HDTV again, making a choice stresses me out!

Fireflash

Hey there guys! Holidays are coming, I've been working overtime and thus have a bit of extra cash lying around. This money is currently burning my pockets, I have an urge to spend it. I've been looking at HDTVs on the internet for the past week and I've really got an ichting to buy one.

One important thing to consider is that I already have an HDTV. It's a 4 years old 26' widescreen Toshiba CRT HDTV (only available resolutions are 540p and 1080i) . Now I'm looking to buy a 32' LCD for around 1000$. Now this doesn't seem like a very big size upgrade to shell out 1000$ for.

I know some people swear by CRT HDTVs but from what I've seen of the TVs we use at work, colors seem overall brighter, and much more vibrant on the LCD screens when using them for videogames. Also, I brought over my Wii to a friend's place and RE4Wii on component input looked smoother on his 32' LCD than on my TV.

So, first of all, would this upgrade be worth it or am I a complete fool to consider this? The TV will be used mostly to play games (360, Wii, PS2) and watch movies. I may buy the HD-DVD add-on in the future.


And if I buy a TV, I have no idea what brands to trust. Futureshop has a bunch of TVs on sale right now. If we look at this page, there is a bunch of 32' LCDs for 1000 or less.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/class.asp?logon=&langid=EN&catid=23508

Is there a particularly good one in this batch? A brand I should avoid? Heeeeelp!

archonwarp

After reading your post, I can't help but ask why you want to upgrade to 32" and not something a bit bigger?

Though many people will swear that the average user will notice no difference between 720p and 1080p, you definitely will. Buy a 1080p, as the 30% cost increase will give you an additional 10 years of the best technology. Sharp Aquos is a FANTASTIC brand of TV, but I have to say that the prices I'm seeing here aren't that great. Does Canada still get boned over in the electronics department? If so, you might want to consider buying online from a US retailer that will ship to Canada. Even with shipping costs, it would probably be better.

I'm a big fan of Westinghouse, as they're relatively cheap and offer excellent quality TVs. The main difference for big-name brands is the cost for the name. Since most companies don't make their own product anymore (they do the R&D and pay Korean manufacturers to make it), you can find plenty of companies that have good experiience in making TVs without the high price (such as Vizio).

In short, look around in a store, find a good-looking TV, then go online and buy it for 500 dollars cheaper.

Fireflash

Well for the size thing, I took a measuring tape over my TV and saw that going from 26 to 32 still made an interesting increase. My living room is not that big so I don't have space to move my couch further back to accomodate for a huge screen. Plus, a 37' screen wouldn't fit in my current TV stand. Well it could fit but there would be 2 poles in front of the screen. I could probably dismantle the poles + upper part of the stand in needed tho.

As for buying in the US, I compared the same TVs on the US bestbuy site and prices in canada were overall cheaper. I have no idea about these awesome websites that sell good TVs for super cheap.

archonwarp

Start browsing:

http://www.slickdeals.net
http://www.deals2buy.com

Slickdeals often has deals of 32ish inch TVs for ~500 dollars, which would be a bit better, so check that out.

Fireflash

Thanks, I'll start browsing those sites!

Children

Never buy a tv without seeing the same model in the store next to other TVs.

Westinghouse is trash, the price is good, but look at a sony/toshiba next to a westinghouse of the same size and resolution and you will see why it is cheaper. They are also less reliable.

Anyways, it is much much less about the brand, and more about the model. If you want to buy it online, go ahead, but before you do, go to a store and check out the exact same model (not just same brand) and make sure that it is really what you want.

Snowcone

My question is why a 32" for $1000 when the Vizio 32" will only set you back around $549 and it's a great budget TV and has a really solid feature set and picture.

Fireflash

Is looking at the TV in a store even reliable? Sometimes in store I see these huge 3-4k$ TV's that show some really crap picture. It's seems there are a lot of factors that might influence what I'll see in a store: Set ups with non-optimal connections, videos that are split between 5 different tvs at the same time, non optimized screen settings, tvs that are running 24/7, etc.

So far the Sharp Aquos is mighty tempting to me. Seems to have good reviews on other websites, good specs, everything about it sounds high-end quality.

Fireflash

Snowcone wrote: »

My question is why a 32" for $1000 when the Vizio 32" will only set you back around $549 and it's a great budget TV and has a really solid feature set and picture.

Hmm? I haven't seen this model. Is it on the futureshop website?

Edit: I said 1000$ because all lcds around that size seem to be around the 1000 mark. I'm definitely open to less costly options if they offer good picture quality.

Children

All of the tvs are running 24/7, so it should be somewhat even. In any case, it is better than nothing. Especially because the model can often make a bigger difference than the resolution.

Snowcone

Fireflash wrote: »

Snowcone wrote: »

My question is why a 32" for $1000 when the Vizio 32" will only set you back around $549 and it's a great budget TV and has a really solid feature set and picture.

Hmm? I haven't seen this model. Is it on the futureshop website?

Edit: I said 1000$ because all lcds around that size seem to be around the 1000 mark. I'm definitely open to less costly options if they offer good picture quality.

Not sure. I know Costco has them, but Costco CA apparently does not. Someone on the GSpot forums provided this link: http://www.factorydirect.ca/catalog/product_spec.php?pcode=VI3232

I've not been able to find a canadian dealer. You may try www.vizio.com and send them an email about it.

khain

Fireflash wrote: »

Is looking at the TV in a store even reliable? Sometimes in store I see these huge 3-4k$ TV's that show some really crap picture. It's seems there are a lot of factors that might influence what I'll see in a store: Set ups with non-optimal connections, videos that are split between 5 different tvs at the same time, non optimized screen settings, tvs that are running 24/7, etc.

So far the Sharp Aquos is mighty tempting to me. Seems to have good reviews on other websites, good specs, everything about it sounds high-end quality.

Ask for the remote and change the settings and since all the TVs are in the same environment they should be comparable. Also most dealers I know of have a 30 day return or exchange policy so if you don't like the TV in your home environment just return it for another one.

On Vizio, Westinghouse, <insert budget manufacturer here> all of them are cheap for a reason. If the decrease in quality doesn't bother you then go for it, but if you want top notch quality then look at Sharp, Samsung, Sony, or Panasonic (Panasonic is plasmas only iirc)

Misanthropic

Children wrote: »

Never buy a tv without seeing the same model in the store next to other TVs.

Westinghouse is trash, the price is good, but look at a sony/toshiba next to a westinghouse of the same size and resolution and you will see why it is cheaper. They are also less reliable.

Anyways, it is much much less about the brand, and more about the model. If you want to buy it online, go ahead, but before you do, go to a store and check out the exact same model (not just same brand) and make sure that it is really what you want.

My Westinghouse has been the best HDTV purchase I have made.

Fatty McBeardo

Same here, I bought a Westinghouse 42" as a bit of a gamble, and I've been extremely happy with the result. The viewing angle is definitely more limited than higher than LCDs, but for my setup that wasn't an issue. Otherwise the TV has been very good. The fact it has individual HDMI, DVI, VGA, and multiple component inputs was what sold it for me. Ultimately I would like to have a plasma, but there's a lot of glare in my living room that I can't control, so an LCD was my best option.

Lowlander

This is a bit out of your price range, but I have been completely satisfied with my Toshiba Regza 42" LCD. I have always liked Toshiba products for their quality and performance to cost ratio. This TV has completely flat background lighting, which you should demand for any TV for which you pay that sort of price.

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-REGZA-42HL167-1080p-HDTV/dp/B000MXYD0I

You might want to look to see if they have something in a smaller model that fits within your budget.

I agree with the others that say that you should go for the 1080p. The idea is that you're future proofing yourself. I normally have three televisions, one in my living room (which is the best), one in my bed room (second highest quality) and the last in my computer room, if I want to watch TV while I surf the internet or game. If you buy a great TV, then you will always be happy with it when you relegate it to another spot in your house. If you only get a so so TV, then when you upgrade again six or ten years from now, it won't be compliant with the highest resolution for HDTV or Blu-Ray players which will then be standard.