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Best 1080p 32" LCD HDTV for £750 or under - your recommendations |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 1,445
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Best 1080p 32" LCD HDTV for £750 or under - your recommendations
Having taken on the task of researching a new HDTV for my sister and her family, I thought asking those knowledgable people on the digital spy forums was a good place to start.
I know there is some debate about whether 1080p is any advantage at 32", but I am interested to learn something about the quality of specific 1080p HDTVs in this price range - the final TV I recommend to my sister may nor may not be 1080p, but I want to focus this question on 1080p. The TV will be used in an open-plan sitting room by my sister, her husband and three children. They subscribe to Sky (including sports and movies) but not currently SkyHD. Therefore the TV I recommend needs to be capable of displaying a very watchable SD picture, with only minor motion blur, as well as an HD one. Whether Freeview is included in the TV does not matter. Currently connected to the TV are a Playstation 2, a SkyPlus box and a DVD player/VCR recorder combi. Therefore the TV needs to have a reasonable number of component connections and scarts. One or more HDMI ports would also be useful, as they may eventually upgrade to a Blu-ray player or Playstation 3. 32" is also the size that I'm interested in, as they do not wish their sitting room to be dominated by a TV of a larger size than this. Normal viewing distance will be 4 - 6 feet although I would like the TV to display well from close-up and wide angles (as the whole family often sits down to watch a programme). LCD seems to be the preferred technology for this size, although I will also consider Plasma, though I have heard that Plasmas require parts to be changed every few years, which I don't think they would be keen on. However for the sake of this question I would like to focus on LCD. They do not currently own any external equipment to which to connect a TV, so the inbuilt speaker audio performace needs to stand up on its own. £750 is the absolute maximum they would be willing to spend on a TV. Good warranty support is also very important to them. To get the ball rolling, I have heard good things about the Panasonic Viera TX32LZD85, because of its reduction of motion blur in particular. This would be excellent as football and other fast-moving sports are often watched in their household, and currently only in SD. My sister herself leans towards Sony, because she has had a good experience with their TVs so far. However the Sony 1080p models seem to be more expensive than the budget, and I do want this particular question to focus on 1080p only. Now it's your turn to recommend. If you can go into detail I would appreciate it if you could pick one or more features of the TV you are recommending (black levels, SD performance, viewing angle, audio, connectivity, etc) that really makes it stand out for your above the competition. Thanks for your help. |
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#2 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,939
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Hi,
I recently bought a Panasonic Viera TX32LZD85 from John Lewis for £779. That price was because I found a supplier who offered £779 and had them in stock. JL gave 5 years warranty. Thier website shows it at £945 but they do deals ... just phone them. (It was Weymouth HiFi who had the £779 price. You might find cheaper in London.) JL will only match shop prices not internet offers. The picture is fantastic. My wife is really pleased and so we are all pleased. |
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#3 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 1,445
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Thanks - so you would say that for you it's the picture quality of this TV that makes it stand out? Does it handle motion and SD particularly well? I have heard that the audio performance of this TV is perhaps a little weak. I should add that my sister does not currently have a home cinema system to connect to the TV. What is your experience of the audio without connecting to external equipment?
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#4 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,939
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Motion is handled faultlessly. SD picture quality is very good. Upscaled using a BT Vision box it is outstanding. Sound is the best I have heard from a flat panel TV.
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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 1,445
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Thanks, that's good to know. The more I read about this TV the more it seems that it's the best in its class. I've found a high street retailer offering it for £699, so if John Lewis can price-match that with the free five-year warranty, I'm going to advise my sister to go for it.
The only very slight negative I read is that sometimes moving edges appear to shimmer due to all the picture processing. What is your experience of that? Also, and this isn't a big deal due to the three HDMI sockets, do you know whether this TV can handle HD, and specifically 1080p, over its component connections as well as over HDMI? |
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#6 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Sorryabout the delay in responding but I have been in France for over a week. £699 is a great price.
I have not noticed any shimmering. The TV is built to handle 1080p. I have BT Vision and upscale to 1080i. Picture is stunning. I have also just acquired a Freesat HD box and BBC HD is amazing. I don't have blue ray DVD so I haven't watched anything in 1080p. I hope this helps. |
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 1,445
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No problem, hope you enjoyed your holiday. Finally my sister went for that model and it arrived today. Final price was £729, but I might continue hunting around just in case I can find cheaper as JL say they are happy to price-match after the sale is completed.
I set up the TV for her with Sky (not HD) and we were very impressed indeed. First impressions: 'it's massive!' (you get used to the size very quickly though, especially when you switch to the correct widescreen aspect ratio from all the sources). We watched a DVD of 'Planet Earth' (always a good tester) and there was no movement-blur at all even in some tricky underwater scenes. Colours and sound were great too. Great fun watching a photo slide-show from an SD card also. My eldest nephew is likely to stay glued to his PS2 (connected via the composite sockets) for quite some time! My understanding is that the TV upscales any source connected to it to 1080p anyway, to match its resolution and refresh rate. However the very best picture would be from a native 1080p source, because no upscaling is required. My sister doesn't have any HD sources either, but the TV will be fairly future-proof is she buys something like a Blu-ray player in the future. Only slight niggles I can think of so far: - You can't tilt the screen forward or backward...I think we might have it on a very slight slope (it's currently sitting on a chest but they're getting a proper TV table soon, also from John Lewis). - You can't seem to watch videos from the SD card - I guess that would require the TV to have a WMV decoder or something. - It doesn't seem to switch AV-source automatically...it's very straightforward to do it manually though. But these are really not big issues at all. Thanks a lot for your recommendation - I first heard of this TV from reading a post you made in another thread, and I'm glad I did. My sister and her family are very happy - and if anything goes wrong they have the security of the 5-year warranty. |
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#8 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1,939
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joshua,
I bought a stand from ebay for £55 including delivery. It was easy to assemble and looks very stylish (even the missus was impressed). Have a look at item number 370066857085 as an example. Mine has black legs as it suits the TV colour but they do them with chrome legs as well. |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 1,445
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Thanks - I think the one they are getting from JL is similar but obviously being JL it's a bit more expensive. I'm a bit reluctant to recommend ebay for something like this as I've had a few bad ebay-experiences and tend to use it only as a last resort. Looks like a great stand though. My mission is now accomplished, I think!
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