Hi all.
Looking at getting a new TV for the living room, 70-77" ideally. I'm not a quality maniac so I don't expect 8k 120hz and the best panel around, just want a generally nice living room tv I can pair with a semi decent sound bar for a decent home cinema experience.
I don't mind waiting until black friday, just been a while since I spent this kind of money on a tv so don't know where to begin.
I guess 4k is a minimum, at least 2 hdmi and preferably a really thin model but not essential.
As others have said, you're not going to get 8K 120Hz within your budget, and TBH, even if budget wasn't a limit, I still wouldn't drop a wedge of cash on an 8K screen right now. IMO we're too early in the development curve of 8K to know for sure that once 8K content becomes as widely available as 4K is now that todays 8K panel TVs will be able to play it successfully. There are a lot of people who were early adopters on 4K who caught a cold that way.
Although you said you're not a 'quality maniac' you still should want to make an informed choice about the TV you buy. Avoiding the pitfalls of TVs that look dull (not enough backlights), or have cloudy and grey blacks (poor edge lighting / poor direct lighting / no dimming features), or that just make any content that isn't 4K look ropey because the scaling is weak would seem to me like a sensible precaution. Then there's the issue of reliability.
Cheaper panels from LG and some Samsungs too are cursed with premature backlight failure. The problem is that they cut costs too far, and in the process they reduced the number of individual LED backlights. Those that are left are being run way too hard, and so they get hot. Over time this excess heat causes the phosphor in the LED to degrade really quickly. When that happens the colour of the light goes from white to purple. This can't be fixed with pressing buttons on the TV. The backlights are borked. The TV is borked until the backlights are replaced. On a 50-55 in set you'll pay an independent repairer about £150-£200 for this. With bigger sets the cost goes up because they need more backlights and it's a two-man job to handle the extra large panels to avoid the risk of breakage. In the trade we're seeing sets fail at under tow years old in some cases.
This bit is important reading: (1) Those sets with premature backlight failure are also the sets that had poor measured screen brightness (low nits / low cd^2) when properly reviewed. A lot of the sets though never got the full review treatment because they were cheap tellies from the two Korean brands.
(2) Samsung ad LG sell these panels to other manufacturers too. They sell a complete unit - screen front, LCD matrix, light diffusers, backlights, frame - and so these prem lighting failures are not restricted to just Samsung and LG.
This alone is a really good reason to take a proper look at some of the better review sites. I would recommend
TV Reviews: Best of 2021 - RTINGS.com
rtings is a US-based review site. This means some of the models they review don't make it over the pond. Others have slightly different model numbers in the UK compared to the US. e.g. the UK Sony 75HX9505 is called the the 75H950X in the States. You're going to have to put in a little work with some models to make sure you're comparing the same model either side of the Atlantic.
The site also does group tests. This link will take you to their pick of the crop of TVs in the 70"-77" category.
The 6 Best 70-75-77 Inch TVs - Summer 2021: Reviews - RTINGS.com
As a personal recommendation, if I was buying in your size group then I'd beg, steal or borrow the extra cash to get one of the last Sony 75HX9505 sets. It's £1800, which I know is way above your budget, but it's a corking deal. To give you an idea just how good it is, at 55" the price is £849, and the nearest like-for-like performance in a Samsung costs over £1200 and it still doesn't tick all the same boxes. The only other set that comes close at 55" is the Hisense U8G at £899. Yep, the 2nd tier brand is actually more expensive than a Sony. Which would you choose?
