TVs LCD, LED or Plasma? £500 Budget HELP!

Ok hi everyone, need some help with picking a tv here, something which I have very little clue about, a friend of mines toshiba has just decided to lunch itself, so they need a new one.

Critical points are size around 37inch is good, would go to 40, but 42 is to big.

it needs to have 2 scart sockets, (something I've found difficult to come across myself) as they have a sky box and dvd player which both use scart connections.

As I said I know very little about tv's, so I'm sure someone on here with superior wisdom could point me to a good one, I also have the dilemma of the whole lcd vs led vs plasma, but what I've heard for the money an lcd generally has better picture quality than an equivalent led or plasma.

Programs that my friends watch are things like cricket, rugby, football, possible some motor racing and also loads of general cr*p and kids shows. also one major sticking point is it has to be something that can be purchased from comet as thats who the insurance company goes through, otherwise it turns into a long an complicated process, and there practically dying to get there hands on a tv as for the last week they've been staring at a 12inch screen :|

just to help you guys along these are some they liked the look of,

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/LCD-TVs/buy-TOSHIBA-40BV700-LCD-TV/686298

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/LCD-TVs/buy-TOSHIBA-40BV700-LCD-TV/686298

cheers in advanced to anyone who contributes

 

HI

I got one of these a few weeks ago form £400 from dixons! It may be worth asking them to do a price match

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/LCD-TVs/buy-SAMSUNG-LE40C580-LCD-TV/640735

I have to say, its lovely. The picture is really good. It has a freeview HD tuner and it looks really nice. You can also plug it in to your network and stream media from your pc or from a USB stick/drive which is a great feature. Check out the reviews.

The only thing is that i dont think it has 2 scart sockets. I need to check when i get home but TBH, you can get a upscaling DVD player with HDMI for very little these days which will make your films look better than a scart player.

The only bad thing is that the sounds inst great. Its not bad for watching TV but its a little weak.

 

thanks very much slaw, was desperately waiting for someone to reply to this, and that was exactly the one I was looking at, and rating quite highly and thanks for reminding me about upscaling dvd players too :]

 

Could get a nice 40" Sony LCD for £500.

 

Before buying CCFL LCD TV or LED LCD TV (ther are no true LED TV's yet on market), please consider your sources. Considering you talk about SCART, it means SD content, means LCD TV is the inferior choice compared to plasma. LCD TV + SD content means junk. I say this as a LCD TV owner.

 

And your basis for that is......?

 

Basis for what ? For LCD being inferior technology compared to plasma for SD content ? Have you ever seen SD content on LCD and then on plasma ?

Just go out to your local shop and ask the shop to show some TV station instead of the HD blueray content they usually play on them, and you will see instantly the difference. Plasma will look a lot like a good old LCD, where you won't see any artifacts, while on LCD you will see a ugly pixelated content. As i said, i have LCD TV and i see how bad it is. Seriously, seeing it in person is the best way to see the difference. And again, ask for SD content.
And i din't even start talking about the blacks. Or in case of LCD TV (no matter if CCFL or LED backlighting is used) we should rather talk about dark greys ?

 

I can highly recommend Samsung TVs (have an LE40B650 in the house). The newer generations have very good scaler chips so SD content looks pretty decent on a 40 inch screen. I don't get why people say it has weak speakers - it lacks bass, but is plenty loud for our living room.

Oh, and it does have two SCART sockets (though they go unused as everything's on HDMI here).

@faugusztin: That's an issue of the processing technology used, not the panel type.

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

 

The reason I asked is because that seems like it is more to do with the internal processing and scaling than it is the actual panel technology that is used. Deep blacks on the other hand is something that inherently comes with plasma screens, so is a definite advantage over LCD screens. But to say that all plasma screens are able to handle SD content better than LCD screens has no factual basis.

 

you might get led backlight tv but not full led tv best value is lcd this is the best i could find buddy http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/lg-42le4500-ultra-slim-42-full-hd-led-tv-black-07706785-pdt.html ...

 

every time i wander into best buy (more frequently than id like to admit), i study the difference between the CCFL backlit screens and the LED backlit screens and for the life of me, i have not been able to pick out a difference. the additional cost is nowhere near justified in my opinion.

 

LEDs do provide an advantage in terms of power consumption, warm-up time and unit thickness rather than just picture quality.

 

id wondered about power consumption, but i didnt put enough energy into my quick search to turn anything up. is there a respectable difference?

 

Unless if you're planning on keeping the TV for quite a few years, you'll most likely save more money by just getting the CCFL TV.

http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-consumption-chart/

There is a decent difference, but the price difference between LED and CCFL sets will cover that.

 

^^ That depends on the cost of electricity - the chart assumes 11.5c/kWh, but in the UK it's at least 12p/kWh, if not more. And the price difference between CCFL and LED has fallen a lot recently.

 

The price difference is still pretty large, compare the Sony KDL-46EX520 and the Sony KDL-46EX500. Both 46", 1080P, and the CCFL one is even 120Hz. The 520 is LED backlight, the 500 isn't.. The 520 can be had for $1100, the 500 for $900.

 

The reason is that in shop, you pretty much never see black screen with no lights turned on nearby. That is the time when you can see most of the difference between CCFL and LED.

 

The main thing the chart shows is that plasma TVs use a lot more electricity than non-plasma. If you sort it by watts per square inch, you'll see that LEDs are generally at the bottom of the price scale, plasmas at the top and CCFL are mostly in the middle.

 

The problem with that chart is that it doesn't reflect real world usage. While LCD TV have a static power consumption no matter what is displayed, Plasma have very big variations. If you are going to watch winter olympics (lots of white), then your power consumption will be high. But watch a horror movie with lots of black and dark, and plasma will beat any LCD TV with CCFL.

 

To echo comments r.e SDTV above - have a Panasonic plasma (42") G20 series. SD TV looks VERY good. Comparing to LCD TV's, the quality of image is a lot better for SD input.

FWIW (and over budget i know) PC world had our P42G20B for 548 quid today - HD&Freesat inbuilt, plasma.... Bargain at that price - STUNNING television!