New TV
 

I will soon be in the market for a new tv. It's been almost 10 years since I got the one I have, so there weren't a lot of choices. Now there are so many choices, I have no idea what to get. There are a lot more brands, LED, LCD, Plasma, pixels. I mean, I don't even know what size to get! Do I need HDMI connections? I need to be able to connect the VCR and Xbox - is that the same thing? Does brand count?

Anyone have any suggestions? I am hoping to keep it around 300.00

That right there will pretty much limit your choices.

Try starting here.

We bought a 32" 720p LCD HDTV for $330 last Christmas and we are pretty happy with it. The key to that is our livingroom is pretty small.

At that price range you will find you have the choice of a bunch of LCD tvs in the 24" to 26" range made by big name manufacturers, and there will be one or two sets in the 32" range made by discount tv manufacturers. Don't buy anything made by Coby. In my experience they suck. I understand some people think Dynex is just fine, and I've used some Dynex tvs in hotel rooms and they were perfectly OK, so you might consider them.

Popdigr has had pretty good luck with his 42" Proscan. Three yrs old, no problems. Nevermind 720, go 1080 if ya can.

Once you go over 32 inches, then the 1080 is important, but if you are keeping the screen size small and the room isn't large, spending the extra for it is a waste.

The only complaints I have about mine are movement blur and dark picture funkiness, but I really don't notice them all that much anymore.

If you're watching a 1080 broadcast on a 720 tv, (regardless of screen size) you're only seeing 3/4 of the available quality, are you not?

I may be misunderstanding. I've misunderstood before.

The difference isn't as noticeable on a smaller screen.

The best offers are the week before the Superbowl if you can hang on....

Good point. And if you can save up another $150 before then, you will get into another league of TVs. $450 will get you solidly into the 32" class of tvs manufactured by the major companies. You could get a very nice tv for $450.

As far as the cables go, you should worry about how you connect the stuff you own now. That's probably a standard coaxial cable for the VCR, and component cables for the video game. HDMI cables are going to be what you use to connect to anything you buy in the future, like a blue ray player. Any tv on the market today will accept a coaxial cable and component cables and also have a HDMI input or two.

Interesting that you have a VCR. You must have cable service? The tuner in a VCR won't work for over the air tv signals anymore. If you have cable service and you are able to pass the signal through the VCR, then that means you don't have any high resolution content, and the resolution of the set doesn't matter.

It will if there is also a dvd player connected.

you mean a Blu Ray player. DVDs are only 480p.

Right.

I hate to say it but there are great TV prices at w*lmart.

betterer at Sams

I've never even heard of most of those brands.

I like LCD over plasma to rule out screen burn.

IMHO, picture quality is good enough on even the basic models to not worry about it. There is no need for 100 hertz updating when human eyes refresh at barely 1/4 that rate.

One major aspect of functionality which isn't compared is, well, functionality. How long after you turn it on does it start showing pictures? How long does it take to change from one channel to another? Do you need to tune to every channel before you can use the menu function to see what is on? These are things which have disappointed me about my current set and which I could have checked in the store but didn't.