@ Ant - I took a close look at the Philips Ambilight last week and half of me thought it was brilliant and the other half wasn't sure. My missus probably summed it up and said that it was novel but might get annoying after a while. Still, she's a woman and what would she know
@ Scotty - My last TV was a JVC Interiart 32" CRT and the picture was impeccable. If it hadn't have broken, I'd have been quite happy with it for some time yet.
Thankfully, the insurance paid out and the Sammy is heading my way. The spec is damned good for the price and it has a few more connections than most (3xHDMI, 2 Scart, VGA, Component, S-Video, etc) and the casing is lush in gloss black with a blue LED at the bottom. It's got a good contrast ratio (8000:1) and a 6ms response time. I'd have loved to have held out for a 1080p set but time and money won't allow right now. Maybe in a few years
As for LG, I had always heard good things about them but every review I read seems to say otherwise. What HiFi Sound & Vision are very unkind about them. Like Samsung, they make a lot of panels that are used by other companies but I have to admit, when I saw the LG next to the Samsung, the Sammy won out in every aspect.
In researching this purchase, I found there to be many seemingly "good value" sets out there (I found a 42" Wharfedale 1080p set at £499, for example) but many of these fall way short in crucial areas such as contrast and brightness and motion blur. The Panasonic Viera range and Sony Bravia always seem to be excellent quality, but Samsung, Philips and Toshiba can hold their own. If you're on a budget, have a look at
Evesham. They do some respectable sets for an excellent price and they're currently givng a DVD player away with their new 1080p Alqemi range.
My advice would be to go out and look at as many as you can first, noting makes and models, then get a copy of What HiFi or something similar and scour the ads, search the net using Pricerunner or Kelkoo and start whittling down the options. As I was about to purchase my Samsung last night for £555, I found one shop-bot site that told me that I could go to Dixons and use a special code to get 5% off their price and that got it down to £545 plus free delivery. It arrives on Tuesday
And thank bloody god too ! I've had my 32" go "Pete Tong", followed by a 28" going kaput and now I'm reduced to my 24" WS Sammy CRT which usually resides in my bedroom !
Sadly, the best TV I saw last week, in a shop in Birmingham, was a Sony Bravia 70" LCD 1080p HD.
A snip at £24,999.99 !!
Rob
Mk.2 Marea Weekend 1.8 16v 115 ELX
