Hi there, I'm going to give you my top 5 tips for buying a new TV.
Firstly, I think you need to decide on your budget. There's a massive range of TVs in the marketplace today and they come in a massive range of prices too. I think the wisest way to decide on a new TV is to think about your budget first and how much you're prepared to spend. That will massively narrow down the market for you and you'll get a good handle on what TVs are available in the area you're interested in while also preserving your wallet.
That will help with my second point, which is to decide on the kind of screen size you're interested in before you start. Generally people are interested in having the biggest screen they can of course, but that's limited by two things: the budget, which we mentioned before, and the situation the TVs going to be in. Generally you want to be sitting about 2.5-5x the size of the TV away from the screen. So that's worth bearing in mind.
And finally my third thing to watch out for is to decide which features you want before you actually start. There's a big trade off between the size of the screen and the features and quality you get with that screen. So a 60" screen might be quite cheap, but it might not have very good picture quality or HDMI ports.
So you need to decide which of those things is really important to you. For example if you're a film-lover, dark levels might one of the most important things so you can really experience those dark scenes. On the other hand if you're into sports, you're going to be interested in response time so you don't get a blurry ball as it goes across your screen. Finally, if you're just interested in watching normal TV you need to be watching out for a good Standard Definition picture, as most of our broadcasts are still in Standard Definition, as opposed to High Definition. So a TV might be very good at giving really good HD signals, but oftentimes those TVs are not that good at producing really good Standard Definition signals.
And then I've got two things to look out for as you're buying a new TV. I suggest firstly, don't just go off the manufacturer stats. There's two reasons for this: firstly, manufacturers often manipulate those stats to make their TVs look good. A great example of this is contrast ratio. Often when manufacturers are providing the specification for this they actually turn down the TV to it's lowest level to provide the black level and then up to the full brightness to get the white level which obviously provides a contrast ratio that you'd never really see if you were watching the TV.
And the second reason not to rely on stats is that those can't capture everything. For example in picture quality, contrast ratio is important, but so are many other things such as the picture processing engine which is working behind the screen to generate the picture. And that's not something you can really capture in stats. You just have to see it or read reviews from people who have experienced it for themselves.
And finally, my last thing to look out for is to just don't go off one particular brand. In TVs brands are important and you often do get what you're paying for when you buy a premium brand. But the quality of brands does seem to vary across the range of TVs. So one brand might be good at mid-range TVs but not so good at larger or smaller sizes. Or similarly, a TV manufacturer might be good at large-size TVs, but not so good at the smaller end. So the best thing to there is to just look at what other people are saying about these brands in the area of TVs that you're interested in.
Well, I hoped that's help give you a bit of a guide to help you get started as you look for your new TV.
If you've got any questions following that, drop me a line, TV[-at-]reevoo[-dot-]com, and I'll give you a hand.