs under the warranties terms and conditions.

Not for many years, both Sony and Panasonic did use D&G for their 5 year warranties, but then moved to direct in-house warranties - Panasonic moved first, shortly followed by Sony.


It's like car insurance - if you write your car off the insurance only pay the current value of the car (if you're lucky )

With a manufacturers warranty repairs that are non-economic are still done (insurance would simply write it off), and if the set can't be repaired then they provide you a new set (not just a 'contribution' towards buying a new one).

You also get repairs done by the manufacturers approved service agents, whereas insurance backed ones (or non-insurance backed ones like RS - and 'possibly' JL) use any one to do the work - and neither JL or RS have any service facilities, so it's rather hit and miss. I've never heard any good about either RS or JL warranty service, but as with everything you only tend to hear the bad

Sony finally finished with D&G 1/12/2008 - Panasonic would have been shortly before that. There were actually 9 different Sony D&G schemes, all finished in 2008, the earliest in January of that year. So all D&G warranties will have expired by now.

Not having any evidence didn't seem to bother you in the slightest when you claimed that Samsung TVs are "between 5 and 10 times more unreliable" than Sony and Panasonic TVs.

Any news on that front?

There was no mention of D&G in the documentation - I looked some time ago as I've been asked this question before.

Everything I did was direct to Panasonic so the warranty was with them even if they sub contracted out repairs, I have no idea if they did or not as the TV is still going strong.

I knew D&G were the third party at some point, wasn't sure if this was still the case.

I know RS will replace with like for like and they do use original manufacturers on occasions for repairs.

I bought a clearance Onkyo receiver and paid for extended warranty simply because of the bad rep they have with their HDMI boards, when connected it had the signs of HDMI failure, it was picked up and sent to Onkyos repair center, when it come back one of the rear channels was faulty, I got it exchanged for a current model with like for like spec, I sold it on eBay...

You can also check their clearance items whether they are demo, open box, customer return, service and where it was done.

Pretty sure John Lewis will replace with the same model or one with similar spec if the original model is not available.

From what Nigel has posted it looks like D&G policies stopped at the end of 2008, so you would be correct by saying it was an in house warranty.....

Is the TV still working?

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...83945-pdt.html

I would be tempted with that, but watch some football to see how the TV handles the ball, any white trail behind the ball ?

Now the problem you have is DLNA and the ability to play Files. You will need to check out what tvs play, if fitted with dlna

Another problem I see is your Optical out, or getting a tv with ARC audio return channel via hdmi

if you have a PS 3 or xbox 360 then this may solve your problems

Can you afford to put extra towards it ?

It's been great, no problems at all.

Thanks for that - doesn't seem like a bad set.

Yes, I'm happy to put something extra towards it if it means getting the best set.

LED would be my preferred choice. There are hardly any plasma sets on the Currys website anyway.

I had two years of reliability data on Sony and Samsung back then, with high enough numbers to be statistically significant - and all service engineers were (and still are) perfectly aware of the kind of reliability differences between Sony/Panasonic and the lesser brands.

Excellent. Where can I find these numbers, so that I can examine them myself?

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-...01848-pdt.html

I would get that one , as the 100hz will help with football ; go instore and have a look

that's got dlna

You can't

For that matter I can't now either, the changes from Sony to a third party for service administration means I no longer have access to the warranty claims for the relevant period

But even if I still had access to them, you wouldn't have