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Best TV for £600-£700?

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Ladder23

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Hi all

looking for a TV for myself, things have evolved so much since i purchased my current Samsung I don’t really know too much about what I’m actually looking at with all the competition.

ideally I’m after 60” maybe slightly bigger, but I’m after something which shows super good quality if possible, I watch a lot of sport and have come back to gaming again with my PlayStation 4/5.

any suggestions please fire away.. thanks
 
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Snow1964

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TVs change spec so often that it is probably best to go to somewhere like John Lewis or Richer Sounds and see what they have in their clearance.

I would say the South Koreans are probably ahead in screen quality.

Realistically if you want at least 60 inches and very high quality not going to get that from a budget brand in a pile it high, sell it cheap type store, where quality is more middle than high.
 

jfollows

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I don't know how much it helps; last year I bought a Panasonic TX-65LX650B (65") for £385 but it doesn't look like it's available any more, it's an Android TV made by Vestel in Turkey apparently. However I'm happy with it especially for the price; Panasonic seem to do some early discounting when they launch a new product and I took advantage of this one. It takes quite a bit of fiddling with menus and settings to get the best results - it's quite good for HD sports now anyway. I guess it's neither budget or high-end, and presumably there's a follow-on equivalent product now.

PS Apparently other brands such as Hitachi, Toshiba and Nokia (?) apparently also re-badge Vestel TVs in the same way. So if you think that a Turkish TV isn't a good thing, be wary.
 
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dangie

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We’ve had our Panasonic (Viera TX-L37D25B) television for 12 years and it’s still as good now as when we bought it. I keep on thinking about ‘upgrading’ to a new larger model but then common sense kicks in (the wife) and says ‘why, there’s nothing wrong with what we have’. It’s only Full HD but the clarity & colour is excellent.

** Are Panasonic televisions still made by (or for) Panasonic, or are they now rebadged as Panasonic?
 

trebor79

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I would say go into John Lewis or something and see them. The picture quality on some even high end TVs is absolutely shocking when they upscale stuff to the native resolution. Really bad pixellation and/or fuzziness whereas a very similar model next to it lovely and pin-sharp.
 

bspahh

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TVs change spec so often that it is probably best to go to somewhere like John Lewis or Richer Sounds and see what they have in their clearance.
Last year, I bought a Samsung QE50QN94A from Richer Sounds for ~ £650. Then it was a year old model from one of their more expensive ranges, so it has plenty of inputs and things like a second remote control, which has fewer buttons and is solar powered. Its out of stock now at https://www.richersounds.com/samsung-qe50qn94a.html

I didn't research it. I wandered past the shop, they checked on their system, found the stock and I ordered it to be delivered. Looking at hotukdeals, it seems I got it for a decent price.
 

dangie

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Unless you already have one, I’d suggest budgeting for a soundbar to go with the television. I’ve seen and heard many televisions in which the picture is good but the audio is awful.
 

Peter Mugridge

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Funnily enough I've just been buying a new TV myself, and I found that Curry's had the biggest range of types, sizes and manufacturers and accessories for them. I managed to wring a discount out of them as well by paying all in one go for the lot ( new TV, new HDD/DVD recorder, installation and setting up of new set and removal of the old set )

If there's one near you it's probably worth looking in there.

One important thing: if you're after a large wall mounted one, always pay the extra to have it installed even if you're 100% competent to do that yourself. If they do it and it falls off the wall, they're liable and have to replace it. if you do it and it falls off the wall, you'll have to pay for another one...
 

Trackman

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** Are Panasonic televisions still made by (or for) Panasonic, or are they now rebadged as Panasonic?
They are outsourced now, this happened quite recently. I have a Panasonic TV and would definitely recommend them.

One important thing: if you're after a large wall mounted one, always pay the extra to have it installed even if you're 100% competent to do that yourself. If they do it and it falls off the wall, they're liable and have to replace it. if you do it and it falls off the wall, you'll have to pay for another one...
A friend paid a whopping £170 to have his TV hung.
 

Peter Mugridge

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A friend paid a whopping £170 to have his TV hung.
That's more than Currys are charging... but it doesn't sound unreasonable given that it includes setting the thing up and making sure it's all working correctly. The main point is of course protection against the cost of it falling off the wall...
 

A0

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Hi all

looking for a TV for myself, things have evolved so much since i purchased my current Samsung I don’t really know too much about what I’m actually looking at with all the competition.

ideally I’m after 60” maybe slightly bigger, but I’m after something which shows super good quality if possible, I watch a lot of sport and have come back to gaming again with my PlayStation 4/5.

any suggestions please fire away.. thanks

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you're not going to get a "super good quality" 60" set for a budget of £ 700.

At that size / price, what's available will be the budget brands - such as Hisense, TCL or the various brands which are rebadged Vestel sets e.g. Bush, JVC, Hitachi, Toshiba, or it'll be entry level Samsung or LG sets.

You really need to be looking closer to £ 1000 and ideally OLED or possible QLED set. The cheaper LG or Samsung will be "OK" but not brilliant - the picture processing which you'd be looking for for sports or gaming won't be that great on cheaper sets and with a large screen the limitations will be even more apparent.
 

Ken X

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Another vote for talking to your nearest Richer Sounds store. We have used three different stores over the years. Unfailing good advice every time we have visited and I think they will let you take the item back if you genuinely don't like it. They took the time to understand what we wanted and didn't oversell. My mum and mil both had dementia and in both cases were offered a TV with large simple buttons on the remote that was right for them
 

MikeWM

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I have one of these (I think - or certainly something very similar) that I bought in the summer of 2020 for around £750 (more or less):

https://www.richersounds.com/panasonic-tx58hx800b.html

It isn't produced anymore, but I think the lower-end Panasonic ones are still very similar.

It's...ok. To be honest I think I wish I'd spent a bit more and got something rather better. Though as my previous TV was a very nice plasma TV which had stunningly good picture quality, I suspect pretty much anything would have felt like a step backwards.
 

A0

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** Are Panasonic televisions still made by (or for) Panasonic, or are they now rebadged as Panasonic?

Their OLEDs are made in house.

Their bottom end LCDs have been Vestel for the past 5 ish years - Vestel make most of the own brand / supermarket brand sets like Bush, Polaroid as well as some "legacy" brands like JVC, Toshiba and Hitachi.

This year the rest of their LCD production was meant to be outsourced but not sure to whom - there was a rumour it was going to TCL, but its not comfirmed.
 
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Ladder23

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you're not going to get a "super good quality" 60" set for a budget of £ 700.

At that size / price, what's available will be the budget brands - such as Hisense, TCL or the various brands which are rebadged Vestel sets e.g. Bush, JVC, Hitachi, Toshiba, or it'll be entry level Samsung or LG sets.

You really need to be looking closer to £ 1000 and ideally OLED or possible QLED set. The cheaper LG or Samsung will be "OK" but not brilliant - the picture processing which you'd be looking for for sports or gaming won't be that great on cheaper sets and with a large screen the limitations will be even more apparent.
One I spotted in Costco was £563 it was a Samsung 4K UHD TV, 58”.. though it looked great in store and what I would deem a great picture I may well be miles off what really is the bees knees of quality in the TV world, I do believe I’m stuck in the past with what I think is good.. so appreciate the honest response,

could you fire me any suggestions, I’ll gladly pay £1000 upwards if needs be.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

I have one of these (I think - or certainly something very similar) that I bought in the summer of 2020 for around £750 (more or less):

https://www.richersounds.com/panasonic-tx58hx800b.html

It isn't produced anymore, but I think the lower-end Panasonic ones are still very similar.

It's...ok. To be honest I think I wish I'd spent a bit more and got something rather better. Though as my previous TV was a very nice plasma TV which had stunningly good picture quality, I suspect pretty much anything would have felt like a step backwards.
sorry to sound really stupid, as said above I really am behind with all this technology stuff, how do you tell a great picture aside from seeing them in store to compare, I ask because that sounds brilliant going by the write up.

what would you be looking for in the description to know it’s a better picture
 

A0

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One I spotted in Costco was £563 it was a Samsung 4K UHD TV, 58”.. though it looked great in store and what I would deem a great picture I may well be miles off what really is the bees knees of quality in the TV world, I do believe I’m stuck in the past with what I think is good.. so appreciate the honest response,

could you fire me any suggestions, I’ll gladly pay £1000 upwards if needs be.

If you'd take a 55" then this



Or this


Above 60"


 

Ladder23

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If you'd take a 55" then this



Or this


Above 60"


I’ll take a look thank you for your time to share those
 

dgl

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one thing I would say regarding the actual manufacturer of a set, it's relatively easy to find out in the two most popular cases (Vestel and UMC).
UMC have the connections in an "L" shape, with the HDMI connections and power at the bottom/facing downwards whereas with Vestel the connections are in a square panel on the back and usually have a single wheel control for power/source/volume/channel that just goes up/down and in.

one word of caution regarding OLED TV's is that they are more susceptible to burn in than LCD types and don't last as long so they may not be the best option if you want the TV to last a good amount of time.
 

A0

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one thing I would say regarding the actual manufacturer of a set, it's relatively easy to find out in the two most popular cases (Vestel and UMC).
UMC have the connections in an "L" shape, with the HDMI connections and power at the bottom/facing downwards whereas with Vestel the connections are in a square panel on the back and usually have a single wheel control for power/source/volume/channel that just goes up/down and in.

On Vestel there's an even easier way - the serial number on the back has 4 numbers which have a box around them - and that denotes the month and year the set was manufactured in.

Put simply though - there are 6 brands which don't use Vestel at all - Hisense, LG, Philips, Samsung, Sony and TCL. In the case of Philips, it's because Taiwanese company TPV bought out Philips CE's television division a few years back. TPV are one of the largest (probably the largest) manufacturers of PC monitors - if you've got an LCD monitor on your desk with HP, Dell, Lenovo or AOC badge on it, chances are it's a TPV one.

UMC are much less common than Vestel (and usually cheaper). For a long time they tended to supply smaller screens with in built DVD players - Tesco were a big user of UMC, the likes of Argos and Curry's less so.

Vestel sets are OK providing you know you're buying a budget set and set your expectations accordingly.

But if you don't want to go the Vestel route, then the rule of thumb should probably be if you want a budget set then buy a Hisense or TCL - both Chinese companies, though both put a 2 year guarantee on their sets and their sets do seem to perform quite well. If you're spending a bit more then look at a Samsung, LG or Sony - which one will depend on your budget and which one you like and that may include factors such as the operating system in use and whether you like it, how you find the remote control (a number of the newer Sony sets don't have a 'number pad' on their remote control, which may be fine if most of your viewing is streaming or via a Sky / Virgin box but if you watch more terrestrial TV you may still want the ability to press '1' for BBC1, '5' for Channel 5 etc, whereas with the Sony remote you're going to be into multiple button presses to do that).

one word of caution regarding OLED TV's is that they are more susceptible to burn in than LCD types and don't last as long so they may not be the best option if you want the TV to last a good amount of time.

OK - you've managed to mix two different points up, so let's unpick that a bit. First up, there's no evidence that OLED have a shorter working life than LED sets - some of the cheaper LED sets (from the likes of Vestel and UMC) are known for failing at under 5 years - usually with a couple of 'stock' faults - either capacitors on power boards or LED backlight failures. The problem is unless you have a a local TV repairer who can handle such repairs for a low cost, most people will simply skip the set and buy a new one.

On 'burn in' - yes you have a point there. And that's something anyone using an OLED should be aware of. There's more about burn in here > https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-ente...n-in is possible with,of, but not worry about. but simply for normal use, it shouldn't be an issue. It is an issue if you, for example, put the TV on a channel with alot of 'static' image and leave it on for long periods of time - examples would be the news channels where you have the logos and 'tickers' fixed on the screen for long periods.
 

MikeWM

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sorry to sound really stupid, as said above I really am behind with all this technology stuff, how do you tell a great picture aside from seeing them in store to compare, I ask because that sounds brilliant going by the write up.

what would you be looking for in the description to know it’s a better picture

I'm probably the wrong person to ask given I'm not entirely happy with my purchase :-/ but all I can really say on that is that I've spent quite a bit of time trying to calibrate it and I've never ended up with a picture quality I'm 100% content with. Whereas with my previous plasma, that wasn't an issue at all. (Again though, that may well partly be a case of *anything* after a decent plasma being a bit of a disappointment).

Also, even going into the store doesn't always tell you everything - for example this model has two issues (poor viewing angles and a very reflective screen) that weren't apparent when seeing it in store, because in store they use super-high contrast/brightness/etc. settings that don't remotely approximate to the settings you'll have when it is in your house.
 

dangie

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This is from someone who still has a 12 year old Full HD 1080p Panasonic television.

I’m guessing that most mid to upper quality televisions are 4K. My first question is, how much television is broadcast in 4K?

Also, if most or all of your television channels are received in Full HD, would you be better off in using a quality Full HD 1080p television rather than a cheaper 4K?

I’m not very tech minded so I hope this makes sense.
 

JamesT

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This is from someone who still has a 12 year old Full HD 1080p Panasonic television.

I’m guessing that most mid to upper quality televisions are 4K. My first question is, how much television is broadcast in 4K?

Also, if most or all of your television channels are received in Full HD, would you be better off in using a quality Full HD 1080p television rather than a cheaper 4K?

I’m not very tech minded so I hope this makes sense.
I bought my current TV in 2019 (a 43" LG LCD for £350). Although I was thinking I didn't really need 4K, the market has shifted and there are very few 1080p TVs for sale, except at the lower/smaller end.
In terms of content, there's no over the air Freeview in 4K and probably never will be, but again things have shifted to the streamers. The BBC make some content available in 4K on iPlayer (e.g. one of the courts of Wimbledon, some of Glastonbury, etc.). Sky have various content including sports in 4K, similarly Netflix. I've rented films from services like Chili in 4K before.
 

A0

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This is from someone who still has a 12 year old Full HD 1080p Panasonic television.

I’m guessing that most mid to upper quality televisions are 4K. My first question is, how much television is broadcast in 4K?

Also, if most or all of your television channels are received in Full HD, would you be better off in using a quality Full HD 1080p television rather than a cheaper 4K?

I’m not very tech minded so I hope this makes sense.

Bit in bold - in traditional "broadcast" terms nothing on terrestrial, but there is content on Sky and Virgin. However, when you put streaming in the mix, then the answer is quite alot with Netflix, Youtube, BBC iPlayer all having UHD content.

Traditional linear broadcasting is in decline with streaming taking its place, mainly because traditional terrestrial broadcasting is far more restricted in terms of the available spectrum to broadcast on.
 

12LDA28C

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This is from someone who still has a 12 year old Full HD 1080p Panasonic television.

I’m guessing that most mid to upper quality televisions are 4K. My first question is, how much television is broadcast in 4K?

Also, if most or all of your television channels are received in Full HD, would you be better off in using a quality Full HD 1080p television rather than a cheaper 4K?

I’m not very tech minded so I hope this makes sense.

Plenty of streaming available in 4K and of course if you want to connect a Blu-Ray player or similar device then you need a 4K display if your BD player has 4K capability which is certainly noticeably better than HD.
 

Howardh

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I’m guessing that most mid to upper quality televisions are 4K. My first question is, how much television is broadcast in 4K?
If you can count YouTube as "broadcast" there's sufficient 4k on there, and boy can you tell the difference between 1080 and 4k.
On that theme, to me HD (720) is noticeably better than SD, but 720 is little different than 1080. I really can't tell the difference and I've tried!
 

dangie

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From what I’ve seen far too many people leave their televisions in the ‘default’ colour settings out of the box. These are usually set far too bright and colour saturated. Even cheaper budget television’s can look much better if a little time is taken setting them up.
 
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