Which 49" to 50" 4K TV?

Kenai

Kenai

Kenai

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I have a big pile of vouchers for JL, so looking at a new TV for a new place soon.

Looking around £650 budget ideally and these are the prime candidates - any 'Dont touch those with a bargepole' or 'best by a country mile' among these?

Panasonic Viera 50DX700B @ £600

Samsung UE49KU6500 Curved @ £650

LG 49UH770 @ £650

Sony Bravia 49XD8077/8099 @ £660

Not particularly fussy about the curved aspect of the Samsung but it's the only offering they have at the price range, unless the £550 UE49KU6400U is competitive with the offerings above.
 
LG is an IPS panel with a glass front.

So it offers very wide viewing angles but has a reflective screen and not as deep blacks as a VA panel.

If your sitting head on Samsung is your best bet. Panasonic and Sony are not bad but Samsung is just a better overall package.

I chose LG due to viewing angles and I have LED BIAS lighting and turn off the rooms main light or angle the tv away and dim it.
 
I pretty much had the same shortlist and went for the sony, got it from john lewis for £630.
Very happy with it, when i was in store i got the sales guy to put them on normal tv (bbc 1 hd) and the sony looked the best so it was a easy choice!
Another bonus for me was the central stand instead of the little legs on the sides of the tv.

Just to add,
Android system for smart tv works well.
Sound is actually pretty good for a flatscreen.
Colours look good straight out of the box.
No noticeable input lag when playing ps4.

I put it in this order
Sony
Panasonic
Samsung
(Didnt look at the lg)

Best bet is to get into a shop and look at them. Dont be scared to ask them to be taken of their 4k demos.
(Personally I think samsung has the best 4k demo but when taken off that and put on a normal input it looked the worst)
 
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Kenai said:
Not particularly fussy about the curved aspect of the Samsung but it's the only offering they have at the price range, unless the £550 UE49KU6400U is competitive with the offerings above.
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Just got this one myself a few weeks ago (£550) and can be had for £500 at some places now. Very happy with it but got nothing much to compare it against, the spec and price were good. A great upgrade from my old 37" Samsung which was only 2-3 years old and was about the same level in the range.
 
Had a look in JL this afternoon and the Sony was the clear favourite in the end.

The Samsung looked atrocious displaying regular HD TV content, the more expensive models were better but the 6500 really did not impress here. The LG in general just didn't really impress.

The Panasonic and Sony were close competitors but the Sony has tipped it as they're throwing in £100 off atm if you get the very highly rated HT-XT3 soundbase with it. It's also only £630 in black, £660 for silver.
 
Kenai said:
Had a look in JL this afternoon and the Sony was the clear favourite in the end.

The Samsung looked atrocious displaying regular HD TV content, the more expensive models were better but the 6500 really did not impress here. The LG in general just didn't really impress.

The Panasonic and Sony were close competitors but the Sony has tipped it as they're throwing in £100 off atm if you get the very highly rated HT-XT3 soundbase with it. It's also only £630 in black, £660 for silver.
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what did you base this on? what were you looking for?

did all the tv's have default standard settings? ;)

did all the tv's have the same high quality source? you may find someone has fiddled with the settings.
 
I set all the TVs to 'standard' myself in the display menu, not much fiddling beyond that. On BBC1 HD the Samsung showed up the compression artefacts, where the others made a much better job of showing the same content. Maybe it was on a poorer quality aerial cable or someone had buggered up a deeply hidden setting somewhere but i'm not interested enough in the screen to spend any time resetting the entire thing myself or seeking out multiple shops to view it in just in case.
 
Kenai said:
I set all the TVs to 'standard' myself in the display menu, not much fiddling beyond that. On BBC1 HD the Samsung showed up the compression artefacts, where the others made a much better job of showing the same content. Maybe it was on a poorer quality aerial cable or someone had buggered up a deeply hidden setting somewhere but i'm not interested enough in the screen to spend any time resetting the entire thing myself or seeking out multiple shops to view it in just in case.
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Are you my subconscious typing?
Pretty much exactly my experience, was watching gnomeo and juliette at the time.
Anyway glad someone else made the same decision as me.
Used the microphone on the remote ealier to use youtube and it actually worked perfectly!
 
Psycho Sonny said:
what did you base this on? what were you looking for?

did all the tv's have default standard settings? ;)

did all the tv's have the same high quality source? you may find someone has fiddled with the settings.
Click to expand...

Maybe he just liked the picture and whatever they had it on he can replicate at home?
 
Kenai said:
I set all the TVs to 'standard' myself in the display menu, not much fiddling beyond that. On BBC1 HD the Samsung showed up the compression artefacts, where the others made a much better job of showing the same content. Maybe it was on a poorer quality aerial cable or someone had buggered up a deeply hidden setting somewhere but i'm not interested enough in the screen to spend any time resetting the entire thing myself or seeking out multiple shops to view it in just in case.
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I don't think the source you used was good enough tbh. If I were to go into a shop I would be armed with a 4k demo / test file on a USB or ask for a blu ray to be played on each screen. Using a freeview feed which could have been split into 1000 different cables isn't a great test tbh you don't know if each tv is being fed the same quality of signal. Again I don't use freeview at home and you don't know the quality of the tuners either so it's not a feed I would use to test a tv.

Glad you set all tv's to standard though most wouldn't do this and just accept what is being shown is the normal setting when it's very likely on "vivid". However again I would be aware that tv's can be set to "store" mode where it manipulates picture settings so they look better in a store environment.

holdin09 said:
Be careful with the LG TVs, after doing some research this last few weeks I came across this article linked below.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/rgbw-201510084189.htm

Not sure which models have this type of display but put me off any LG set. I decided to go for the Sony XD8305 49" which I got today and very impressed with it so far.
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By Vincent Teoh 8 October 2015, 12:31 pm GMT

He states in the comments this only applies to LG's cheap lcd's not higher end and article is over a year old. He has made reviews on LG's since this.
 
Deffo!
Ill be calling john lewis later to get them to refund me the difference to the £630 i paid on the 27/12.
Anyone else dealt with JL for this kinda thing?

Edit- just managed to get the £50 refund in about 5 mins over the phone, didnt even need the order number. Very impressed with john lewis
 
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