Which LCD TV to buy?

i cant decide between these three TV's and as I am not up on my TV lingo I wanted help from any of you guys who know your stuff.

Now the differences i can notice from the three are the contrast ratios and price.

Now i understand that the higher the ratio the better for 1200:1 is better than 600:1 but how much of difference it makes I am not sure.

The cheapest out of the three has the smallest ratio going to the middle priced with the 2nd best ratio etc etc

Another thing if brands, i would personally put them in this order: LG, Sharp then Toshiba but again i am not sure.

so here are the three, which one should i go for?

http://www.prcdirect.co.uk/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=32LC56

http://www.currys.co.uk:80/martprd/...m=12&sm=0&tm=0&sku=417065&category_oid=-30633

http://www.prcdirect.co.uk/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=LC32AD5E

Not a great deal in price, which is the best TV and is it worth spending the extra money for the better brand? Only thing which is a must is PC input so i can plug my mac into it

Thanks

If it was me I would consider response time and processor. LCD TV's have much slower response times than Plasma TVs. Some response times are less than 6ms which is good and some processors are 14 bit which is also good. Check out Toshiba's specs on that. The other issue is the refresh rate. Most all LCDs are 60 Hz but some of the new ones are 120 Hz.

Thanks peter.

the LG has a better ratio at 5000:1 against the sharpe that has 1200:1 - will i be able to see the difference? The sharpe has a 6ms response time and the LG has a 8ms. The sharpe also has 10 000 more hrs in its expected life and also has a brightness rating of 500 against the LG's 450.

From what i can tell they are both 60HZ. If i wont see much difference in picture quality between the 5000:1 and 1200:1 ratio TVs then ill go for the cheaper one

think i might go with the LG. i have heard reviews that the sharpe is actually made by orion and the sound is pretty bad on it and i am not to sure on Toshiba's!

We bought the Sony Bravia KDL-32S300 a month ago, and I have to say I really impressed with it. The colors are so great, response is fast and it works perfect with my Mac Mini

Highly recommended if you are looking for a 32" TV and are willing to put a little bit more than average into it.

I'm no TV expert, but most of my friends are, and they claim that plasma is better, but that you'll only see the big difference if you go over 42".

joe.morgan said:

think i might go with the LG. i have heard reviews that the sharpe is actually made by orion and the sound is pretty bad on it and i am not to sure on Toshiba's!

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It's amazing how the Korean manufactures of "Goldstar" changed the label to "LG" (living good) and have gained such market acceptance. Anyway, Sharp and Toshiba announced a JV on December 21, Sony and Samsung have a JV too. Toshiba's processing technology for LCDs has come a long way in a few years and their Regza line is quite good. There's not much stats can do for you though. Many components for a lot of manufacturers are outsourced and I think that being outsourced to other Asian countries is not necessarily a drawback. Anyway nothing beats comparing TVs side by side with the same picture. Good luck! I just purchased a 42" 1080p TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 14 bit processor - the Toshiba Regza X line. It was about $500 cheaper than a Bravia, slightly bigger and after watching for 20 minutes I thought the Toshiba was every bit as good. Heck, good enough for my recreation room.

PeterC4 said:

If it was me I would consider response time and processor.

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What do you mean with response time. Is that the time it takes the television to come on?

I know one of the things I looked at when I purchased mine about two years ago. Was using a game console and the television. During my search I found that plasma refresh rates were not fast enough. So I purchaed a couple of Sharp 45" LCDs. The one thing I did find at the time the picture on the plasmas were better than the LCDs. I assume that may have changed now in both cases.

One other thing viewing angles were important to me.

PeterC4 said:

It's amazing how the Korean manufactures of "Goldstar" changed the label to "LG" (living good) and have gained such market acceptance. Anyway, Sharp and Toshiba announced a JV on December 21, Sony and Samsung have a JV too. Toshiba's processing technology for LCDs has come a long way in a few years and their Regza line is quite good. There's not much stats can do for you though. Many components for a lot of manufacturers are outsourced and I think that being outsourced to other Asian countries is not necessarily a drawback. Anyway nothing beats comparing TVs side by side with the same picture. Good luck! I just purchased a 42" 1080p TV with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 14 bit processor - the Toshiba Regza X line. It was about $500 cheaper than a Bravia, slightly bigger and after watching for 20 minutes I thought the Toshiba was every bit as good. Heck, good enough for my recreation room.

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thanks peter. So out of the 3 which one would you go for if any? I set myself a budget of £400 after spending way to much on Xmas but i know you get what you pay for at the end of the day

Personally, I wouldn't buy a HDTV from looking at the specs. I'd never buy one without going to a store and viewing it with my own eyes. There are differences and they can be pretty noticeable.

I don't really care who makes it. If the picture is crisp and clear with accurate colors, I'll give it a go. Samsungs really stand out to me. I viewed several LGs last weekend and they looked good, as well.

all three looked good in store but u can never really tell until you have plugged it in at home with the variance of signal strength and everything else you plug into it.

rman said:

What do you mean with response time. Is that the time it takes the television to come on?

I know one of the things I looked at when I purchased mine about two years ago. Was using a game console and the television. During my search I found that plasma refresh rates were not fast enough. So I purchaed a couple of Sharp 45" LCDs. The one thing I did find at the time the picture on the plasmas were better than the LCDs. I assume that may have changed now in both cases.

One other thing viewing angles were important to me.

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An LCD's response time supposedly indicates how fast it can display moving images. Time is defined as the time required for an LCD pixel to change from fully active (black) to fully inactive (white), then back to fully active again. In older models this used to be in the range of 16ms now its in the range of 4-8 ms. Plasma definitely has a faster refresh rate and in some ways a maybe a more "natural" image? Don't know exactly how to express it but to me it just is a little smoother overall watching a Plasma.

But I agree with all the comments related to testing it out; you have to look at a TV for more than 20 seconds and you have to know what you're looking for. If you've seen a 120Hz LCD TV demonstration, you can definitely tell the difference. But all of this is prefaced on having a high definition signal of appropriate quality going through the TV. I do think that much of the components are quite common between modern TV's. What I like about a high definition TV is that you can stream your mac tunes, pics and videos to your Sony Playstation, and watch on TV at very good quality....very cool.

joe.morgan said:

thanks peter. So out of the 3 which one would you go for if any? I set myself a budget of £400 after spending way to much on Xmas but i know you get what you pay for at the end of the day

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Well, I looked at them quickly and I don't recognize the Toshiba model from the North American line-up and the specs look unusual to me. Is it true that the Toshiba has no "widescreen option" -seems unusual. Anyway on the contrast ratio, too much is made of this I think and it is not always measured the same way. I think of it as the ratio of the brightest white displayed to black. It makes far less difference in a real room setting particularly in a room where there is natural light. Plus the TV's ability to display ALL of the shades and colours is far more important in real life.

Anyway, they all look reasonably good to me. Which has the fastest response time? I think the Regza processor is well regarded too, and runs very fast which helps with images.

I wouldn't go for LCD...

Read this: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/2197/206/

PeterC4 said:

Well, I looked at them quickly and I don't recognize the Toshiba model from the North American line-up and the specs look unusual to me. Is it true that the Toshiba has no "widescreen option" -seems unusual. Anyway on the contrast ratio, too much is made of this I think and it is not always measured the same way. I think of it as the ratio of the brightest white displayed to black. It makes far less difference in a real room setting particularly in a room where there is natural light. Plus the TV's ability to display ALL of the shades and colours is far more important in real life.

Anyway, they all look reasonably good to me. Which has the fastest response time? I think the Regza processor is well regarded too, and runs very fast which helps with images.

Click to expand...

yeah i found that strange when i saw the toshiba had a 'NO' next to the widescreen capabilities.i was set to go with the sharpe until i read some bad reviews regarding it to be of poor quality and actually made by orion and not sharpe. I think ill do some more shopping around and see what i can find.

Thanks for your help everyone

PS by any chance does anybody know any US electrical companies that would ship to the UK? TVs are so much cheaper across seas!

joe.morgan said:

yeah i found that strange when i saw the toshiba had a 'NO' next to the widescreen capabilities.i was set to go with the sharpe until i read some bad reviews regarding it to be of poor quality and actually made by orion and not sharpe. I think ill do some more shopping around and see what i can find.

Thanks for your help everyone

PS by any chance does anybody know any US electrical companies that would ship to the UK? TVs are so much cheaper across seas!

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You can try the on-line sources.

2Hit6 said:

I wouldn't go for LCD...

Read this: http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/2197/206/

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I don't find any of that to be true with my LCD.

joe.morgan said:

yeah i found that strange when i saw the toshiba had a 'NO' next to the widescreen capabilities.i was set to go with the sharpe until i read some bad reviews regarding it to be of poor quality and actually made by orion and not sharpe. I think ill do some more shopping around and see what i can find.

Thanks for your help everyone

PS by any chance does anybody know any US electrical companies that would ship to the UK? TVs are so much cheaper across seas!

Click to expand...

I bought my TV through Pricegrabber.com They list the prices and retailers for whatever item you're looking for. I would think they'd ship overseas for you but I'd probably cost an armload for a big TV.