Looking for a new TV for the living room. Wanting a 65" and 4k. We like our sports, some movies and general tv shows. We do not do gaming. I the past own main tv has been a Sony Brovia and we have like them alot, but the have a larger price tag then some other brands. With all the options out today what have you folks had good experiences with. Not apposed to spending good money on quality, but do not want to throw money away either.
Looking for a new TV
- Thread starter Bobbers
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I'm not hip on all the 4k, 8k, 9,000p, UHD, LED, etc etc etc.
I do think though that I've read somewhere that unless your TV is big enough you won't see the difference between standard HD and 4k. What that size is IDK. But same is true for like 4k to 8k. I'm thinking the bigger the TV the more K you want. Anyway, I've had Samsung TV's for the past 10 or so years and I've been very happy with them.
I do think though that I've read somewhere that unless your TV is big enough you won't see the difference between standard HD and 4k. What that size is IDK. But same is true for like 4k to 8k. I'm thinking the bigger the TV the more K you want. Anyway, I've had Samsung TV's for the past 10 or so years and I've been very happy with them.
I agree. The older I get the less I can tell the difference between HD and UHD. I also prefer my cheaper Google TV over my more expensive Samsung TV, both smart TVs.
EclipseRedRing
I smell like a Christmas pudding
We have an ultra HD 4K 55" LG and are very happy with it. The best thing we did was add a soundbar, the difference it made was immense. I used to take a great deal of care selecting a TV, expecting to own it for many years but not any more. Televisions are now almost disposable items, I now fully expect to own a set for no more than five years, after which it will be relegated to another room or passed on to our daughter, and a new set purchased. That said, my wife and I do not want a larger set than 55" and may go smaller next time.
Ahh yes....definitely 100% without a doubt always add some sort of external speaker system to your TV.
I like going to the store and seeing the big wall of TVs all together. I like to compare the picture quality, especially the "from the side" picture quality. Looking down the big wall from the end, I see a bunch of black-ish screens and a few with the colours still popping ... those are the ones I look into further.
Have owned two large screen LG LED TVs (Costco) for several years. Could not be more satisfied.
I am a videoholic, very persnickety about all the visual criteria in my TV viewing experience.
I am a videoholic, very persnickety about all the visual criteria in my TV viewing experience.
I have a 55" OLED from LG.
I use it as a computer monitor, and watch movies and TV on it.
It's as easy to watch from 10 feet away as from 2 feet away.
If I find myself in the market for another TV, the LG OLED will be top of the list.
Incidentally, the OLED tv's by Sony use a screen that they buy from LG. Sony doesn't make their own OLED screens.
I use it as a computer monitor, and watch movies and TV on it.
It's as easy to watch from 10 feet away as from 2 feet away.
If I find myself in the market for another TV, the LG OLED will be top of the list.
Incidentally, the OLED tv's by Sony use a screen that they buy from LG. Sony doesn't make their own OLED screens.
We bought a 48" Sony OLED about a year ago and love it. We first bought an LED, but then exchanged it for an OLED a couple days later. We have a couple seating positons that are more to the side and the LED picture lost a lot if its quality in those spots, whereas the OLED remains crystal clear when viewing from the side.
To be honest, my wife and I are in our 70s and still don't understand the differences in TV 4K technologies. In early 2021, after a move, my wife wanted a TV larger than our old Samsung 40", which still works great in another room. I'd stay away from Vizio, which the Samsung replaced. I told my wife that we should go 4K, and we bought a Sony 65" X90CH Series - 4K UHD LED LCD TV from Costco for around $1400 (after tax), because I like Costco's liberal return policy on electronics. Costco also has a support line for issues, which I called once and was walked thru the issue. The Sony works great, but we did invest in a Polk soundbar (with woofer disconnected), because at our age stereo sound drives us both nuts.
At the same time, I invested in an all-region 4K UHD player, for my foreign silent films. To date I've only bought 2 4KUHD movies: Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and Dawn of the Dead (1978). Both are out of region discs and look great on the Sony. With Caligari, there's a big improvement in 4KUHD over my blu-ray and dvd.
I also invested in an APC UPS Battery Backup/Surge Protector for surges or power outages. I have them for our TVs and PCs, after having a surge fry a hard drive about 10 years ago. The battery backup gives 20-30 minutes to shut down and unplug.
At the same time, I invested in an all-region 4K UHD player, for my foreign silent films. To date I've only bought 2 4KUHD movies: Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and Dawn of the Dead (1978). Both are out of region discs and look great on the Sony. With Caligari, there's a big improvement in 4KUHD over my blu-ray and dvd.
I also invested in an APC UPS Battery Backup/Surge Protector for surges or power outages. I have them for our TVs and PCs, after having a surge fry a hard drive about 10 years ago. The battery backup gives 20-30 minutes to shut down and unplug.
The picture on about any new TV in the store will probably be better than a few years old TV at home. With that said, I prefer Samsung. We have a late model Walmart house brand ONN model, too. It's got a pretty good pic as well.
Messygoon
Abandoned By Gypsies.
Agree with Phil. Am a TV snob. Spoiled by a very high-end Sony, and will never settle again. These old eyes benefit greatly from a crystal clear picture. If we had to suddenly replace, it would be an OLED from Sony or LG.
As we age, these screens become another window to the world. Allow us to ride the Canadian railway. Ski in the Alps. Drive through Vermont backroads in the fall. They keep us young.
For the OP, the type of content you are planning to watch, the viewing angles you anticipate, and the average room brightness should be factors in panel selection. The size of the room can also be a factor for screen size. But I would start with deciding what type of TV is best based on those factors.
For direct emitting types like OLED (and plasma before that), if you watch a lot of news, sports, or other content with static images (bugs, bars, letterboxes, etc.), there is a risk of image burn in and uneven pixel wear (and in the case of OLED, color burn out). While the anti-burn in technologies have come a long way over the years, the risk is still there, and there are plenty of reports of sets getting ruined by watching too much cable or financial news, for instance. OLED is not a panel I would watch all-day television on as a primary set.
Also, despite the phenomenal contrast ratios to deliver HDR and Dolby Vision (DV) content that OLED offers, the overall screen brightness is not the greatest. Like with burn in, it has gotten better on the newest models. But OLED is better for a darker viewing room rather than a very bright one.
The big advantages of OLED are unmatched contrast ratios (because a "black" pixel is literally turned off), spectacular color fidelity and richness, and no off-axis image degradation whatsoever as you might encounter with a traditional backlit panel. It looks great from anywhere in the room. Now defunct plasma also had that viewing angle advantage, too.
But if this is for general all-day TV viewing, content with lots of static images, or the set is going into a room with a lot of ambient light, some of the best traditional LED panels with backlighting can deliver a great, bright, high contrast picture without any worry of panel damage risks, as long as the viewing angles are not too sharp. You can watch them as hard as you want. And as you climb the model ranges, the backlighting technology gets more sophisticated, to deliver improved contrast levels.
I'm partial to the Samsung QLEDs in the smaller sizes for the best color fidelity, although LG is now making some smaller screen OLED models, too.
The shortcoming of a traditional LED panel is that if you have a large viewing audience spread across the room, or get too far outside the "sweet spot" of the viewing angle, the picture can wash out quickly. So room placement can be more critical with them. And no matter how good they are, they are not as spectacular as OLED with HDR content.
If HDR content is important to you, also be aware that Samsung is a bit of a renegade. They refuse to pay the Dolby licensing fee that the other makers do, and came up with their own competing enhanced HDR format instead, "HDR10+".
But for theatre viewing of cinema content in a darker setting, an OLED is the way to go. The contrast and color richness will dazzle you (especially if watching something like UHD 4K DV), and everyone else in the room, no matter where they sit. Just be more wary of stationary images and excessive letterboxing with them.
How does an old geezer know all this? Because we have a fancy paper-thin 65" LG OLED in the basement, a 15 year old Panny 50" THX-calibrated plasma (a poor man's Pioneer) in a family room that weighs 100 lbs and eats 600 watts, and Samsung QLED sets in a couple bedrooms. Plasma was a good trainer for OLED, to learn good viewing habits. We only watch the OLED very sparingly, for movies only. They all have a great picture. Even though the plasma is only 1080 SDR, it still has wonderfully rich color fidelity. A lot of nights after dinner, I'll watch that set with the dog, as the OLED collects dust.
Sony is a premium brand. Years ago, we used to buy high end Sony Trinitrons and get them calibrated. Even today with Sony, you still get first-class internal TV electronics, even if they are not making the panels anymore. But you will pay a very steep premium for those refined internals. Maybe overpaying.
The better LG OLEDs are probably the higher value solution for most people wanting a premium picture.
And despite all those fancy TV sets, most days I watch an ancient 24" RCA LED (with old style fluorescent backlights) we bought at Sears in the kitchen, as I sip my morning coffee with my pipe, or eat dinner with Mrs. C. It's got a nice enough picture, and is an old reliable friend.
A good online source of testing information for TVs nowadays is rtings.com.
For direct emitting types like OLED (and plasma before that), if you watch a lot of news, sports, or other content with static images (bugs, bars, letterboxes, etc.), there is a risk of image burn in and uneven pixel wear (and in the case of OLED, color burn out). While the anti-burn in technologies have come a long way over the years, the risk is still there, and there are plenty of reports of sets getting ruined by watching too much cable or financial news, for instance. OLED is not a panel I would watch all-day television on as a primary set.
Also, despite the phenomenal contrast ratios to deliver HDR and Dolby Vision (DV) content that OLED offers, the overall screen brightness is not the greatest. Like with burn in, it has gotten better on the newest models. But OLED is better for a darker viewing room rather than a very bright one.
The big advantages of OLED are unmatched contrast ratios (because a "black" pixel is literally turned off), spectacular color fidelity and richness, and no off-axis image degradation whatsoever as you might encounter with a traditional backlit panel. It looks great from anywhere in the room. Now defunct plasma also had that viewing angle advantage, too.
But if this is for general all-day TV viewing, content with lots of static images, or the set is going into a room with a lot of ambient light, some of the best traditional LED panels with backlighting can deliver a great, bright, high contrast picture without any worry of panel damage risks, as long as the viewing angles are not too sharp. You can watch them as hard as you want. And as you climb the model ranges, the backlighting technology gets more sophisticated, to deliver improved contrast levels.
I'm partial to the Samsung QLEDs in the smaller sizes for the best color fidelity, although LG is now making some smaller screen OLED models, too.
The shortcoming of a traditional LED panel is that if you have a large viewing audience spread across the room, or get too far outside the "sweet spot" of the viewing angle, the picture can wash out quickly. So room placement can be more critical with them. And no matter how good they are, they are not as spectacular as OLED with HDR content.
If HDR content is important to you, also be aware that Samsung is a bit of a renegade. They refuse to pay the Dolby licensing fee that the other makers do, and came up with their own competing enhanced HDR format instead, "HDR10+".
But for theatre viewing of cinema content in a darker setting, an OLED is the way to go. The contrast and color richness will dazzle you (especially if watching something like UHD 4K DV), and everyone else in the room, no matter where they sit. Just be more wary of stationary images and excessive letterboxing with them.
How does an old geezer know all this? Because we have a fancy paper-thin 65" LG OLED in the basement, a 15 year old Panny 50" THX-calibrated plasma (a poor man's Pioneer) in a family room that weighs 100 lbs and eats 600 watts, and Samsung QLED sets in a couple bedrooms. Plasma was a good trainer for OLED, to learn good viewing habits. We only watch the OLED very sparingly, for movies only. They all have a great picture. Even though the plasma is only 1080 SDR, it still has wonderfully rich color fidelity. A lot of nights after dinner, I'll watch that set with the dog, as the OLED collects dust.
Sony is a premium brand. Years ago, we used to buy high end Sony Trinitrons and get them calibrated. Even today with Sony, you still get first-class internal TV electronics, even if they are not making the panels anymore. But you will pay a very steep premium for those refined internals. Maybe overpaying.
The better LG OLEDs are probably the higher value solution for most people wanting a premium picture.
And despite all those fancy TV sets, most days I watch an ancient 24" RCA LED (with old style fluorescent backlights) we bought at Sears in the kitchen, as I sip my morning coffee with my pipe, or eat dinner with Mrs. C. It's got a nice enough picture, and is an old reliable friend.
A good online source of testing information for TVs nowadays is rtings.com.
I don't have any specific recommendations other than pay extra attention to the User Interface and speed of the controls as best you can to see how quickly it responds. And if you plan on watching OTA TV with an antenna, make sure the remote control includes a numeric button pad.
The last TV I bought was a 6+ year TCL LCD. The picture quality is great, but the user interface is slow and the TV automatically reboots periodically, especially when watching Youtube using the built-in Roku. I almost think it would be better to buy a display with lots of inputs and then your favorite streaming box (Roku, Apple TV, Google TV Streamer, etc) so that you can upgrade things separately and subdivide the spying.
The last TV I bought was a 6+ year TCL LCD. The picture quality is great, but the user interface is slow and the TV automatically reboots periodically, especially when watching Youtube using the built-in Roku. I almost think it would be better to buy a display with lots of inputs and then your favorite streaming box (Roku, Apple TV, Google TV Streamer, etc) so that you can upgrade things separately and subdivide the spying.
A couple years ago we got rid of the carpet in our family room and put in hardwood floors, this completely changed the sound of our TV. In order to compensate for that I bought a Roku soundbar. The soundbar solved two problems, it provides the connection to our apps that we use and gave us customization of our sound. It wasn’t expensive and the difference is considerable.
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EclipseRedRing
I smell like a Christmas pudding
When we added a soundbar to our television it had an unexpected bonus aside from greatly improving the viewing experience. The soundbar has bluetooth connectivity to allow audio streaming from a mobile phone which is useful, but the big bonus was a USB port to allow external storage to be attached. I ripped all our audio CDs to digital format and stored them on a pen drive, we now listen to all our music using the TV soundbar with the TV turned off. The old CD and amplifier separates, and the speakers, have been sold on Ebay, and the CDs have gone to the charity shop. As a result we have a lot less clutter in the lounge which pleases the wife no end 
We have a similar USB hard drive plugged into the TV for recording programming, the only minor disadvantage is that the recordings are encrypted and cannot be viewed on another set.
We have a similar USB hard drive plugged into the TV for recording programming, the only minor disadvantage is that the recordings are encrypted and cannot be viewed on another set.
Once you decide on the TV and get it home. Try Rtings.com recommended setting for the backlight, color, gamma, etc for your make/model.
The TV's in store are all set to Vivid and 1000% brightness and while they look nice when walking by, they aren't optimal for regular viewing.
The settings aren't always perfect but usually get you in the ballpark for how it should be and you can adjust as necessary.
We have good luck with Samsung. One of our Sony is awesome, the other has glitchy software and keeps defaulting to TV speaker over stereo and randomly does a soft reset.
A 5.1 stereo system is awesome, but a sound bar with subwoofer is an easy setup option that doesn't take up much space and will make a world of difference in sound quality. If I didn't have turntables in our main rooms, I would just get a wireless sound bar system with subwoofer. We have both systems and I can instantly tell when the TV is set to TV speakers in error.
The TV's in store are all set to Vivid and 1000% brightness and while they look nice when walking by, they aren't optimal for regular viewing.
The settings aren't always perfect but usually get you in the ballpark for how it should be and you can adjust as necessary.
We have good luck with Samsung. One of our Sony is awesome, the other has glitchy software and keeps defaulting to TV speaker over stereo and randomly does a soft reset.
A 5.1 stereo system is awesome, but a sound bar with subwoofer is an easy setup option that doesn't take up much space and will make a world of difference in sound quality. If I didn't have turntables in our main rooms, I would just get a wireless sound bar system with subwoofer. We have both systems and I can instantly tell when the TV is set to TV speakers in error.
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Agree about knocking down the brightness setting. Also turn off digital motion smoothing. In many cases switching to "Cinema" setting will fix most of that, with the understanding the "warm" color setting that comes with that is considered more accurate than the cooler (bluer) setting that seems to be the default.
