Ah the old slippery slope "just a bit bigger" TV buying thread...

Kid wanted to use YouTube workout videos outside in the fresh mornings. OK, hmmm, $50 Roku stick attached to old 32." Oh but wait, I can get an entire 32" TCL Roku TV for just $118! And I've been thinking about a 75" of those, perfect test case! Go to Target...hey, a 40" is hardly more, $170 with the Red Card discount! 1080p instead of 720...but WAIT here's this 43" and it's 4k! And on sale hardly more, $210 with Red!
Coming Friday.
So much for $50

 

Shopping for tvs can be a seductive experience. It's difficult to judge because most stores have the hi-rez demo on the tvs and they ALL look freakin' fantastic. In the $200 range you can't go too far wrong.

 

BIGGER is better with 4K TV's - you won't regret it...

 

You really have to do all your window shopping, before you are really ready to shop. Then, do all your real reading-up ahead of time, choose your options, your size, your accessories. Make your decisions...and then, do the due diligence to find the best price, before you ever wander into another showroom!

The only thing you should ever do inside the Temple Of Florescent Lights anymore, is flag down a grunt, whip out that plastic, and make sure he writes your order down correctly, before he summons The Guy With The Dolly. Friend With The Truck can just as well wait outside, dreaming of his six-pack reward!

 

They still make 720p TVs???

 

I took it to mean he presently has a 720 and wants to upgrade.

 

Oh - you may be correct!

This does make me wonder if anyone still makes 720p TVs, though!

 

I may have gone too big, last time. Too big for the room, or for how far back the couch could be anyway. I like to take in the whole image, but it was large enough that if you are staring at one character’s face on one side of the screen then you are not seeing what is on the other side of the screen.

 

I decided to cut out the slope and got the largest TV that could fit between my speakers. That way I knew there wouldn’t be a “what if” moment.

 

Small TVs are still 720 or 1080. 4k seems to start at like 40"

 

I got a[75in.]but now I want a[88in.]but no money.

 

"You look much smaller on television, Mr. President."

 

I finally broke down and got a 55 inch 4k last year after getting a promotion. I'm amazed how little the increased screen size and resolution matter to me. Watching it just feels like watching a TV, even with it being bigger. There's diminishing returns after a certain point. And understand that I am an extremely avid photographer hobbyist, and I also used to sell TVs, so my eyes are pretty discerning, and my general feeling about 4k before I ever got one myself was really confirmed. I've really scarcely ever seen anything on that screen that looked appreciably better than my existing 1080p TV when it had a good source. Part of that is the diminishing returns you get past a certain resolution point, and another part of it is that there are rarely sources that offer good 4k material anyway, even a few years after the technology emerged. I watch my share of 4k movies, but either due to the way the film was produced or some other factor, I don't ever feel like I'm seeing 4k detail level. Maybe that will change.

 

I gotta say, speaker placement is actually tougher than monitor placement.

 

Yep. My speakers aren’t going anywhere, and those are far more important than a screen! The space between still allowed for a 75” screen, but I got one of those pull-out wall mounts. Because of speaker toe in, the mount can only extend about 80%.

 

That is definitely true. Says me, who watches old Perry Mason reruns. Still, travel shows like El Mundo Es Tuyo do look better on a better TV.

 

TV finally arrived after 3 days of repeated "tomorrow" shipping delays. Seems nice, though the feet do not mount perpendicular to the chassis, they are a bit splayed (no that's not a mistake, it's how the bolt holes are drilled. Weird). Right away, could not get the menu, grrr. Measured the remote batteries, OK, now fine, musta put them in backwards. It's the little stuff that kills ya!

 

What kind of tv did you end up getting?

 

There shoving smart tvs down everybodys throat.. I heard they burn out quick.
I finally found a normal tv.

 

We upgraded our projector, and got an absolutely ridiculous deal. It's a no name Chinese brand, but it's native 1080p, and is more than bright enough for our purposes, which is projecting onto a 103 inch screen in a dark room. Our goal is to duplicate the theater experience, and we watch in the dark just like in the theater.

Ridiculous part is it only cost us $249.

 

Everyone on my street got new tv sets this week. I must have missed the sale.

 

I'll be honest, I don't even find that 4K makes me enjoy shows any more. My favorite shows of late have been mostly 1080 and even 720.

I think 4k may even make bad shows extra bad.

 

"Prices so good, they're practically walkin' out the door by themselves..."

 

A $50 Roku stick somehow morphed into a 43" 4k TCL Roku TV. With my Target Red Card discount, I think $218. Really a screaming deal. So far I've only really watched part of Metallica's making of Hardwired off YouTube. Ya know what, even that looked good! And I think I will like the Roku setup. I already got a promo email for 2 months of Philo TV free, which someone here had recommended anyway.

 

Never had a problem with my smart TV. I used to sell TVs and there was no difference in the reliability of "smart" versus non. What made a far bigger difference was brand. A TV of any type by RCA, for instance, was horribly unreliable. Samsungs can't be beat in terms of picture quality, but their reliability wasn't what you would expect from a top TV. LGs had good picture and were immensely reliable, which is why that's what I went with when I got a TV upgrade. My store leased to own much of our TVs, and we had to service them throughout the duration of that lease, so we became very familiar with reliability.