New TV time - my experience

[BallisticGT3]

For anyone that is interested, here is what happened when I went shopping for a new TV over the last two days.

I currently have a Philips 47PFL9664 which I've been more than happy with for the last 6 years, but having occasionally looked at modern TV's and knowing that technology is always moved on, I decided that now will be a good time to upgrade.

After doing some research, I came up with a shortlist in no particular order of;
Samsung UE55JS9000
LG 55EG960V
Panasonic 55CR852B
Sony Bravia KD55X9005CBU

First off I went to a large Currys store where they had all of the TV's I was interested in and whilst each one looked fine in isolation, running the manufacturers simulation, they were in different locations so it was very hard to make a comparison. I told the salesman that I was looking to buy straight away if he could show me the 4 TV's with the same source so that I could make my mind up. Not possible was his reply and he candidly told me that because his job was rated on performance he wasn't prepared to make any effort and spend longer than 10-15 minutes with me. I told him that I wasn't going to make a decision without seeing all of the TV's running the same source, so we reached an impasse and he quickly left me for another customer.

Disappointed I came home and rang John Lewis to see if they currently had all of the TV's I that I was interested in on demo and if it would be possible to view them all with the same source. Not a problem they said, come on down. So I went into JL first thing the next day and the salesman was able to set them all up displaying the BBC news - not ideal but better than nothing. Fortunately the Panasonic, Sony and Samsung were all in a line next to each other and the LG was a couple of rows behind so it was quite easy to make a comparison.
I quickly ruled out the Panasonic, it just didn't look as good as the Sony or Samsung. Also I didn't like the fact that the stand has a tilt on it (leaning back) which would have meant that the screen wouldn't have been vertical to my eyes at the height it would have to be at.
It was harder to judge between the Sony and Samsung and in the end I decided that the Samsung looked that little bit sharper. Watching the weather forecast revealed an interesting difference. As the rainfall/snow was being updated and moving across the UK the Samsung displayed material that wasn't visible on the Sony which also looked more cloudy whilst scrolling.
So it was now between the Samsung and the LG. It wasn't a hard decision; the LG just looked that little bit more sharper again with more natural colours.
I also prefer the aesthetics of the LG. Because it doesn't have a large bezel the screen looks like its floating a few inches above the stand which is cool.

The salesman said that he wasn't surprised that I ended up choosing the LG. Apparently they used to have one on demo in the Samsung area to which the rep complained because he was loosing to many sales to it.

Unfortunately I will have to wait a few days for one to come into stock.

Someone mentioned on another forum that JL were selling some ex demo LG55EG960V at £1750 but they have all gone and they aren't expecting to be able to get any more.

 

[BallisticGT3]

Were these all running in Store Demo mode or did you have a chance to actually play with the picture settings to see how they'd actually look at home?

I didn't get a chance to play with any of the picture settings so AFAIK they would all have been running in the store demo mode.
I have been reading up on the benefits of having a TV properly calibrated and how this can result in a better picture than the manufacturers settings. I bought the Picture Perfect dvd from Currys and will have a go with that.

One thing I was unsure about was whether to go for a flat or curved screen this time around and whilst in Currys I was able to compare two Samsung TV's they had together of the same model range and size, one flat and the other curved and IMO the curved screen offered the more immersive experience.

 

[BallisticGT3]

even with the same source each tv can be set up very differently and actually seeing them side by side is not enough without having time to change the settings on each

either way, imo the LG is a better TV from research i have done

I fully appreciate this and was assured by the JL salesman that each TV was running with the manufacturers settings. To make a comparison you have to start somewhere and working within the limitations of a busy retail environment, i.e. not having the time to be able or allowed to experiment with the picture settings, my judgement was that the LG offered the best image quality by far. I'm sure that an expert would have been able to improve on the image quality for each of the TV's that I was looking at. How they would have then compared, we shall never know.

Being able to see them all side by side from the same source was the best I could hope for and my thoughts were that comparing them running at a base level would enable me to judge what appealed the most.
I guess it's all down to personnel preference. I'm not trying to say that the LG is currently the best TV out there, it may well be but someone else in the same situation may have chosen differently, if this makes sense.