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I just went into my local Best Buy (well after the midnight opening) and bought a "open package deal" LG LCD 37 inch for $299. I haven't opened it yet as I want to research this particular model a bit...but I'm pretty pleased with the deal. Thanks to everyone who helped me learn about HD TVs in the past week. Your advice probably prevented me from buying the first discounted Coby TV I saw on Amazon.
I just went into my local Best Buy (well after the midnight opening) and bought a "open package deal" LG LCD 37 inch for $299. I haven't opened it yet as I want to research this particular model a bit...but I'm pretty pleased with the deal. Thanks to everyone who helped me learn about HD TVs in the past week. Your advice probably prevented me from buying the first discounted Coby TV I saw on Amazon.
When I have the TV up and running I'll follow up.
Congrats on your purchase. $299 sounds like a good deal on a LG.
I do watch sports and play Xbox at times, so I could benefit from 120Hz...but I really hesitate to increase my budget further (it's been quite a progression in this past few days). I'm realizing there will always be a reason to upgrade further
I think I'd be happy with either of those TVs I listed. I visited Best Buy/Target today, and was impressed by Samsung's LED screen quality. I haven't seen the Toshiba in person, but there's something to be said for pure size.
The Samsung LED is a beaut. I have a 32-inch, 720p. The quality of the picture is outstanding. I checked every rating I could find before making the purchase. Practically everyone who purchased one gave it between 4 and 5 stars out of 5. I found this one at Best Buy for $247, down from $379. It's not the "Smart TV" but I don't care because I have a Roku set up and it's perfect.
Well, my review comes in 2 parts: the TV itself, and Best Buy.
The TV: I'm very pleased with the sound and picture quality. I'm sure the Samsung would be as good or better, but HD channels on my LG look much crisper than my roommate's Insignia LCD TV, and there is no lag playing XBOX 360 (Halo 4). I can only really compare picture quality with that Insignia, but going off of that I'm very glad to have spent a little extra to get the LG.
Best Buy purchase experience: I cannot recommend buying from Best Buy (and likely any similar brick and mortar big box stores). As I mentioned, it was an open box purchase. Now, that doesn't mean it's a "mystery box" or any such thing, and the box was marked as "passed B.B. inspection" and not missing any parts. Unfortunately, it was missing the power cord and base stand. I went back immediately to get the power cord, and the store manager got some underlying to get me one. The guy handed me a regular extension cord, and when I brought this to his attention, he said, "Oh, it'll work on that TV". It was 3:30 AM at that point, so I just went home. Of course it didn't work, and the Store Manager was incredulous I was given that the next day-but that doesn't give me my lack of sleep back, does it?
He is unable to order the base stand for me, and right now the TV is just sitting upright directly on a cabinet. He said if I find the part and buy it, he'll further reduce the price of the TV to cover that cost. But this is a huge hassle, and after talking to LG parts people, I've yet to be able to find this part. This is a huge pain in my *ss, and I'm concerned a bump may knock my TV off, breaking it.
Any suggestions on securing the TV? I'm tempted to return it, but a simple cash refund is not acceptable to me, since part of the value was in the deal itself. Then I would be back to square one with no black Friday deals in sight.
Well, my review comes in 2 parts: the TV itself, and Best Buy.
The TV: I'm very pleased with the sound and picture quality. I'm sure the Samsung would be as good or better, but HD channels on my LG look much crisper than my roommate's Insignia LCD TV, and there is no lag playing XBOX 360 (Halo 4). I can only really compare picture quality with that Insignia, but going off of that I'm very glad to have spent a little extra to get the LG.
Best Buy purchase experience: I cannot recommend buying from Best Buy (and likely any similar brick and mortar big box stores). As I mentioned, it was an open box purchase. Now, that doesn't mean it's a "mystery box" or any such thing, and the box was marked as "passed B.B. inspection" and not missing any parts. Unfortunately, it was missing the power cord and base stand. I went back immediately to get the power cord, and the store manager got some underlying to get me one. The guy handed me a regular extension cord, and when I brought this to his attention, he said, "Oh, it'll work on that TV". It was 3:30 AM at that point, so I just went home. Of course it didn't work, and the Store Manager was incredulous I was given that the next day-but that doesn't give me my lack of sleep back, does it?
He is unable to order the base stand for me, and right now the TV is just sitting upright directly on a cabinet. He said if I find the part and buy it, he'll further reduce the price of the TV to cover that cost. But this is a huge hassle, and after talking to LG parts people, I've yet to be able to find this part. This is a huge pain in my *ss, and I'm concerned a bump may knock my TV off, breaking it.
Any suggestions on securing the TV? I'm tempted to return it, but a simple cash refund is not acceptable to me, since part of the value was in the deal itself. Then I would be back to square one with no black Friday deals in sight.
Glad you like the TV.
Any time you tangle with used or open box items, it's on you to be sure you get what you need. I never trust the store to be sure I get what I'm supposed to. We went to some effort to be sure our open box stuff was complete, and if not, we tried to make sure people knew. People would still call and ask for things that were clearly marked on the tag and receipt as not available.
Look on ebay and the local craigslist for people selling their TV pedestals. I sold quite a few when clients didn't want them after we'd hang their TVs. Smaller pedestals like yours may be more difficult to find. You can buy a variety of brackets to mount it, or use a piece of wood or flat metal to mount the TV to the top of a desk or dresser, without running screws through the top of the furniture.
Planning on getting one for pretty much the same needs
That article may be the largest waste of "ink" I've ever seen. It's obviously translated from another langauge, and has just about no useful content. That being said, 4 of the 5 brand names can usually be included in any list of the better TVs. I'm not a fan of Philips, mostly because of how poorly it compared in every way to the top tier brands when I was selling them.
I am not knowledgeable about electronics so I've come here to ask the experts and current HDTV owners for advice.
We are in the market for a new LED HDTV. This will be our first purchase for the small living room. We usually sit about 8' to 10' feet away from the TV for viewing. Our entertainment center which will house the TV can accommodate up to 35.5" inches width/26.5" inches height.
We use the TV mostly to watch science, history, and nature channels, PBS, many movies (both new and old black and white films), and some sports (baseball, Olympics). We do not play video games at all, and we are not interested in 3D movies.
We have an old Sony DVD player that still works and we'd like to keep it but I suppose we'll have to upgrade to a blu-ray DVD in order to watch movies on the new HDTV, correct? That's the only thing we'd be connecting to the TV (plus the cable box), we don't have camcorders or Xbox games. I don't know how many HDMI ports we would need.
We are open to purchasing a basic Smart HDTV since that would allow us to watch Hulu, YouTube, and streaming movies from Netflix. All the other apps are not important to us.
I have been doing a lot of research on the web but am still unclear whether 1080 vs 720 resolution and 120 hz vs 60 hz refresh rate would make a difference if we're going to purchase a 32" inch or 34" inch HDTV.
This informational site should answer all your questions about 720 and 1080 pixels etal.... 720p vs 1080p - A Comparison
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