Spec me a mid range 65incher

skaif

skaif

skaif

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Hi folks, not really too hot on the TV front but I am after a 65in TV and due to my location (Qatar) I am limited by choice and I have a budget to stick to.

To save you the headache of thinking about cost I've converted to pounds and have a budget of around £500. I have thought about getting a smaller TV as there's more of a range and it's cheaper, but to be honest the place where its going needs a 65incher. Having measured it and looked at the display models, anything smaller will leave gaps which looks awkward.

I will list the potentials and ask for your opinions on which is the best one to go for.

Use case is a large room, little sunlight and mainly used for games (PS4 PRO) and movies / shows streamed in 1080 and 4k.

So here we go

In the Hisense corner - the 65inch A6500 (£460)
This seems to be the one I'm leaning towards based on my limited knowledge.
https://hisense.co.za/product/65-4k-premium-uhd-a6500-65a6500uw

TCL (who?) with their 65P8M (£460)
Looks interesting! People in the States speak highly of this apparently!
https://www.tclelectronics.com.au/products/series-p-65-inch-p8m-quhd-tv-ai-in/

Toshiba 65U58 (£410)
No idea on this one but is suspiciously cheaper than the others...
https://tvmea.teva-toshiba.com/products/u5865-series/

Sony KD65X7 & LGUM7450 (£560)
Both these are over budget but want to know if it's worth the money?

Edit
TCL C6US - (£600) Just seen this and looks quite good--But is it an extra £100 good?
https://www.tcl.com/in/en/products/c6/c6-65.html

Anyway help is appreciated! Cheers
 
All the second hand sets (well the vast majority) out here are 1080 rather than 4k. On top of that these guys don't understand the concept of depreciation and will expect almost what they paid for it. I did look at this route but to be honest better to go new.
 
lucid said:
Not trying to be picky here, but as a group these are not mid-range sets, not by a long way. They're all very firmly in the budget TV end of the market.

Roughly speaking, 65" LED TVs in the UK range in price from a shade under £550 to more than £3,500. Looking at the web addresses of co.za and com.au and tvmea, these are for S.Africa, Australia and the Middle East. Some of the models listed are old or just not ranged here. That makes it hard to get objective views from owners.

Of the brands you listed, Sony and LG are long-establish major players. The name on the front of the product relates to the name of the factory that they came out from. This hasn't been the case for Toshiba for a very long time.

AFAIK, who has the licensing rights varies from territory to territory. There has also been some churn in company ownership, and in some cases the brand is part of a portfolio of brands owned by a company making the TVs, but that company is owned in turn by a bigger company. It all gets quite complicated. All you need to do though is remember that Toshiba is aimed at price-conscious retailers and end-users. It's not about performance.

TCL and Hisense are both big Chinese electronics companies. They've been operating and growing in the Chinese home-market to the point where they dwarf the likes of Panasonic and Sony in terms of the business size. Each has spotted opportunities to expand by buying up the factories around the world vacated by the once-large Japanese and US brands.

Of the two, Hisense are making more of an effort to produce TVs to compete with the bottom-to-middle-range Sonys, Panasonics, LGs and Samsungs but either at a lower price or the same price but with more features.

Just like most manufacturers, Hisense and TCL both offer steps in their ranges where performance and/or features improve with price. What you need to remember though is that the Hisense A6500 is 3rd from bottom in its 11-model range for TVs at 55-65". Bear this in mind when reading reviews and try to avoid letting a good review of a higher-spec model influence your judgement. Having said that, between the Hisense, and TCL and the Toshiba, then it's the Hisense that gets my vote. Spend a bit more money though and you might get a brighter picture and less gaming lag. (Brightness 400 nits, that'll be maxed out rather than real-world-viewing. Gaming lag is <50ms, but on what measure?)
Click to expand...
Awesome, thanks for the in depth info! I appreciate its difficult to compare and get reviews when I'm in the middle of nowhere and there's no equivalents for you guys to compare to!

I'll go and have a proper nosy next weekend as its payday and hopefully will try and up the budget to get something better. I was initially thinking to splash out a bit, but moving places and other unexpected costs have meant I'm not in a position to splurge just yet.

I spotted a deal on the 65sm8100 from LG? It's pretty much half price according to the sticker in the store but still £850 - is that a mid range set? Worth getting that? Or the 65um7450 for £660?
 
Ok completely new choice, Sony KD65X7000G. Thoughts? It's discounted to around £500
 
Thanks for all the help and replies guys especially @lucid!

Decided on the Sony in the end after a side by side comparison in the store. The Hisense was great but the Sony just produced a better picture to my eye.

Getting it all set up now and first impressions are not too bad. Blacks arent great but I was not expecting them to be. Colours are awesome but I need to find a calibration site or method to get this running perfectly. It has a HDR mode and can be set to vivid for moar brights but not sure thats the way to go. Am I right in thinking that I need to connect to HDMI2/3 to get HDR mode on these sets?

Thanks again :D
 
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