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32" or so HDTV

Tristicus

Tristicus

Diamond Member
So, possibly looking into getting an HDTV. I walked into a store the other day and saw a 32" Bravia for under $400 and wanted to get that instantly...of course research had to be done, but still. The thing was, I didn't get the model number, so I didn't know if it was their newer or older series. Would it matter that much? Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Toshiba are preferable brands in that order (except the last two...don't know as much about them).
 
How big is the room that you intend on viewing the TV in? My first HDTV was a 32" and after the wow wore off, I regretted not saving a bit more cash to get a larger screen. If you're going to be sitting more than 4 or 5 feet away from your TV, chances are that 32" will seem too small after a while.

It doesn't really matter what the model number is as long as it has the specs that you want (ex: 1080p, 60hz, low refresh rate, etc).

I would absolutely NOT buy a Samsung LCD. They had a run of them a while back that used 10Watt capacitors where they should have used at least 20Watt (I'm not sure on the exact numbers). After a while, users with those TVs started having troubles with them taking a very long time to turn on. Eventually, they just stop turning on and you have replace the faulty capacitors (or pay out the ass to have someone do it if you're not comfortable doing it). Samsung has not issued any recalls because of this issue, which is just plain wrong.

If you're looking for a cheap LCD, you might want to take a look at Vizio. Vizio has gone from being bottom of the line entry level to pretty good middle of the road.
 
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That's fine, you can go not buy Samsung, but I've had the experience with two more recent that not panels and I loved them. Samsung displays are great from my experience.
 
basically yes, 32" is tiny, its no good for couch distance. 2.35 material isn't even 12" tall😛 12" stripe of image 6-8 foot away no matter how good the bravia image quality is a shiite expierience. a supplemental across from your desk type screen at best
 
We're currently using a 27" SDTV. My grandparents also have a 32" LCD, and while it wasn't as large as it could be, sitting 10 or so feet away from it wasn't bad. I preferred 6 feet or so, but that was when playing games. I use a 24" for my desktop + PS3, so I'm pretty sure I've fucked my eyes up anyways. I'll see what we can do, but the reason I was thinking 32" is price. Plus it's not like TV is a 24/7 everyday thing for us either (then again if we got an HDTV it'd be watched a lot more I assume).

If a Woot deal or something could be caught...that'd be nice.
 
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Tristicus said:
We're currently using a 27" SDTV. My grandparents also have a 32" LCD, and while it wasn't as large as it could be, sitting 10 or so feet away from it wasn't bad. I preferred 6 feet or so, but that was when playing games. I use a 24" for my desktop + PS3, so I'm pretty sure I've fucked my eyes up anyways. I'll see what we can do, but the reason I was thinking 32" is price. Plus it's not like TV is a 24/7 everyday thing for us either (then again if we got an HDTV it'd be watched a lot more I assume).

If a Woot deal or something could be caught...that'd be nice.
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Your 27" TV is taller than a 32" LCD TV, which is the equivalent of a 26.1" 4:3 TV. Just because you have a small TV now, doesn't mean your new TV has to be small too. I also used to sit 10' from a 27" SDTV and thought about "upgrading" to a 32" TV for $500. I did a ton of research and viewing at my local HT stores and wound up dropping $2k on a 50" TV. It was obviously ginormous at first, but the shock value wore off after a few months, and now I wouldn't mind have a 60-70" TV from the same distance 🙂.

I'm not being condescending at all; I'm just offering a different point of view. If you were used to living in a 400 sq. ft. house, I doubt you'd go out and try to "upgrade" to a 500 sq. ft. house. You'd probably upgrade to a 1,200+ sq. ft. house even though it was 3 times larger than what you were used to. I see the TV being the same way. Just because you're used to your 27" TV, doesn't mean you should "upgrade" to one that's an inch shorter.

I've seen 42" TVs go for $500 before. A 42" TV is 72% larger than (i.e. close to double the size of) a 32" TV. To compare the different sizes and see the big difference, go to www.tvcalculator.com. If it's possible to increase your budget, then I recommend getting something larger than 32". If you average the cost over several years, the price difference isn't that huge.

Edit: If you increased your budget a lot, a 46" TV actually is double the size of a 32" TV. TV sizes do not increase linearly according to the increase in diagonal size. So even though you might think that a 46" TV is only 14/32 or 44% larger than a 32" TV, it actually is 107% larger.
 
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s44 said:
Watching any 32" at 10' isn't HD. Meanwhile... 50" Samsung 720p plasma -- $675 shipped. 42" Samsung 720p plasma -- $540 shipped. Etc.

edit -- here's the size/distance chart again. And yes, I'm recommending the 50" Sammy. At that distance the size difference over a 32" or even 42" will blow you away.
Click to expand...

Much better choices for a 10' viewing distance. You're right about 10' from a 32" not being HD. The human eye can't even resolve the difference between 480p and 720p at that distance.

OP, you said you like the 32" from 6' away. That's how big a 50" will look from 10' away. You wouldn't have to limit that more-immersive experience to when you move your seating closer for gaming. Another way to put it is that a 32" from 10' away would look the same as a 50" from 15' away.

The latter is the setup my in-laws have and was my first experience with HDTV. I thought it was a bunch of hooey! They spent thousands of dollars on a 50" 1080P TV and a BD player, and I couldn't tell the difference between BDs and DVDs! Well, after reading up on the subject, I realized that HDTV wasn't the problem; it was my in-laws' viewing distance relative to screen size.

I now sit about 9' from my 50" 720p plasma, and it looks incredible. The main time I wish it were bigger is with 2.35:1 films; however, there's never a time when I wish it were smaller. It's really amazing how big of a difference there is between watching movies on two TVs of the exact same size, but with one of them at 9' away and the other at 15' away.
 
Tristicus said:
That's fine, you can go not buy Samsung, but I've had the experience with two more recent that not panels and I loved them. Samsung displays are great from my experience.
Click to expand...

Keep buying them and your bound to get bit.

I paid over 2K for bulging under rated capacitors and have read this extends into some of the computer monitors. Since you've never had any problems you most likely don't know how bad their customer service is. They ignore problems and hope you will give up and go away.
 
Well I'm hoping TVs might drop as 3Ds are starting to release...


Also, 240hz doesn't automatically mean 3D right?
 
Tristicus said:
Also, 240hz doesn't automatically mean 3D right?
Click to expand...

Correct.
I don't think the 3d stuff is going to drive down 2d prices much though, 2d prices are dropping pretty stably as it is.

Here's a couple links for you.
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-32-inch-hdtvs/ (heavy on feature comparison)
http://www.bestcovery.com/best-32-inch-lcd-tv

You should decide if you want 720p or 1080p. Most people can't tell the difference on a 32" display and you'd save some cash by going with 720p.


Also, to 90% of the commenters above... bigger isn't always better. A 32" TV is huge for some people and/or rooms. Telling him he needs a 50" set is not that different from telling someone looking for a compact 4-door car to buy an SUV because you can fit more stuff in it.
 
Some Samsungs do have capacitor problems, but if you can solder, they are easy to fix. From what I have read, they go after about 2000hr. So far, none of my 3 Samsungs have had the issue. If you don't want to solder, you can replace the whole power supply board for ~$100 (as easy as installing a computer motherboard).
 
s44 said:
Yes, a small bedroom.
A 32" is woefully undersized for even a Manhattan living room.
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All depends on what you want out of it, and obviously you want a huge TV that fills a large percentage of your field of vision.
Not everyone does.
 
nickbits said:
Some Samsungs do have capacitor problems, but if you can solder, they are easy to fix. From what I have read, they go after about 2000hr. So far, none of my 3 Samsungs have had the issue. If you don't want to solder, you can replace the whole power supply board for ~$100 (as easy as installing a computer motherboard).
Click to expand...

The power supply for the 71F series is reported to be about $600 over at AVS.

Where are you getting it for $100? The capacitor problem is currently getting the most attention but there are also screen delamination problems popping fairly frequently.
 
klocwerk said:
Correct.
I don't think the 3d stuff is going to drive down 2d prices much though, 2d prices are dropping pretty stably as it is.

Here's a couple links for you.
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-32-inch-hdtvs/ (heavy on feature comparison)
http://www.bestcovery.com/best-32-inch-lcd-tv

You should decide if you want 720p or 1080p. Most people can't tell the difference on a 32" display and you'd save some cash by going with 720p.


Also, to 90% of the commenters above... bigger isn't always better. A 32" TV is huge for some people and/or rooms. Telling him he needs a 50" set is not that different from telling someone looking for a compact 4-door car to buy an SUV because you can fit more stuff in it.
Click to expand...

Bigger IS better. tv is fundamentally a visual experience. film is a fundamentally visual experience. in the past technology constricted us into buying 27-32" as practical size, the huge back end of a crt made its total three dimensional bulk in the room the major issue, once you added in the tv stand or wall unit furniture to house it, even a small screen now functionally occupied a huge area of the room. buy a 42" crt and it was like having a boulder sitting in your room, the size of the actual visual image was secondary to the massive size presence of the unit. flat screen has no such issue. even a 50-65" tv on the wall or close to it has almost no extension into the room which is the real issue when it comes to how intrusive a tv is. when watching films a 2.35 film will lose size and so the size of the tv does matter. unless you live in a hovel or closet, most any living rooms wall will be big enough for a large flat panel tv. We aren't talking prison cells here are we. this is america, 4-5 feet of free space on the wall is possible in most houses.

but some people are still used to the old way of thinking about this, which was valid when crts made bigger screens impractical. 32" is just a joke now, its a computer monitor. at any reasonable distance like 6-8 feet back it becomes a postage stamp, you are watching film/tv on a computer monitor at distance. not immersive, not impressive, and not worth much. severely compromised experience.
 
I'm not just here to throw as much cash as we can at a TV, and we've been using a 27" SDTV for years. Size is all in preference. You might not think it's impressive or practical, others do.

Anyways, since we have to get a new TV stand/cabinet/piece of furniture anyways, something in the range of 42" or so might be what we are looking at. That 47" Sharp on sale at Dell looked good, but not sure when we're going to pull the trigger on one just yet.
 
0roo0roo said:
Bigger IS better. tv is fundamentally a visual experience. film is a fundamentally visual experience. in the past technology constricted us into buying 27-32" as practical size, the huge back end of a crt made its total three dimensional bulk in the room the major issue, once you added in the tv stand or wall unit furniture to house it, even a small screen now functionally occupied a huge area of the room. buy a 42" crt and it was like having a boulder sitting in your room, the size of the actual visual image was secondary to the massive size presence of the unit. flat screen has no such issue. even a 50-65" tv on the wall or close to it has almost no extension into the room which is the real issue when it comes to how intrusive a tv is. when watching films a 2.35 film will lose size and so the size of the tv does matter. unless you live in a hovel or closet, most any living rooms wall will be big enough for a large flat panel tv. We aren't talking prison cells here are we. this is america, 4-5 feet of free space on the wall is possible in most houses.

but some people are still used to the old way of thinking about this, which was valid when crts made bigger screens impractical. 32" is just a joke now, its a computer monitor. at any reasonable distance like 6-8 feet back it becomes a postage stamp, you are watching film/tv on a computer monitor at distance. not immersive, not impressive, and not worth much. severely compromised experience.
Click to expand...

Just because a room/wall is large enough doesn't mean that everyone wants to put a 50"+ TV in/on it.
Obviously I'm not going to change your mind, and I'm not trying to tell YOU to get a 32" TV, but it's kind of sad that you can't even comprehend that not everyone wants a giant TV in their living room.
Shutting up now.
 
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