This one is going cold as well, but still looks a good deal...

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/615740/full-hd-1080p-samsung-32-le32b550lc

This hot/cold thing seems so weird and people seem really anal over it. Surely all that matters is that the price is as low as you can get!

I was in tescos earlier and dropped by the tv section just to see the sizes. I think a 40" would be about right

Ye, most of the cold voters seem to not comment as well...

But ye 40" is a good size, Its what I have

Quote from: Clockd 0NeThey generally all feed off the same source in shops and what youll find is the cheaper ones look better because they have something cartoony on like Finding Nemo full of rich colours, and the TVs by default have massive contrast and are oversatured. Awesome for cartoons, not so awesome for general TV and film. The better sets are usually more reserved in picture out of the box, Id guess this is why youre seeing the cheaper sets looking better than the better sets.

Bear in mind they wont have anal staff with the knowledge, time or training to calibrate displays even if it could potentially sell more sets.

As they all do suck off the same feed later ones will not get as good a signal as earlier ones in the line, this can be the reason why some producing much worse picture than others.

Will likely be heading out tomorrow to look at some TVs with the father.

Hes pretty adamant that he doesnt want to buy from the net. Ive suggested at the least if he finds one he likes in a shop to give me a day or two to find it online and see how much cheaper it would be, at the least just so that he/we can turn around and try to get the shop to drop the price/do a deal if theres a vast difference. He does have a valid arguement regarding paying for disposal of the old TV which is pretty much a brick, and getting them to set it up, though if the shop has a big markup and we pay for delivery/installation on top he could be looking at more than £50 extra.

So, anyone got any good ammunition to use in terms of justifying buying online? Ive tried using the example of my dell monitor being replaced next day when there was a fault with it...4 times. Plus installation wise Id like to think I could figure it out, and failing that my siss partner is pretty knowledgeable in that. TV removal as well shouldnt be too hard with 2 people.

Only thing I can think of is refusing to pay the extra if he wants to do that. Ill put so much towards it but I cant justify paying a load more for the sake of getting it from a shop...

To be honest I picked up my TV from Richer Sounds, and it was cheaper than buying online, by about £70.  Their shop deals are stunning.  OK its only a 720p, but its good enough for a 32".  Even the AV nerd mate "only" has a 32" 720p TV in his bedroom, because hes of the opinion a decent panel at 720p is better that a poor one at 1080p.  Lets ignore 1080i, as is right and proper!

Quote from: zpyderWill likely be heading out tomorrow to look at some TVs with the father.

Hes pretty adamant that he doesnt want to buy from the net. Ive suggested at the least if he finds one he likes in a shop to give me a day or two to find it online and see how much cheaper it would be, at the least just so that he/we can turn around and try to get the shop to drop the price/do a deal if theres a vast difference. He does have a valid arguement regarding paying for disposal of the old TV which is pretty much a brick, and getting them to set it up, though if the shop has a big markup and we pay for delivery/installation on top he could be looking at more than £50 extra.

So, anyone got any good ammunition to use in terms of justifying buying online? Ive tried using the example of my dell monitor being replaced next day when there was a fault with it...4 times. Plus installation wise Id like to think I could figure it out, and failing that my siss partner is pretty knowledgeable in that. TV removal as well shouldnt be too hard with 2 people.

Only thing I can think of is refusing to pay the extra if he wants to do that. Ill put so much towards it but I cant justify paying a load more for the sake of getting it from a shop...

If he wants to buy from a shop you seriously need to drag him to John Lewis. 5 year warranty!

Ended up with the Samsung LE40B550A5....from John Lewis!
http://www.johnlewis.com/230573761/Product.aspx

Price wise there wasnt too much in it, Other shops were similarly priced, those that were cheaper ended up more expensive if you put the 5 year warranty plans on.

Tis arriving Wednesday afternoon, should be interesting!

About the only bad point so far was the shockingly bad saleswoman. 5 minutes longer and Id have asked to speak to her manager. Couldnt have come across any more as "I dont want to be here right now serving you idiots". Even to the point of when my dad queried whether she had included the disposal of the old TV her response being "Well YOU didnt say you wanted that, you just asked if it was possible!" My dad may not have explicitly said "Yes, we would like our old TV removed" but he said something that gave me the impression we wanted them to remove it. At the very least the correct response for a salesperson would have been "Oh, Im sorry, I didnt think you wanted that, let me add it..."

Looks like an excellent choice for the money, Im sure youll be very happy with it!

Have read on AVForums about it, youll probably get some good ideas on using/setting it up

http://www.avforums.com/reviews/Samsung-LE40B550-LCD-HDTV-Review.html

Arrived today, wasnt quite idiot proof in the set up, originally got the aerial setting wrong so it only picked up the 4 terrestrial channels. And then something was set somewhere that locked me out of re-doing the tuning, and it took 30 mins of head scratching to finally come to the conclusion it was samsungs networking thingy that links other samsung gadgets together that was doing something. Disabled that and could then change the tuning settings, now have freeview etc yay.

Dads gone and ordered a sky HD box though too, which is good, as Im noticing a lot of the channels are a little blurry. Im guessing this is due to the TV rendering SD channels at HD?

Normal TV needs a lot of upscaling to get to 1080 so expect some issue there but it also depends on method used to upscale too, some TVs are better than others.

Could be the scart cables I guess too? They are pretty old and my dads not known for buying decent quality things...?

If they are under 3 metres then no, even the cheapest ones wont have any negative effect.

Ive got ones from £1 shops and a £15 gold plated one, the difference in picture is not noticeable at all.

it does seem to vary between the channels and program, so Im guessing its to do with the compression. Hopefully getting SkyHD will help in that regards as the sky box is quite old from before the start of HD.

SCART is obviously not the best connection but it still shouldnt cause you those issues, I think as youve pointed out upscaling poor quality source material is the cause, its one of the downsides of having large LCD panels, I think plasma fares better, but plasma brings its own issues (and larger dents in the wallet).