50" advice needed

Kanifee

Kanifee

Kanifee

Soldato
Joined
13 May 2007
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On the wagon, sorta
ok need some advice, after a 50" plasma, budget is between 700-1200 squids.
Input will be virgin Hd if that makes a difference, sd quality is a priority aswell, richer sounds have some deals on at the moment but how do these square up to other high street retailers?
 
I am buying a PK590 this weekend, for the price I don't think there is a better buy at the moment. Judging by avforums its a well regarded set too, some think it betters or at least matches the Panny G20 too.
 
The G20 is sweet and well respected but I don't think there's too much between it and the LG. I would choose the G20 as I think panasonic have a better track record for plasma but the LG is a fine TV and is probably cheaper.
 
ubern00b said:
I am buying a PK590 this weekend, for the price I don't think there is a better buy at the moment. Judging by avforums its a well regarded set too, some think it betters or at least matches the Panny G20 too.
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Have you seen the LG in person yet. I read all the reviews etc and then went looking yesterday. Have to say I was very un impressed with all the LG offerings. even the 990. They all seemed to suffer from the same issue. Less than great black levels. Great levels of detail and motion was good as well but I know those black levels would bug the hell out of me.

In one shop they had the G20 next to a few LGs and the difference was night and day.
 
I have not been to see it in the flesh yet but I will do so this weekend. Did you check the settings of the LG/Panny to see if they had been set to some stupid level to make one look better than the other? Its not uncommon for stores to do that. I just cant believe everyone else out there rates it highly, review sites as well as independent reports, and you say this isn't the case. Shop viewing conditions are an important factor.
 
Yep, I checked all the settings and every one was just on the factory default. Plus I went to 3 seperate stores and the LGs at every one had 'not great' black levels. surely not a coincidence?

Its very anoying as it was on my shopping list, I really wanted to like the LG 50PK590 as that can be found for around £650 now but that looked terrible.

Im going to go for another look tomorrow as I really want to pick something up this weekend, ill try and tweak the settings to see if I can get the black levels decent this time. Failing that I think its prob easier just to get the G20
 
You must be looking in the wrong places then, no black issues on the two set in two stores i had demos, i was set to buy a G20 but the picture on the LG (particually the colours) are just better.
 
Firestar_3x said:
You must be looking in the wrong places then, no black issues on the two set in two stores i had demos, i was set to buy a G20 but the picture on the LG (particually the colours) are just better.
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I went to just the big stores, cant say them as there competitors but im sure you can guess.

What model number did you get in the end?
 
Ended up with 2x PK590's, i asked the store to connect a bluray player then i messed with the picture settings till i knew what the set was like, couldn't (and still can't) find a "time on" counter for the sets so i wasn't sure how long the in store units had been operating for, but i had the 590 and G20 just about side by side and the colours on the 590 are far superior imho.
 
strange, every 590 I saw (3 of them) was pretty poor IMO. ill take another look tomorrow but I guess people just like different things eh :)

Oh, one issue that is really putting me off the LG is reports of bad image retention, AV forums is full of people complaining about it. In fact even their in depth review of the PK990 mentions it, in fact it only gives that TV a 'Average' review overall and thats the flagship model isnt it? Guess What Hi-Fi have had a nice LG marketing budget of late :D
 
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I remember reading something about panels made in April vs later June/July panels, with the later ones being better. Cant remember in which way they were better but if I dig out the thread I was reading Ill edit my post with the info.

Will go have a look for myself this weekend anyway, I wont just buy blindly.
 
Yep as with everything an element of personal preference comes in, image retention is my only issue with this set, after 30 mins of Forza / GTA4 i can see one or two of the HUD items causing slight ghosting on the screen, but oddly enough its not an issue with any SKY HD logos etc, will go take a look at the latest batch of reviews i got mine before anything had come out.
 
I do plan to spend many hours with Fable 3 in front of this telly, so as long as the image retention isn't permanent (I am quite happy displaying snow or coloured slides when at work to shift any retention) then I don't mind.
 
I just bought the PK590 , very impressed with it so far !


@Firestar , the time on counter was removed in the recent firmware update , dunno why but it was
 
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Hmm a lot of food for thought here, will take a look at some 590 reviews and see what its all about. cheers lads for the info.
 
Well spent ages dragging the missus round various TV shops in the trafford centre and my home town.

Defo ruled out the 55" LG series 6 screens now, got them to put some SD stuff on and it looked shocking, also played some football from SKY HD and the movement was very poor so there is that one ruled out.

Next was the PK590, bargain price and after a bit of tweaking I got the picture pretty good. Good but not great. But at that price it is very very tempting.

Another bargain was the Samsung PS50C550, nice picture and again can be picked up arounfd the £650 mark. I would say the picture was on a par with the LG. Good but not great. Colours and detail were good but the image just didnt have any real depth to it.

Lastly was the Panasonic G20 (50"), at first it didnt look good, was pretty dull and the whites had a yellowish tinge. I grabbed the remote and had a play and sure enough the TV was on Cinema mode, I stuck it back to normal and the picture was transformed, a bit of tweaking to the settings and it looked stunning. The images had great detail, depth and movement even on football was stunning. The bloke who worked there even commented on how much better it looked now :D

So all in I found the G20 to have the best picture, and as I currently have a panny I know there are no image rentention issues that are known to plague the LG in particular, not to mention Samsungs lengendary poor QC. The problem is the G20 is nealrly double the price :( . Hunting around I can get it for around £1200.

Going to have a good think this weekend and order it next week if im sure, I did originally want a 55" screen but they all looked naff with non blu ray, which after all makes up frob 99% of my viewing.
 
Good point but I'm a picky bugger so I'll prob say yes. Then the next question is should I go for the v20 which is £200 or so more than the G20.

To many choices.
 
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