TV shootout - your thoughts?

LoveMachine

Senior member
May 8, 2012
491
3
81
With Black Friday coming up, I'm going to be replacing an 8 year old Samsung 37" LCD in the living room. This is the general use TV used mostly for Netflix for the kids. For "real" home theater use there's an older but decent Panasonic plasma in the den with a complete HTPC setup. By no means am I expecting plasma level quality with a new set, so let's not go down the LCD/LED vs. plasma hole, but I'd like feedback on 2 possible candidates for TV replacement. Goals are decent streaming ability, primarily Netflix but also PBS kids, etc., and some OTA channels. Audio is handled by an AVR, so sound isn't a consideration, and Chromebox with Openelec/Kodi will handle local media. Given the lack of quality 4k content, 1080p is fine. It's going in a living room with lots of windows. My 2 contenders based on deals/rebates at my vendor of choice (also, absolutely NO desire to door-bust Walmart at midnight for a Black Friday deal, so I'm just looking at known quantities available soon-ish):

1 - This Samsung, 40" LED. My general impression is that the smart functions and UI are good on the Samsungs with more available apps and funtions, and that picture quality is at least decent.

b. - This 40" LED Vizio has the main smart function I need (netflix) but not as many choices otherwise. A true 120Hz refresh rate vs. the Samsung's 60 (though I tend to find the inserted frame effect rather cartoon-y no matter what), and local dimming LED array.

Though local dimming on the Vizio sounds great for contrast/black levels, I'm a little dubious as to how well it actually works on the cheaper displays. Has anyone seen it on a model similar to the one above? I'm not too concerned with the fairly small cost difference between the two, so I'm torn between my perceived benefits of better streaming/UI on the Samsung vs perhaps better picture quality on the Vizio. With 3 small kids in the house I do want something easy to navigate for awful kid stuff on Netflix. Again, this isn't for critical home theater use, so no need to go down the higher-end hole. Your thoughts?
 
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Zivic

Diamond Member
Nov 25, 2002
3,505
38
91
at that price and given they are LCD, they are a horse a piece. you could pick one solely by the one that had the bezel or stand you liked better and not be wrong.
I personally think both are crap... but if you want to know which one is less crappy, I would say get the vizio
 

JEDIYoda

Lifer
Jul 13, 2005
33,986
3,321
126
at that price and given they are LCD, they are a horse a piece. you could pick one solely by the one that had the bezel or stand you liked better and not be wrong.
I personally think both are crap... but if you want to know which one is less crappy, I would say get the vizio
you probably don`t know much about TV`s...