Buying a new TV: LED, 3D??

M

mcbrett

2,500+ Posts
So- LED's save 40-50% on energy use which is a lot- and given how much pricing has come down in the past year it makes me feel like the time is ok to get a 40" or so LED for the living room.

Then you go to the store and see the 3D tvs which are priced obnoxiously as they usually are given the new-ness of the feature. But wow- when you play a PS3 or watch a movie on one- wow!

My question is: Is 3D worth investing in at all? Or perhaps wait some time until pricing improves?

Does anyone think every TV will offer 3D in a few years or is this just some dumb fad used to generate a little extra margin?
 
I think the 3D fad is here to stay from a television standpoint, but not in the way that the guys producing it think. It's not going to become "the standard" because it's just not feasible to assume that everyone wants to watch 3D programming. It'll die out in movies and have more of a future with gaming soon.

If you're a normal person (and by normal I mean someone that doesn't watch Blurays or play PS3 daily), then just go with the high end LEDs.
 
I read somewhere ESPN is adding a channel devoted to 3D programming and MLB is going to broadcast a game in 3D soon, which I assume will be followed by more.
 
I really like Samsung. We bought a 240Hz 46" LED last year and it kicks ***. It is the one you see all the commercials about. I think you can get it for $1999 now and maybe can find a 10% off coupon or something.

I would wait a bit on the 3D TVs myself and see what they actually look like. The Samsung one is $600 more than the TV mentioned above.

When it does become more popular and prices come down then I may jump in. But I am looking forward to video games being in 3D myself.
 
I used to sell electronics, and had plenty of time around the LED tv's. At first I was blown away, but after a while the colors didn't seem to hold up. The colors are over saturrated. The Samsung LCD's had a better overall picture. The 3D tv's are here to stay. Personally, I would buy the Samsung C750 model, over all the others.
 
Bought a samsung 55" LED for the den and a 42" Sony LCD for the bedroom.

The LED is AMAZING. Highly recommend it. Pay the extra (after 100 hours of use) for the professional calibration. The colors are great and the black is TRUE black (you will understand it when you watch in a dark room).

The LED weighs about 40 lbs only and the energy saving is awesome. Also, LED has no static so it does not atract dust.

I would avoid 3D tv's for now. Technology will improve and they are working on ones where the glasses are not necessary.

Do you really want to wear 3D glasses at home?
 
90 Grad,
How does the black level in the Samsung compare to the no longer in production Pioneer Kuro plasmas (by consensus, the best true blacks in flat panel televisions)?'

I own a Pioneer plasma, but am think about buying an LED as a 2nd television (and I feel slightly guilty that my plasma is an energy hog).
 
I still think if you aren't set on the flat panel TV's, you should go for a DLP tv. I personally think they offer the best PQ. They're a little deeper, but not as much as your CRT tv's. Mine's only about a foot deep. I've got a Samsung DLP, 2006 or 07 model and love it.
 
We went with plasma, even though its a realitvely heavy set. I'll pay 25-40$ a year more for electricity (but save a couple hundred up front) for the better plasma picture.
 
There seem to be a lot of misconceptions here.


First of all, an LED TV is an LCD. This is not debatable.

All LCDs and Plasma TVs use a backlight to bring light to their respective image panels. To this point almost all LCD have used a CCFL backlight to do this. Recently manufacturers have started using LEDs for backlights. The image panels used on the LED LCD tv are the SAME as the CCFL LCD tvs. Only the illumination of those panels is different.


The only inherent differences are the power usage, which is almost negligible and the contrast ratio which can be better or worse depending on the LED array being used. Check this out for the negligible power savings of LEDs vs CCFL. Still a good savings over plasma.
The Link
There are different types of LED arrays, the edge and flat arrays bing the most common. The edge array will give you the best power savings however the flat array with local dimming will give you the truest blacks. The edge lit LEDs also allow for an extremely thin TV.



To make it super simple, the difference is in the true blacks that the tvs display.
 
As for 3D....



its a fad much like color television.



As a rule I wouldn't buy the first of anything, I'm not that rich.
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The LED I have turns controls every pixel. So when the color is supposed to be black, it turns it off...it doesn't "color it" black. Therefore, black is black.

Plasma TV production is stopping so yes they are cheaper, but it is also now a dead technology.

Plasma's also are not for rooms with alot of light, bad for the screen and picture.

LED's are for everywhere.
 
"As for 3D....
its a fad much like color television."

So you envision a near future where everyone sits down with their 3D glasses to watch basic programming? And not just movies/games? Seems a bit over the top. I'd venture to say that we'll see that 3D stuff/technology from Minority Report before the average American is willing to don 3D glasses for everything.
 
I understand the 3D tv is 240hrz but the glasses only "show" 12hrz. Is this true?

I have been looking at the 50" samsung plasma. Thoughts on this TV???
 
I have been looking at the 50" samsung plasma. Thoughts on this TV???
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as for the 3d, i wouldnt get it, wait for price to come down. do you really have to wear glasses when watching it. that alone would scrap it in my book.

dont get a plasma, get an lcd. the plasma's have more problems.
 
I have the 52" Samsung DLP and it's fantastic. Picture is really good, especially when you hook a blu-ray up to it. I agree with others that getting a 3D right now may be a little earlier - my thinking though is also to wait until there's enough content to really make it worthwhile.
 
Interesting-

It's very debatable about 3D- probably a lot of this depends on how programming responds. Do we really need to watch news in 3D? Probably not. Or will it just be for sports, video games and movies...

This suggests waiting for the price to come down before investing in 3D..

Does anyone here know the difference between full and edge LED? Seems like the manufacturers think this is a big deal and of course charge accordingly.
 
Do we really need to watch news in 3D?
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depends who is on...erin andrews yes, christiane amanpour, no.
 
FULL LED is where every pixel is controlled indivdually. GREAT picture but if you are just stepping in, the extra $1k might be too much.

The other LED technology lights the pixels from the side. Still an incredible picture.
 
Looking at my LED now from about 179 degrees.
see it perfectly.

LCD might control every pixel but the reason for the "thick" set are the lightbulbs that run across.

NO WAY you can turn off a pixel and light the others with a light source like that.

The LED technology allows for this withoug the bulbs.

One suggestion is to buy a surroundsound system. Because of the thinness of the LED set, the speakers arent the best.

I bought a $600 Boston accoustics receiver with 5 speakers and a woofer and it works great.

Run your system through the received via HDMI so you can hook up other things like satellite and blu ray.

and again, Plasmas are going to be stop production this year if they haven't already. Why but a dead technology?
 
While plasma will never be the sales leader, I'm not sure why some think the technology is dead (despite the exit of Pioneer from plasmas). Apparently, the Panasonic 3D plasma got good reviews at the Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas and won a CNET award.
The Link
 
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