40-50" LCD

[Beansprout]

Noooo, X3500 series just replaced it, doesnt come in the different facia colours but tbh who the hell is gonna spend over £300 for abit of coloured plastic?

25000 contrast (albiet dynamic like most other sonys) 24p cinema support and sonys improved bravia chip.

Personally like someone else mentioned you can pick up a nice pioneer for the same price although it does have a downside. You cant use upscaled sources which are from whatever to 1080p as the panel wont support it. Its got pioneers own silly way of displaying 1080p which in fact isnt great. Picture quality on other sources in immense though.

If you dont want to go insanely daft with price you can pick up the 1080p panasonics (50 inch plasma in your price bracket) which is a seriously good performer, especially on freeview (compared this in my store with other brands and was gobsmacked)

Confused, the 3000 and 3500 are identical except the 3500 has a different bezel? Maybe you're thinking of the 2000 series

I agree with the next bit though and change my advice to the Pioneers mentioned in this thread as I've just got home to see my parents' new Kuro in action. It's absolutely stunning

 

[TriedandTested]

Thanks for the feedback/discussion. All very helpful.

What do you think of this one then: http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/Samsung-LE52F96BD/

The Samsung LE52F96BD (as someone mentioned further up).

 

[Demon]

It sounds like a pretty excellent LCD set. However, I'd still go and look at the Pioneer 508XD Plasma, my brother has one, and over a variety of sources, this set simply shines.. the conclusion is a mixed bag, Samsungs processing is not the best out there, and local dimming has some side effects, go check out the reviews of the 508XD on the same site..

a lot of people complain about the effect as being almost like a heat haze over a lot of the picture and a temporary solution is to disable the tv's film mode and dumb the colour and contrast rates down. Simple googling will show this information.

I can't find much info on this, my brother is using a Pioneer upscaling AMP that is outputting 1080p to his 508XD, and it's all flawlessly clean.. Can you post some links, as googling produces too much non-information, if there is an issue, I'll pop the info onto my brother just so he's aware.

 

[TriedandTested]

I'm now drawn to that Pioneer! Wow.

 

[pdw8]

I have just picked up a Pioneer 507XD and it has blown me away, and this is previous model to the latest one out. I can't recommend Pioneer enough, definatley worth the extra ££.

 

[[DOD]Asprilla]

I've got my 428XD coming between Xmas and New Year, but from what I've read they do require a lot of adjustment to get the best out of them (and that's even before you consider ISC Calibration) and they also need a couple of hundred hours to settle down.

However, they are simply fantastic once you get them right although there is no single setting that is perfect for each source. The Pios do allow you to define seperate settings for each input though, so you can have a different setting for SD material from Sky HD though scart / component as you'd use for HD material from Sky HD though HDMI.