Looking for a 23-26" HDTV < £500

[Dorza]

The market is hugely confusing with so many options to choose from, I must have had about 30 FF tabs open at one point, but I think I've narrowed it down to the following four. I just wanted some feedback on them since I can't find much non-customer submitted reviews on them.

My first choice at the moment is the Samsung LE26R72BX which I believe is technically the same as the LE26R74BDX but is £50 cheaper because of aesthetic differences. Please correct me if I am wrong. I know that Samsung come highly recommended and have been selling like hot cakes the last year or so.

Second choice would be the Sharp LC26SA1E which as quoted by Amazon has 1920x1080p Res for that low price. However I'm fairly sure this is a typing mistake since the black version has a 720p resolution. Which obviously wouldn't stop me buying it if its better than the others.

My last choices are the PHILIPS 26PF5321 and the 26PF3321 . I currently own a 17" Philips and its been a good TV, i just wanted to see if anyone knew any thing about these particular Philips and if they perform as well as they look.

The main thing for me here is image quality for both HD content which is a future thing for me and SD content which i will probably have for some time to come. I'm more likely to get HD-DVD/Blueray before I get Sky's HD service, put it that way.

Just out of curiosity what 23" screens could I look at that are comparable to the screens I've listed above? I ask this because I may need to take my TV arm off the wall and drop it down a bit so that the 26"ers will fit underneath whats above the arm at the moment.

Although I've stated in the title that 23-26" is my range I would really rather go for a 26"er, their by far a better value sized screen to go for at this moment in time imo. Hence why I have only listed 26"ers, if theres any really good recommendations for 23" then I'm listening.

Any advice would be helpful, thanks guys/girls .

PS: I've seen the bargain 32" Evesham HDTV on LOW and I would get it but 26" is really the largest that will fit into the area of the room where the TV will go. Just for informations sake whats that screen actually like for that price; its got a 5 star rating so far.

[Funkstar]

Well amazon are wrong with the Sharp panel, everywhere else list it as the normal 1366 x 768. looks like it has been mixed up with a much larger panel.

[Rhyth]

Let me know what you go for in the end Dorza and how it fares, would appreciate it.

[Dorza]

Originally Posted by Rhyth

Let me know what you go for in the end Dorza and how it fares, would appreciate it.

I ordered the Sharp for £455 after hearing some good things about them on avforums.com. However I had an email from the place I bought it from saying there would be a 3 week wait for them. They offered a display model which they claim has been out for 6 days but i couldn't take the risk getting it. I didn't want to wait that long either for more stock so I canceled that and went for the Samsung LE26R72BX which was my original choice. Same price almost but from play. Will let you know what its like.

[Odc]

The difference between the Samsung's is that one has a built in freeview tuner and the other doesn't. I have a 32" one of these and I love it. Highly recommended.

[Dorza]

Originally Posted by Odc

The difference between the Samsung's is that one has a built in freeview tuner and the other doesn't. I have a 32" one of these and I love it. Highly recommended.

Yeah, if there is a D in the model towards the end then there is built in digital Freeview tuner, take note of this because if like me you don't need it you will end up paying quite a bit more for the TV. Other differences such as numbering are purely cosmetic from what I have read.

Good Info on the Samsung R7 range.

[Dorza]

Ok, so the TV turned up today . First off, I would just like to say how amazed I am with the pricing of LCD TVs today. They have come down a lot in just the last two years alone. I paid £450 for the Samsung LE26R72BX which is pretty much the same price I paid for a 17" Philips just 2 years ago, and that had £100 off from richer sounds. The specs were good for the time but nothing like the sammy.

I’ve read that many people think the build quality at this price range is a little off. Well their wrong. When I unpacked the TV I attached the table stand to it and placed it on the table then took a step back. In short it looks stunning, and is pretty sturdy. The pics on the net don’t do it enough justice. The build quality is awesome as well, there are no real cracking sounds when I move it around or apply pressure to certain parts of the frame. I couldn’t realistically expect better build quality at this price.

The one real gripe I have is that the glossy black finish will show up a lot of dab marks and dust, though this is true of any black gloss finish not just this one. I personally prefer a matt finish. I also have the impression that the gloss finish will mark easily, so care needs to be taken when moving it around. One final thing about the appearance is that “Samsung” is painted on the front not embossed on like a plaque. This brings the quality down a tad when you really look at it, but again I am not going to complain and I am probably being picky again given the price.

I've connected my sky+ box to the RGB scart connector after reading some posts on avforums.com. The picture quality is pretty crap when you first turn it on, but after an hour or so I have finally found settings that produce a pretty good picture for my liking particularly when viewed from 5+ feet away. I found that turning the contrast of my Sky+ box from High to Low made a big positive difference. Close up its not a breathtaking picture but given that I am sympathetic to the whole upscaling milarky and the nature of LCDs I am happy with the overall picture even at less than 5ft away. At 5+ feet away you can't see any pixilation so its a good picture at this sort of range. From this I would say this TV handles Standard Definition pretty well. I personally am not expecting much more though I do need to change my scart lead to a better one, so I may get a picture that’s even more if only slightly better.

I haven’t got any HD content to test on the screen (which is a good excuse for me to now get a 360) but DVDs look superb. I stuck Over the Hedge on since it has a lot of contrasting colours like many cartoon CGI movies and I have to say I was impressed with the image, it’s very good. Though there is one thing that’s ticking me off a bit right now and it’s when the screen automatically adjusts the brightness of backlight depending on what sort of lighting is present on the video feed. Over the Hedge has many dark, to semi-dark scenes at the start and I can just see the backlight flicking the brightness up and down to match the video. Its annoying and I haven’t found a way of turning it off yet. Other than this I can’t fault it. There’s no noticeable motion blur either which is good and blacks are actually very good.

Sound as I knew isn’t earth shattering, but it isn’t half bad either. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with the sound for bedroom purposes, though if the TV is going in a big room like a living room then the TV could sound a bit flat given that the two speakers are only 5 Watt iirc. Just to note I think the Sharp in my first post has 10 watt speakers.

As a complete unit I am happy with the purchase, it handles SD broadcasting as good as I can expect with this size of screen and is constructed well. It takes a lot of fiddling with the settings to get a picture that you like. Despite me being happy with the picture I will probably tweak the settings over the next few days as lighting conditions in my room change.

I really feel though that this TV deserves a HD broadcast (and I don’t mean from a console) to really shine and make an impact. I’ll look forward to the day when I can finally do this. For now though I will make do with SD which is perfectly viewable on this TV.

PS. If anyone gets this TV and wants to key it to their Sky remote then the code to use is 646 which I think is a general code for Samsung TVs. I would imagine that the other models in the R7 range especially those with no Freeview tuner built in make use of this code also.

Sorry about the long post.

[k0nigen]

Agreed that the 26" Samsung is a good TV
Fantastically crisp and clear if you connect a PC to it through VGA @ 1360x768

[djwhizzkidd]

Sounds like you need to turn off Dynamic Contrast or the auto brightness detection thing.

Its in the menu somewhere, I have the same thing on my Samsung LCD.

[Dorza]

Originally Posted by k0nigen

Agreed that the 26" Samsung is a good TV
Fantastically crisp and clear if you connect a PC to it through VGA @ 1360x768

Yeah, PC use is just awesome I have to say. After having this for about a week now and changing to a thor scart lead, I think the picture is better than what i made out in the post above. If its tweaked correctly you really can hit a great picture just from SD stuff.

Originally Posted by djwhizzkidd

Sounds like you need to turn off Dynamic Contrast or the auto brightness detection thing.

Its in the menu somewhere, I have the same thing on my Samsung LCD.

Ah ok thanks for that; I'll have a look.