New TV time

Yeah, new TV time. Question is .... what?

First, not looking for a huge screen. Not that I object in principle but, it has to fit in among existing wall-mounted furniture which, if I go much above 50" (and maybe even not quite that) is going to mean moving that stuff, which is a whole nightmare of its own, will require redecorating that wall, and knowng how the Mrs thinks (same as me, TBH) is going go mean redecorating the whole damn room. Not going there.

So, 48"? Maybe even under.

Budget? Well, I can get a 48" LG C1 OLED at about £900-£1000 and that is sure good enough. So, top-end = that.

But is it worth it?

What about Samsung? Panasonic? Sony even?

Or, is it better value to get most of the quality at about half the price and just not go OLED?

I thought I was out of touch wih PC's, then I started looking at TV tech and, well, comparatively, I'm a PC H'expert. Which tells you a LOT about what I know of modern TV's. :(

Oh, and the wife is more of a TV watcher than me. It might get a bit of gaming use too but, really, is no sort of a priority.

Thoughts? Pointers? Hints? Warnings? Boobytraps?

TIA.

Just check whether the TV has proper 4K HDR support for all formats.

I have a couple of OLED tellies and would not go back. I also really rate webOS (LG's operating system), it's simple enough for my kids and wife to use, but it also does all the main apps to stream stuff.

One thing you might want to be aware of is that any modern TV will phone home, so you might want to slap in a pihole or similar if you're not streaming etc. I know you love a good tinfoil hat.

doesn't oled get screen burn-in after 18 months?

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Originally Posted by ik9000

doesn't oled get screen burn-in after 18 months?

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That's a hell of a lot of screen time!

I've had a plasma for the last 10 years, which are meant to be notorious for it. Now I can just about see a shadow of the TV guide layout when the TV is not warmed up, which soon goes away. OLED should be far better than plasma in that (and many other) regard!

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Originally Posted by ik9000

doesn't oled get screen burn-in after 18 months?

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Linus (@LTT) did a video about that very recently and his conclusion, IIRC, was .... well,yeah but it's much more of a problem if you're using it as a daily-driver computer monitor, and that, sure, it can happen on TVs but there are anti-burn precautions to be enabled and/or used. And technically, apparently, it isn't "burn", in the old CRT sense, but more that OLED pixels slowly degrade during use, and that static areas (like logo's, etc) can degrade at a slower rate than the constantly varying bits of the screen, so can show up.

He didn't seem to regard it as a major problem on TVs, but in monitor terms, well, yeah.

Modern tvs are so clunky to use. That's why streaming boxes are still selling.

I would be inclined to a cheap 40" set and supplement it with a streaming box.

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Originally Posted by pp05

I would be inclined to a cheap 40" set and supplement it with a streaming box.

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The thing is, you seem to be largely paying for the screen quality, number of HDMI inputs, and a bit for the speakers. Smart features are pretty much thrown in for free these days, hence you can get a sizable 4K smart 47" TV from Tesco for a few hundred. The smart features will probably be fine (at first at least), but the screen will always be a bit meh, and using streaming boxes is all very well but you only get two HDMI inputs on a cheap telly and only one can be 4K.

I paid a small fortune for my living room Samsung some 20 years ago, and although 1080p with LED backlight (leading edge on both counts at the time) are nothing special these days it is still a really nice picture quality. The primitive Smart TV features are no longer usable in the slightest, but it has plenty of inputs for consoles, Chromecast, Freesat etc.

Avoid Samsung if you had any intention of giving it network access. As mentioned by b0redom/pp05 keep it dumb and plug your own inputs into it (although buying a non smart TV seems difficult these days)

As for recommendations, sorry I have none, my budget buy (Hisense) was a big mistake...

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Originally Posted by ik9000

doesn't oled get screen burn-in after 18 months?

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Nope. Our living room TV is a 55ef950v which is 5+ years old. I was considering replacing it because we’re having our living room taken back to plaster and redone, and for some reason it doesn’t fit a standard VESA mount, but I’ve decided to keep it as the picture is absolutely stellar still.

I’ve got a 65” Oled in my man cave which is slightly newer, and I’ve got no burn in on that either. I don’t use either as a monitor though.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

So, 48"? Maybe even under.

Budget? Well, I can get a 48" LG C1 OLED at about £900-£1000 and that is sure good enough. So, top-end = that.

But is it worth it?

What about Samsung? Panasonic? Sony even?

Or, is it better value to get most of the quality at about half the price and just not go OLED?

I thought I was out of touch wih PC's, then I started looking at TV tech and, well, comparatively, I'm a PC H'expert. Which tells you a LOT about what I know of modern TV's. :(

Oh, and the wife is more of a TV watcher than me. It might get a bit of gaming use too but, really, is no sort of a priority.

Thoughts? Pointers? Hints? Warnings? Boobytraps?

TIA.

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Funnily enough, I bought an LG-OLED48A16LA (48" OLED) TV just a couple of weeks ago. I got it for £729 with a 6 year warranty from Richer Sounds (damn you Hotukdeals!). And in short, I absolutely love it! Now, there are few things to know about the model I bought: firstly, it's a step down from the 'flagship' 48" LG OLED, the OLED48C14LB. The latter has a 120Hz panel, whereas mine is 60Hz, and consequently the OLED48A16LA only has HDMI 2.0b ports, whereas the OLED48C14LB has HDMI 2.1. The 120Hz panel is really only an advantage if you plan to play PC or console games on it. My TV is also less bright than the OLED48C14LB, which may be more of an issue, especially if your tv is located in a brightly lit room. Personally the brightness is fine for me, it's only set at 50%, but I guess that is just a personal preference.

The picture quality of OLED TVs actually gets a bit of getting used to. The black level is of course, incredible. Blacks really are just that, instead of milky-grey as they are on my old plasma tv. Watching films though, can look...different. It's hard to explain, but it is unlike any other tv I've seen, and most of the films I've watched have been at 1080p. Watching sample 4K videos on Youtube is really quite incredible, the colour & detail is just unlike anything else I've seen. I don't have equipment to do proper calibration unfortunately, but to my eyes the reds were a bit over saturated on my tv, but that was easily fixed.

By flat panel tv standards, the sound from the internal speakers is actually not too bad. Certainly not horrible, as it was on my previous cheap Samsung LCD TV. Obviously, the bass is not great, but when you look at the thinness of the tv, it's actually quite amazing.

So...many reviews comparing the two LG OLED 48" TVs are saying go for the OLED48C14LB, but at £999, I couldn't really justify the price difference, particularly as I play PC games on a 165Hz monitor anyway. If you need any further info, feel free to ask away :)

Edit!

Of course with Black Friday coming up, you might find even better deals on offer...

Even if you don't intend to use a pihole to stop the built in ads/telemetry you may still be interested in which brand dies more of it. In which case the following github blocklist for all the big tv companies shows how many domains need to be blocked for each. The more domains, the more ads/telemetry.

Tl:dr= if you value privacy don't buy Samsung.

https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBl...er/SmartTV.txt

Thanks, all.

@MrJim .... as i understand it, the C1 isn't the flagship. i think that goes to the G1, though that might start at 55". Also, at about £1600, Not doing that.

Re: PP05 et.al on the streaming box ..... yup, got an nVidia Shield Pro sitting here ready, and i run Emby on a 48TB NAS with, among other things, my growing digitised collection of content. Not sure about switching to Plex, but a net connection is why I didn't do that.

So yup, looking for mainly iamge quality from the set, and perhaps, a matching sound bar.

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Originally Posted by spacein_vader

Even if you don't intend to use a pihole to stop the built in ads/telemetry you may still be interested in which brand dies more of it. In which case the following github blocklist for all the big tv companies shows how many domains need to be blocked for each. The more domains, the more ads/telemetry.

Tl:dr= if you value privacy don't buy Samsung.

https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBl...er/SmartTV.txt

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Current set = Samsung. Never, ever gave it a net connection. Also, about three years in, the lower half backlighting died. Repaired under warranty. After warranty ran out, backlighting (lower half) died again. I'd want to be sure the technology had hanged before risking that again. It's part of why I started looking at OLED.

Mate of mine knows more about TVs than me (which most of the population do, to be fair, but he really geeks out over it) was debating Sammy Vs LG...
The shop guys in Richer Sounds happily let him play around with the settings on both and were delighted to have someone else to geek out with. He went LG in the endn (bought a C9, I think it was), as it was just a smidge better looking, and because Sammy don't usually issue software updates... they just shuffle all that stuff over to the next model.

IMO, HDR is WAY more noticeable than 4k. First time I watched StarTrek Discovery in HDR was eye popping, the background space was absolutely black so the ships, explosions etc looked way brighter.

There isn't a better TV than the C1 at that price range is 50" is actually the main limiter.

Given how cheap the C1 is as well, I would not bother with the A1/B1 due to the aforementioned lack of HDMI 2.1 support and a lesser quality, lower refresh panel. The 120Hz panel is still useful even if you don't play game, as it allows 120Hz BFI for incredible motion.

Sony are having a torrid time as far as F/W is concerned currently including botched VRR support and the FALD system being nuked (HX90/900) in a recent firmware if you do use VRR/HDMI 2.1 functionality. A few other TV manufacturers use the same Mediatek chip as Sony including Panasonic. Models to look at: X90J, HX90, A90 (OLED).

Panasonic - go for if you can get their entry OLED at a cheap price, but LG probably gets the nod should gaming or HDMI 2.1 ever be a consideration down the line.

Samsung - decent sets if you can get a QNED display, but generally cost more than the equivalent OLED and should only real be a suggestion if you're hugely adverse to cumulative wear of OLEDs.

My actual suggestion would be to plump for the 55" C1 if you can given the relatively minimal increase in price.

Thanks, Terbinator.

I'm currently negotiating with significant other. With the lounge as currently organised, 55" won't fit. BUT .... it might be viable to switch room around, and put TV and the end seating current is, and vice versa. If that pans out, 55" is possible. If it doesn't, it isn't.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Thanks, Terbinator.

I'm urrently negotiating with significant other. With the lounge as currently organised, 55" won't fit. BUT .... it might be viable to switch room around, and put TV and the end seating current is, and vice versa. If that pans out, 55" is possible. If it doesn't, it isn't.

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In my experience such negotiations need to be very carefully approached and make Brexit look like a simple issue. Best of luck.

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Originally Posted by spacein_vader

In my experience such negotiations need to be very carefully approached and make Brexit look like a simple issue. Best of luck.

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So far, management seems amenable. At least, it wasn't a flat no, and nobody mentioned either N.I. or fishing. Or borders. I think I might go for a draft accords agreement later this week, and U.N.ratification in the New Year.

If you're watching a lot of 4k films, the C1 would be great. OLED tends to have better blacks, LED tends to go brighter (only really an issue with HDR, and then not so much). AVForums have just done a load of reviews on the latest ranges of tellies, worth a look there... Not sure if links are allowed, but happy for this to be deleted if not: https://www.avforums.com/forums/what...v-for-you.367/

48" C1 now £899 at Costco...

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/202...ign=2021-11-11

Yeah, Smudger. I noticed it a few days ago and we have one close (and are members) so are off to take a look-see (if they have them in) later on today. Besides which, I fancy a chilli baked potto. :D

Definitely LG if going with OLED, Panasonic is better but more expensive even though they use the same LG panels (or used too, not sure anymore). The 48" A1 is now £699 from Argos, however it only comes with a 1 year warranty and I know too many people that have had issues with LG panels so I'd definitely spend extra and buy from Richer Sounds for their excellent 6 year warranty. If it was my money I would go with a C1 panel, better specs & better looking and I've yet to see an LCD TV that can look as good as an OLED for TV & movies.

With regards to burn in, it's the same as with plasmas but less susceptable. Our 10 yr old Panasonic has the Sky logo faintly burnt in, in the lower left handside due to the kids & wife pausing the Sky box and then levaing it for hours on end so no wonder thats happened. However it can only be seen on white or black images, normal TV watching you hardly ever see it so it's really a non issue for me.

Decisison is made ....kinda.

The boss and I went looking at sets yesterday. The (very) likely choice is the 55" LG C1. There is an outside possibility that we go 48", but somewhat to my surprise, the boss seems to prefer the 55". We do have to do a bit of measuring and checking over the weekend (I'm told), to be sure we can accommodate it without moving a whole load of wall-mounted cabinetry about, therefore filling in drill holes, therefore paiting that wall, and therefore painting the whole room. Which, no doubt, would also necessitate new carpet. So the suite then wouldn't match. And I'm not doing all that for the sake of .... erm .... a few extra inches in size. I mean, if it fits then it, ahem .... fits.

So, 55" probably. Certainly LG and C1, unless anything comes to light between now and then to change that. So if you see some bloke, over the weekend, with his eyes screwed tightly shut and his fingers jammed in his ears, it'll be me. :D

As for Richer .... yes,but no.

My nearest Richer's are about 40 mins and 40 miles in one direction, or 25 miles and 60 to 75 mins in the other. My nearest John Lewis is about 15 minutes, and I can walk to a Costco in under 10 minutes .... though walking back carrying a 55" OLED would slow me down, so I'll use the car instead. ;)

Both JL and Costco give 5-yr warranty. I've had only good experiences of customer service from all three. Argos I personally rate above Currys, but not by much and while I'd buy mundane items (say, a standard kettle) there, more expensive stuff (like my temperature-controlled gooseneck 'pourover' coffee kettle) not so much. Let alone a TV.

Yes, I could mail-order. But I prefer to buy in person. Usually. I know consumer laws are a bit better (but not as consumer-oriented as the DSR originally was) if you mail-order, but there is also the benefit of, if it needs go back, the place is 5 mins from my door.

So, all told, hopefully, LG C1 55" on Monday. Which no doubt means they'll sell out on Sunday.

Ah, 55" opens up a whole new can of worms...

Then the Panasonics come into play, which if you go for the 1500, you get the 'Pro' panel, same as the flagship but without the Atmos audio stuff that you probably don't need if you've already got an AV setup...

Edit: Actually, maybe £1800 is a bit steep...

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Originally Posted by Smudger

....

Edit: Actually, maybe £1800 is a bit steep...

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Yup. Gotta draw the line somewhere, I'm afraid. That £700 difference represents a very good 32" monitor, or a third of my Canon R6, or if I can find out where rocking horses relieve themselve, a decent gaming GPU. Or.... well, you get the idea.

I do have an AV setup. I would have mentioned it, but I didn't want to show ,off, to make everyone envious. It's a Dolby .... Pro Logic system. Circa 1892, I think. :D

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

.... though walking back carrying a 55" OLED would slow me down, so I'll use the car instead. ;)

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Hope you have a big car. Once you get some packing around the panel, those boxes can get quite large.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Yes, I could mail-order. But I prefer to buy in person. Usually. I know consumer laws are a bit better (but not as consumer-oriented as the DSR originally was) if you mail-order, but there is also the benefit of, if it needs go back, the place is 5 mins from my door.

So, all told, hopefully, LG C1 55" on Monday. Which no doubt means they'll sell out on Sunday.

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I don't think RS, JL or Costco have a problem with buying online, but returning locally if there's a problem?

Might be worth holding off until the 26th for Black Friday deals...you never know?

Yeah, but there isn't an RS locally for me to return it to.

Black Friday deals? Maybe, but it might also risk it being out of stock. Once we've checked measurements, I think we'll just go Monday or Tusday and get it. I doubt there'll be enough of a price differencd to much care anyway, though it's possible.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Yeah, but there isn't an RS locally for me to return it to.

Black Friday deals? Maybe, but it might also risk it being out of stock. Once we've checked measurements, I think we'll just go Monday or Tusday and get it. I doubt there'll be enough of a price differencd to much care anyway, though it's possible.

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Is there a John Lewis near to you? I believe they still price-match with other high-street competitors, if RS have a better offer.

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Originally Posted by MrJim

Is there a John Lewis near to you? I believe they still price-match with other high-street competitors, if RS have a better offer.

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As per earlier post, yeah .... -ish.

JL = about 15 mins, by car.
Costco = 10 mins, by foot.

Which, other factors being equal, is why I'd use one or the other, for preference..

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

Snip...

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Seems like JL is the choice then, but, if you longer-term warranty is of importance to you I believe RS is 6 years if you're part of their free sign up VIP club?

Completely anecdotal - from comments i've seen across multiple forums as well, LG seem to step up if there are any issues with some folk even getting complete model upgrades years in to their warranty. YMMV of course.

I now have a 55" LG C1, courtesy of Costco. At the princely sum of £1080, it was £120 cheaper than either JL or Richer, too. Once I get it out of the box, I'll comment on what I think, but gotta do some room tidying first.

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

I now have a 55" LG C1, courtesy of Costco. At the princely sum of £1080, it was £120 cheaper than either JL or Richer, too. Once I get it out of the box, I'll comment on what I think, but gotta do some room tidying first.

Thanks for all the help, everyone.

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Good choice, especially with the 5yr warranty. Just remember that it may be set store settings for brightness contrast & colour so they may need changing to less retina searing settings, otherwise you may be initially disappointed. There's usually an ISF calibrated setting that you can choose in the options that'll get you 90% of the way there though.

Good toknow. ?thanks, Jim.

Hey I just got a graphics card upgrade and was looking at a 4K OLED for gaming, just wanted to know how you're find the C1.

thread hijack! How are you getting on with the TV saracen? And does anyone know decent independent review sites that actually do sensible testing? Even Which is anaemic compared to what it used to be. What hifi has the worst site ever, and it seems increasingly poor to search through so I've given up.

I am bamboozled with how different the TV landscape is vs when I last looked for one back in what? 2008?

Which says LG OLED48C14LB does well which ties in with some of the comments further back in this thread. I was going to ask how you find your model in the real world but then saw you went 55" so it might not be a direct comparison. We really only want 38" (don't exist) and anything <43" seems fundamentally flawed. We can't be the only people with a small house surely? :wallbash:

Check out AVForums for good reviews.

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Originally Posted by ik9000

thread hijack! How are you getting on with the TV saracen? ...

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Very well, with no real complaints. Well, maybe one. The control interface is a bit, well, let's just say on that, LG "could try harder".

Other than that, no complaints. Yet.

As for size, in some ways it's really too big. But in others, the logic was that as we (especially me) get older our eyes get weaker. And then, the larget size is a plus.

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Originally Posted by ik9000

thread hijack! How are you getting on with the TV saracen? And does anyone know decent independent review sites that actually do sensible testing? Even Which is anaemic compared to what it used to be. What hifi has the worst site ever, and it seems increasingly poor to search through so I've given up.

I am bamboozled with how different the TV landscape is vs when I last looked for one back in what? 2008?

Which says LG OLED48C14LB does well which ties in with some of the comments further back in this thread. I was going to ask how you find your model in the real world but then saw you went 55" so it might not be a direct comparison. We really only want 38" (don't exist) and anything <43" seems fundamentally flawed. We can't be the only people with a small house surely? :wallbash:

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https://www.rtings.com/ any good for you ?

Finding a good small screen is pretty tricky.

I needed a 4K TV for my home office which needed to hang on a smallish corner in the room where my old 24" TV went. I ended up with this 32" screen:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/sa...-10219651.html

which is a bit oddball because it kind of behaves just like a TV, except it has no tuner inputs. But then, the last time I watched live TV was the New Year's special Doctor Who episode and that was via a Freesat set top box so was actually still an HDMI feed. It's a nice screen and a good price, but it isn't OLED. But then my main requirement was for it to accept everything I could throw at it, all the way down to 525i SD formats which it does nicely.

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Originally Posted by ik9000

thread hijack! How are you getting on with the TV saracen? And does anyone know decent independent review sites that actually do sensible testing? Even Which is anaemic compared to what it used to be. What hifi has the worst site ever, and it seems increasingly poor to search through so I've given up.

I am bamboozled with how different the TV landscape is vs when I last looked for one back in what? 2008?

Which says LG OLED48C14LB does well which ties in with some of the comments further back in this thread. I was going to ask how you find your model in the real world but then saw you went 55" so it might not be a direct comparison. We really only want 38" (don't exist) and anything <43" seems fundamentally flawed. We can't be the only people with a small house surely? :wallbash:

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LG are due to release a 42" panel OLED this year apparently...

https://www.rtings.com/tv

I've not checked their TV reviews but their monitor reviews are spot on for me!

I know I'm bumping an oldish thread, but just wanted to emphasis avoid Samsung! I have two, and Dad has one, and all are noticably slower year by year when it comes to app usage.

No amount of resets properly corrects it, but I'll never buy another Samsung again!

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Originally Posted by Andeh13

I know I'm bumping an oldish thread, but just wanted to emphasis avoid Samsung! I have two, and Dad has one, and all are noticably slower year by year when it comes to app usage.

No amount of resets properly corrects it, but I'll never buy another Samsung again!

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They are also awful for the amount of stuff pinging out as telemetry. Take a look at pi hole lists and the amount of different Samsung blocks required is crazy compared to other brands