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Buying a television or other stuff - sales are coming!


Fragile Bird

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I’ve been meaning to buy a new television over the past 5 or 6 years, but I just couldn’t justify ditching my old Toshiba when the picture was so beautiful on my 16 year-old set. It’s finally on it’s last legs and I plan to get a new one in the next week or two, as stores here imitate Black Friday sales.

I think I even opened a thread, but a search didn’t bring it up.

I did all the research five years ago about what to buy, but I’m certain lots has changed since then. I expect to spend $500 or less, I think. I assume this tv won’t last 16 years, lol. My tv is 32” and I guess I want something a little bigger, but not much, maybe 40”. My living room is small.

There is a reasonably priced Hisense at Costco. Is it safe to buy at Costco now? Should I buy the extended warranty?

Feel free, folks, to ask questions about other similar stuff. The hive mind knows the answer!

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Do you have Best Buy in Canada?  Can get interest free financing for 2 years on TVs and appliances.  I got a much nicer TV last year than I was planning to buy because of it, which is probably the point of the offer, but it’s a good guilt free way to get something at or near the top of the line as long as you are savvy enough to pay reliably and more than the minimums.  Mines paid off now and will probably last me a good 10 years.  Lots of stuff on Netflix in 4K and it looks great.  

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1 minute ago, S John said:

Do you have Best Buy in Canada?  Can get interest free financing for 2 years on TVs and appliances.  I got a much nicer TV last year than I was planning to buy because of it, which is probably the point of the offer, but it’s a good guilt free way to get something at or near the top of the line as long as you are savvy enough to pay reliably and more than the minimums.  Mines paid off now and will probably last me a good 10 years.  Lots of stuff on Netflix in 4K and it looks great.  

Yes, we do. I need to make the rounds.

What did you get?

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You can buy Samsung TVs on Amazon at very reasonable prices.  We've had two for a few years and have enjoyed them, although we're not the kind of people who obsess over technical specifications so I don't know how they compare to other brands.

I'm not familiar with Hisense but there are so many reviews available now to compare brands.  TVs have become commodities within reasonably well defined categories.

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I don't know much about Hisense in terms of reliability or quality but it's certainly toward the "no name brand" end of things. Which is just fine, particularly if it's smaller. One thing that's changed in the last few years is that a lot of brands are simply licensed to various manufacturers, e.g. Toshiba isn't actually made by Toshiba, and the same holds for everything from RCA to Panasonic to Sharp. Samsung, Sony, and LG are the exceptions to this trend (for now), and tend to have the highest Consumer Reports ratings. They also tend to be the priciest. 

Other issues are whether you want an internet-enabled TV, how many HDMI ports you need, expectations for sound quality, etc. There's also the jargon of all the "4K" "HDR" "UHD" "OLED" business that's kinda impenetrable. There will be some semi-tangible differences amongst all the features, but it doesn't sound like they'll matter too much to you. 

I got a 50" Samsung in the summer from Best Buy which I'm really happy with. It's internet-enabled and Samsung's interface is very easy to navigate. Price was very very reasonable and shipping was free. Wall mounting was fairly awful as an experience. So beware that. But it's a great TV and I saved a lot by not going up to a 55". 

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Not to take all of the fun out of it, but if you get a smart TV, might want to look into the data collection that might come with it.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476476,00.asp

https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/

 

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7 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’ve been meaning to buy a new television over the past 5 or 6 years, but I just couldn’t justify ditching my old Toshiba when the picture was so beautiful on my 16 year-old set. It’s finally on it’s last legs and I plan to get a new one in the next week or two, as stores here imitate Black Friday sales.

I think I even opened a thread, but a search didn’t bring it up.

I did all the research five years ago about what to buy, but I’m certain lots has changed since then. I expect to spend $500 or less, I think. I assume this tv won’t last 16 years, lol. My tv is 32” and I guess I want something a little bigger, but not much, maybe 40”. My living room is small.

There is a reasonably priced Hisense at Costco. Is it safe to buy at Costco now? Should I buy the extended warranty?

Feel free, folks, to ask questions about other similar stuff. The hive mind knows the answer!

 

Things have changed quite a bit in five years, I bought my first nice TV seven years ago, and other than having to replace the circuit boards it's still going strong. We moved to a new place last year and broke down and finally got a second TV, so I did all the research last year.

Number one rule is "test drive" try and see the models you're interested in action at the store. Don't necessarily trust it, because all the TVs are set to "torch mode" for stores and you're looking under all those banks of florescent lights, but what you can trust is how it looks in person, do you like the aesthetics.

And the other thing you can actually judge in person is REFLECTIVITY, almost all the TVs are cheap LEDs now, and LEDs are much more reflective than the TV options you had five years ago. A lot of the cheapest TVs are extremely reflective, and that can be an incredible irritant depending on the circumstances in your home's viewing environment. I judged it by not just looking at the TV straight on (most of them are built to minimize straight on reflections), but by looking from the side as well, since we have an L shaped couch, sometimes one will be looking at it from an angle.

Some of the review sites actually have neat little GIFS that indicate the reflectiveness of the TVs they're reviewing as well.

Pretty much every single review site is going to highly, highly recommend the TCL TVs with Roku, they perform great in all testing environments everyone agrees, and they are INCREDIBLY affordable, Walmart is selling a 65" TCL for under $400 on black friday. I strongly wanted to get one for our new TV, but I was overruled because my wife didn't like the aesthetics of how it looked (cheap and kind of plasticy in the bezel and build), and because it actually looked awful in person in the store (which may just mean it wasn't in torch mode) relative to every other TV on display.  

All that is to say that the TCL is probably a terrific TV, but you'll probably have to look up some calibration settings and set up the TV yourself as it's not going display as nice a picture out of the box  as a Sony might. 

Second, sizes are different now, mainly because the bezels are so much thinner, sometimes down to a centimeter or less.  five years ago, the bezels were 4cm or wider, Older TVS have even wider bezels. What's that mean? it means that a 65" TV with a modern thin bezel is almost the same dimensions as my seven year old 55" TV.

So if you have an older TV, you might want to actually consider a larger TV than you think you need, because your eye is going to perceive the space occupied by the TV, not the overall diagonal of the screen: So if you have a 32" old TV, a modern bezel TV will have a smaller length and smaller height even though the screen dimensions are the same, and it will appear to you that the TV is significantly smaller. Likewise if you go up a size to 40" a modern TV may only appear to occupy about the same space as your old 32" and will not seem larger.

I looked up the length and width of the models I was interested in, and then used masking tape on our wall to create an outline of how big the TV sizes would be on the wall. It was really helpful to actually visualize what size was right for the area, rather than going too big or too small. a 46" was too small and a 55" was too big, so we were able figure out that a 49" or 50" was what we needed.

Pretty much every TV is a smart TV as well, the Sony we bought is an "Android" TV, meaning it runs the Android app store just like a phone would, and it came pre-installed with google play and netflix (and buttons on the remote to access both) to handle the most common streaming needs. Some TVs will come with Roku or a similar streaming platform. They're all way better than the garbage proprietary streaming interface our seven year old panasonic came with.

Because streaming is so dominant, you may not need as many HDMI inputs as you may have needed a few years ago, if you've discarded any devices in lieu of streaming, you probably do not need to upcharge yourself to a model with excess HDMI inputs. And if any streaming devices you currently use are made redundant by having the device built into the TV (such as a Roku), you no longer have to account for an input there.

One thing to consider is whether or not you have ethernet access to your TV area, as that will give you the best streaming performance, if not, no worry, as neither of our TVs do and they seem to stream fine just on regular wifi, the video quality is just inconsistent, but not often is it downright horrible.

4K is four times the resolution of HD, very little content is produced in 4K, and if you're streaming, you probably do not have adequate internet service to really take advantage of 4K. you also generally can't see any difference, though like a retina display on an iphone you can "see" the difference. 

HDR is an expanded color gamut so that it displays trillions of gazillions of colors instead of mere billions. believe it or not, this is actually measurable that most people perceive a big difference, and generally they seem to love the look. In general 4k and HDR go hand in hand. I would get the HDR if it's a model up because buying a 4K TV without the HDR is just buying the sizzle without buying the steak. But you also would probably be perfectly fine with just HD but the prices for 4K and HDR have come down so much.

OLED is the latest super fancy type of techno gizmo gee whizzery that has people who love spending 9 grand on a TV all full of braggadocio. It looks amazing, it is stupidly expensive. 

2 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

I blush to admit this, but we still have a friggin', ugly-ass big box TV that refuses to die, and my SO won't replace it until it dies.  At this rate, it'll outlive us

I hates it and wishes it wasn't. 

There's this movie, A Christmas Story there's a solution to your problem, more or less, in a famous scene from that film. :-D

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2 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

I blush to admit this, but we still have a friggin', ugly-ass big box TV that refuses to die, and my SO won't replace it until it dies.  At this rate, it'll outlive us

I hates it and wishes it wasn't. 

Smash it, smash it, smash it. 

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7 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

I blush to admit this, but we still have a friggin', ugly-ass big box TV that refuses to die, and my SO won't replace it until it dies.  At this rate, it'll outlive us

I hates it and wishes it wasn't. 

That’s me! But all of a sudden the beautiful picture deteriorated. In the old days I would have called a repairman, not now, I want the giant out. And I believe the power usage is lower now.

That was very helpful, lockisnow, thanks! I know I have to do the rounds of the stores. *groans*

Aemon, I’ll take a good look at those models.

Hisense is a Chinese manufacturer of brand name TVs that decided to produce a cheaper version of it’s own. I am assuming there will be some good deals out there in view of US tariffs.

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I just remembered the concept of screen size to viewing distance. The conventional advice is distance in inches divided by 3. I just measured, and while I could be leaning back or lying down on the couch and get different measurements, the distance from my tv is currently about 95 inches, so my 32 Inch was the right size.

I foolishly (in a fit of madness, I now think) bought a cabinet to put the thing in, because it had storage drawers and shelves for the cable box and the DVD player. That piece of furniture will be gone, to be replaced by a stand, increasing the distance to about 120 inches, so a 40 or 43 Inch would be good. 50 inches will be too big. It will not be hung on a wall, the wall has a window in it, and the room configuration doesn’t really allow a different spot.

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With 4k distance less relevant. I have 58'' and it's 140'' from my viewing point, and I wish I'd gone 65''. Even HD is fine.

The expert at my local store said about hisense 'it won't be top top quality, but it's a lot of t.v. for the price'. 

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$500 is A LOT to spend on a TV these days.  I got a 50" 5 years back for under $600.  I always go to Target on Black Friday because it's walking distance and you can get a 40-50" TV anywhere from 2-400 dollars pretty easily.  I love tech, but these days I wouldn't stress about getting a great TV at a good price.

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2 hours ago, aceluby said:

$500 is A LOT to spend on a TV these days.  I got a 50" 5 years back for under $600.  I always go to Target on Black Friday because it's walking distance and you can get a 40-50" TV anywhere from 2-400 dollars pretty easily.  I love tech, but these days I wouldn't stress about getting a great TV at a good price.

Target gave up on Canada and $500 Cdn is $375 US.

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17 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Because streaming is so dominant, you may not need as many HDMI inputs as you may have needed a few years ago, if you've discarded any devices in lieu of streaming, you probably do not need to upcharge yourself to a model with excess HDMI inputs. And if any streaming devices you currently use are made redundant by having the device built into the TV (such as a Roku), you no longer have to account for an input there.

My old 32" Sony has four HDMI inputs and for the longest time I was convinced that I couldn't manage with any less (TV receiver, Blu-ray/DVD, Apple TV, Chromecast...). The new TV seems to have a strong wifi signal for stuff like Netflix and the interface is very good (similar to my PS3). It's a lot more stable than the Chromecast too. So managing ok with only three inputs! 

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Target gave up on Canada and $500 Cdn is $375 US.

Sorry, didn't realize we were talking play money :lol:

Obviously kidding, you should be able to find deals at any similar stores in your price range on black friday or cyber monday in the 40-50" range pretty easily.

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Hey Fragile Bird, You're only upgrading the visual output component of your living room entertainment/content consumption space. So a couple things to also consider;

1. Don't neglect sound. In the old days of cabinet TVs, decent audio could be achieved using the cabinet space around the CRT. When the first panel TVs came to market they were still housed in ample sized cabinets with acceptable audio. But with the continued reduction of housing space, manufacturers struggled to design-in audio which complemented the video developments - hence the emergence of soundbars (as not everyone has or wants to connect their TV to their Hi-Fi system).

Short story is that the sound from modern TV speakers is terrible. So if you don't already have one, get a sound bar to go with your TV. Even a bottom of the line sound bar would provide a better viewing experience than listening to the (often) tinny sounding TV speakers would.  

2. Where is the content coming from, and how to get it to your TV for optimal display? Once you are satisfied with the panel performance of a prospective TV, check out the input panel (or have the salesperson demonstrate to you) to make sure it's inputs have the latest firmware version for today's (and the foreseeable future's) technologies.    

Think of firmware version as you would the year of manufacture for a line of car. 'Toyota Corolla' doesn't tell you much about its specification. But hear '2017 Toyota Corolla' and '2000 Toyota Corolla', and you can infer which one doesn't have a USB port for connecting devices.   

HDMI ports: Ver 2.1 is the latest, make sure at least ONE HDMI port is this standard (some lesser known brands may have multiple HDMI ports with only one being ver 2.1 and the others ver 2.0a/b). You shouldn't come across any, but if you see any HDMI port which is anything less than ver 2.0, walk away. Look to have at least 2-4 HDMI ports for your devices (Set-top box, Bluray/DVD player etc.).

USB ports: Ver 3.x is nice to have but you might only see ver 2.0, which is OK. Good to have at least 2 ports imho. Use for connecting external media devices or a streaming dongle (like Chromecast).  

External Antenna Input : For broadcast TV. These days it should be a digital TV tuner - suited for your market.

Audio In/Out: See 1. above.

Ethernet port or Built-in Wi-Fi: Having one or the other is a sign the TV is capable of network connectivity and would have an operating system driving the menu when you use the TV (for lesser known brands it'll probably be Android). Wi-Fi standard should be ver 802.11xx. If the TV doesn't have either of these connections then you can get streaming/casting with an optional USB dongle. 

Anther option is to pool all your content through your set-top box or bluray/DVD player - older models might not have the capability but latter models often include tuning, streaming, casting and recording features. Then you are just connecting your TV as a display device (through its optimal connection, the HDMI 2.1 port).  

There are other connections I haven't mentioned but these are the main ones to consider. And the quality of connecting cables is also important - but I'll leave that for others to comment on. 

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