Advice Needed, £600 to spend on 40" Lounge Screen

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

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Hello again,

I posted here once before and you guys were very helpful so I'd thought I'd chance my luck and come back for help again! :D

I want to get some kind of 40" Screen in my front room and I'm just getting some homework done before a purchase. The unit I am looking for will serve as the main lounge all-in-one screen used for the following

  • Normal Office Work, Photoshop, Email and Web Browsing
  • High Res Gaming
  • Freeview, DVD, DivX/xVid, You Tube, iPlayer and hopefully BlueRay viewing
I currently use a regular DELL 24" TFT to cover me for all the above uses and I have become *very* used to 1920x1200 screensize but after a few years like that the time has come to jump on the monster screen bandwagon! and lets face it 24" is a bit small now for the lounge! :o

I am in the process of remodeling my apartment and have roughly worked out a 40" screen would be the ideal size and have started looking around at whats for sale.

I am intending to connect the screen using HDMI to a small computer, I will also be getting a decent roof aerial installed soon for the TV stuff. Not sure what I'm doing about audio yet but for the moment the screen is what I am trying to choose!

I'm kinda thinking that I will be going LCD instead of Plasma as the bulk of the screens use will probably be computer related stuff and not back to back film viewing although I do like a good film every now and then! :cool:

So the budget is approx £600 for a 40" unit, mainly looking at LCD but still keeping one eye on Plasma units. I'm also big on brand names in this area like SONY, SAMSUNG, PANASONIC etc and a unit that uses less power would be desirable!

Currently looking at what seems a nice SONY model! :eek:

sonykdl40v4000fc0.jpg


I'm pretty keen to order a screen but it would be interesting to hear a few opinions about other suitable options please . . .

Thanks in advance! :)
 
Toshiba also do a 1920x1080 LCD for £700 no idea if it's decent or how it compares to the Sony you listed.

most/all? lower priced plasmas in your price range still suffer from image retention so for office use i think you're right to go after LCD.
 
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I use the model 1 step up from that (40W4000) and have found it to be fantastic.

Of course you could get larger plasmas for that money and some are getting a lot better regarding screen retention but if you are using the screen with a PC then LCD is probably the way to go in all honesty.

I think the sony would probably be a pretty good choice.

gt
 
Ive done some research on this exact tpoic lately as I am also in the market for a 40" LCD TV in the £600 range.

I concluded that the Sony model you are looking at is the one I want also.

There was a Series 6 Samsung for slightly more money, but it seemed from reviews I read that the Sony is better for gaming.

Heres a review for the Sony:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/sony-kdl40v4000-review-20080822127.htm

Review for the Samsung:
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/samsung-le40a656a-review-20080605115.htm#

What HiFi also gave that Sony TV a 5 star rating.

Best of luck with the decision!
 
Thanks very much for replies all.

I have been busy preparing the sale of my two DELL 24" monitors to help fund this new set!

I still consider myself a nOOb in the whole Home-Cinema arena and have just been trying to get up to speed with everything! :o

So I'm looking at an LCD, probably a SONY model, now I been reading up about the differences between HD and FULL-HD etc

HDTV Buying Guide said:
Full HD vs HD Ready, 1080p vs 720p?

HD signals
720i - 1280x720 interlaced
720p - 1280x720 progressive scan
1080i - 1920×1080 interlaced
1080p - 1920×1080 progressive scan

HDTV types
HD Ready - HDTV set capable of accepting HD signals (may not be able to display at full resolution 1920x1080)
Full HD - HDTV set capable of accepting HD signals and able to display full resolution at 1920x1080
720p HDTV - another name for HD Ready HDTV
1080p HDTV - another name for Full HD HDTV

Most of the HDTVs today are able to support 720i/720p/1080i/1080p signals. So the single most important spec that we should be looking for when choosing a HDTV is the screen resolution (pixel resolution).

For HD Ready HDTVs which have screen resolution less than 1920x1080, they are less than ideal. This is because if you feed a 1080i/1080p signal to a HD Ready HDTV, this HDTV will scale down the signal resolution to fit its smaller screen resolution. That is to say, you will lose resolution if you use a HD Ready HDTV to display a 1080i/1080p signal.

For Full HD HDTVs, they have screen resolution of 1920x1080, thus, when a 1080i or 1080p signal is feed to it, it is able to display the picture in its full glory at 1920x1080 with no resolution loss.

So it is not difficult to conclude that if money is not a problem, always go for Full HD 1080p HDTVs with 1920x1080 resolution instead of HD Ready 720p HDTVs which has lesser resolution.
Click to expand...

Ok so that seems straight forward enough! The main reason I wanted a FULL HD unit was so that I could use a 1920x1080 desktop as well as enjoying really high quality BlueRay viewing etc. . .

HDTV Buying Guide said:
HD Ready vs Full HD, size does matters
For the same screen size, Full HD HDTVs cost much more than HD Ready HDTVs. If you are on a budget, buying a HD Ready set instead of a Full HD set will save you quite a substantial amount of money.

As a general guideline, if you are getting a HDTV set which is less than 42 inch, you won't be able to notice the resolution difference between a HD Ready set vs a Full HD set. Thus, you will be able to get almost the same visual enjoyment at a lower budget if you buy a HD Ready HDTV (720p) instead.

For screen size 42 inch or greater, going for a Full HD (1080p) will be a better choice as at such big screen size, the pixel difference will be more visible.
Click to expand...

Now this has got me thinking, I did notice the large price difference between HD-Ready and FULL-HD models and the quote above seems to indicate that FULL-HD is not really needed on a 40" model? Hmmm?

Just exploring the angles and stuff, this is all new turf for me so appreciate any helpful input you guys have. The one thing that really puts me off HD-Ready models is the 1280x720 resolution, I don't think I could use my PC with a desktop that small! :o
 
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Big.Wayne said:
The one thing that really puts me off HD-Ready models is the 1280x720 resolution, I don't think I could use my PC with a desktop that small! :o
Click to expand...

I don't know if it's any relevance to you but I have my PJ set to 720p for web surfing etc as at 1080p I find it harder to read the text even on a 65" image. I do sit about 3.5m away though so i don't know how close you intend to sit to the screen.
 
I narrowed my tv choice to the 42PX80B (plasma 720p) and the 40V4000 (lcd 1080p). Both are fantastic, and I'd have either... However, I'm going to using it more for movies/gaming, and you for gaming/pc... so the choice is clear :)
 
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