55" TVs

[timwhit]

I'm going to buy a 55" TV for my living room. I don't care about 3D or smart TV, but would like to get something decent without spending a lot of money.

I found the Samsung UN55EH6000 55-Inch for less than $900 and would like to get opinions on it.

I have my HTPC connected to it, so it's used as a computer about 2/3 of the time and for watching TV 1/3 of the time.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm pretty much buying Samsung TVs exclusively at this point. Not the best picture quality, and not the best price, but out of two dozen so far not one has gone wrong. I can't say the same for LG or Panasonic.

 

[timwhit]

Any reason not to buy the one I linked?

 

[ddrueding]

Nope. The 6000 is a nice resting point WRT price/features.

 

[timwhit]

Nope. The 6000 is a nice resting point WRT price/features.

Thanks, Dave. Any other opinions from others that know more about current TVs than me?

 

[timwhit]

I am going to wait 4 more days before I order it, as I like to get it on my next CC statement.

 

[Handruin]

I'll confirm when I get home but I believe I researched this similar TV for my mother in law but in the 46" size right after this past xmas. If it is, I thought it was a great TV for the money. The first one we got from Amazon and it came with huge banding lines at the top but I believe it was due to damage. The second one had no display issues. After tuning the colors, contrast, etc the TV worked great. It was perfect for her because she wasn't going to use the smart TV features anyway so no point in paying for them. I believe this TV also has full grid LED back-lighting rather than on the edge, but I need to first confirm hers was the one in the EH6000 series like this one.

 

[Clocker]

I have the 50" version of the Panasonic TC-P55ST50. It gets really good reviews and I can say I really love mine. Really love the built in ability to play movies I download via ethernet (or wireless but wired works better for 12GB Blu-ray MKV's).

 

[jtr1962]

Any reason not to buy the one I linked?

None that I can think of. Usually the first three things I would look for are 1080p, LED backlighting, and 120+ refresh rate (in that order). Everything else, like ability to read SD cards or USB drives, more HDMI ports, and so forth depends upon what you'll be doing with the TV. As for 3D, either it's important to you or it isn't, and you said it isn't. Personally, I don't think 3D will really come into its own until 2160p is mainstream. IIRC, 3D halves the effective resolution, meaning you're more or less back to SDTV with a 1080P set.

 

[timwhit]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I plan to order this in a few days.

 

[timwhit]

I have the 50" version of the Panasonic TC-P55ST50. It gets really good reviews and I can say I really love mine. Really love the built in ability to play movies I download via ethernet (or wireless but wired works better for 12GB Blu-ray MKV's).

I am steering clear of plasma, the weight, power consumption, and possible burn-in issues are too much for me.

 

[Handruin]

I am steering clear of plasma, the weight, power consumption, and possible burn-in issues are too much for me.

Having a 50" plasma I concur on the weight aspect. The 46" LED LCD was easy to pickup by myself and move around wherever it was needed. Due to the size and weight of my plasma I can't safely pickup my own TV without risking damaging it. I've never noticed any real issue with extra power consumption though. It does consume more, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as people make it out to be. I also have no burn-in on my TV and I've been fairly lax on worrying about it.

Random but somewhat relevant to TVs...I entered the service menu on my TV the other day which gives you all sorts of stats, parameters, etc for troubleshooting the TV. One of them was interesting in that it records the number of powered-on hours for my set. I was just shy of 5,000 hours on my plasma last I checked (which is also a Samsung). I bought it in Nov 2007.

 

[Mercutio]

Do you have a way to get smart TV-like features in your living room?

Samsung Smart TVs actually have built in Plex support, but I've found myself showing people stuff on Youtube/Flickr/Picasa stuff in their living rooms all the time. I don't know if that's something that's in your life, but if it's burdensome to have a real computer hooked up, getting a decent internet experience on a big screen is definitely a big plus for these devices.

For what it's worth, I've been tempted by recent Vizio sets. Sam's Club had the 65" Vizio Smart TV down to $950 a few weeks ago. It looked good enough and was cheap enough for me to set aside any misgivings I might've had about the brand, but as it turns out the space I have for a TV isn't quite large enough for a 65" TV, so I'm glad I didn't buy it.

 

[Howell]

Tim, I would get a Samsung as my next just to see if the polish is as good as I think it is. Of course you don't care about more of the things I'm having problems with.

I've had some strange problems with my Vizio. Wireless connections that are weak, apps that crash, going dark at random times requiring an on/off. Except for the weak wireless it's not so bad that its more than annoying but my Mac using wife is used to a bit more polish.

Supposedly, this year's Vizios will switch over to Android to run the smart part.

 

[timwhit]

I have a computer running Xubuntu hooked up to my TV now. I am posting this message from it.

 

[Mercutio]

Except for the weak wireless it's not so bad

I have yet to find any consumer electronics that offer legitimately good experience over 802.11. I think in part that might be because we ask those devices to stream video, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for 802.11 in the first place, but also that the devices are seldom in a place where they're going to get a decent signal, being more or less surrounded by metal, dense wood and crap-tons of other 2.4GHz sources.

 

[Howell]

I have yet to find any consumer electronics that offer legitimately good experience over 802.11. I think in part that might be because we ask those devices to stream video, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for 802.11 in the first place, but also that the devices are seldom in a place where they're going to get a decent signal, being more or less surrounded by metal, dense wood and crap-tons of other 2.4GHz sources.

Except that maybe the consumer electronics companies cheap out on antennas I don't see why it would be so much worse than a laptop. I'm having trouble with about 15' of unobstructed space. It could be my router setup I suppose but I haven't had the time to invest in what settings might be at fault. In general what is considered a marginal number of signals? I occasionally have one or two SSIDs on my hard-coded channel with 10-15 db seperation.

 

[Mercutio]

It's the "cheap out" one. My offices only have the APs that I've set up and authorized in range. In 2.4GHz that means that there is ALWAYS strong signal everywhere in the building (well, unless I close the door to the bank vault, but that would be silly). Regardless, my Boxee and Roku and the couple AppleTV units we have, which all have 802.11n support and purport to connect at 150Mbit, have trouble maintaining stutter free 720p video streams from about two feet of open air from the AP.

I didn't find any significant improvement for using any particular brand of AP or channel configuration, including an Airport Extreme and a couple different "300Mbit" access points.

I also know there's a HUGE difference between my Thinkpad's 802.11 reception and my co-worker's crummy but brand new $350 Compaq notebook, so it wouldn't surprise me at all that antenna design could have a lot to do with it.

 

[Howell]

It makes one wish for an antenna mod or other cheap solution. I'll start another thread about it.

 

[Mercutio]

Homeplug isn't the cheapest thing in the world, but it fixes crappy 802..11 pretty well.

 

[timwhit]

Homeplug isn't the cheapest thing in the world, but it fixes crappy 802..11 pretty well.

It didn't work worth a damn for me.

 

[timwhit]

I ordered the TV on Sunday. The price dropped a $100 also, so that's a nice bonus. It's supposed to be delivered Thursday.

 

[timwhit]

I got the TV today. I am happy with it. The size and image quality meet my expectations.

 

[Handruin]

Congrats on the TV. I hope it serves you well.

 

[time]

Can't get Timwhit's Samsung for love or money (discontinued).

Currently, the only reasonably priced 55" I can find is Sony KDL55EX630. I just ordered two of them for AU$910 each + tax. Before I pay, does anyone have an opinion?

 

[Mercutio]

Are you looking at value brands at all? I bought Vizio 60" TVs for a couple of my classrooms and I've been really happy with them.

 

[time]

Unfortunately, Vizio isn't sold here. There are lesser brands but they're usually crappy and service is questionable. We're pretty much limited to LG, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba. When I called the largest electrical goods retailer, the cheapest they had was $2000 (including 10% tax)!

The only alternatives I could find was an LG 50" plasma for about $150 less, or the Sony 60" for $400 more.