Time to replace the big screen TV

[Kev Williams]

Our ~11 year old 75" Sharp Aquos Quattron suddenly has decided to grow its own 'input selection brain', just keeps changing inputs by itself...

SO I'm looking at 85" replacements, which from where I'll be buying from boils down to LG, Samsung and Sony, and looking to spend no more than ~$2500...

I notice UHD, QLED, OLED, QNED types--

good bang for the buck is an LG UHD for $1300, seems pretty ok... For $1600-$1800 Samsung has a couple of QLED units, BUT, they only have 60Hz refresh rates where the cheaper LG has a 120Hz refresh... Only one LG I find, $2100, shows as an "ONED", 'Quantum Dot Nanocell Technology' I assume accounts for the acronym. "OLED" units seem to be for the rich crowd...

For $1300 the LG seems like a good deal, but the wife says 'don't cheap out' ;)

Anyway, any recommendations? :)


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[Paul F Franklin]

No reco from me since I haven't bought a TV in ages...but if your current set has a physical button to select the input, you may want to futz with it in case it is sticking or dirty.

[Scott Clausen]

You must watch much more TV than I. Anyway in an attempt to assist you may want to check your inputs and disconnect unused inputs first. Some TV's have ARC inputs that can take commands from other devices to change the input. Others "sense" a signal from another source and auto change inputs. Until you remove others you will not know if it is the TV or another device. Sometimes removing one input from the ARC input and moving to a non ARC will resolve. Good luck!

[Brian Tymchak]

Also starting to look at a replacement for our big plasma. Power filters starting to fail.

More than likely will go with Samsung again. QLED 4K 65+" is the baseline. Haven't shopped seriously beyond that though. Seems to be a lot model options for Samsung. Guess I'll need to dive in to figure it out. Supposed to be a good Fall shopping season for electronics.

[Bruce Page]

I don’t have any recommendations on the current offerings. I did buy a TOL Sony OLED two years ago. It has the blackest blacks and best contrasts I have ever seen on a television. It is Android based but other than that, I’m very happy with it.

[ChrisA Edwards]

All three brands are good, but I have two Sony 75" and a 65", so I guess you can see what my recommendation is.

My last Sony 75" I bought from Costco.

Now I'll jinx myself, I've never has a Sony TV fail.

[roger wiegand]

All TVs beyond the no-name base models these days are so good it's really hard to go wrong. I'd base a brand decision on the operating system you prefer, then select for the connectors you need and the aesthetic you like. We have a cheap Samsung and and an expensive one, they operate identically (and picture quality is, to me, indistinguishable), but the expensive one is dramatically faster in operation than the cheap one, so much have a much faster processor.

[Jerome Stanek]

My best advice is to go to a couple of stores and look at the pictures. I looked at some Sony's LG's and Samsung's and the best picture was on a cheap Hisense I had a hisense in the bedroom and it is about 10 years old and still going strong

[Marc Fenneuff]

I got an LG C1 (OLED) this year and it has the best picture I've ever experienced at home. Sounds like the 85" C1 or C2 would be well out of your price range, though. If you are looking for a mid-range set, Roger's advice is sound.

[Jim Becker]

I have both Samsung and LG products currently and have been very happy with them based on when they were acquired and available features at that time, etc. If I was someone that watched a lot of video content, I'd shoot for the best screen technology, even if it meant a few inches smaller to get to a price point. I don't disagree with the advice to go and look at them physically in (the) store(s) if you can, but do keep in mind that things might be "juiced" in the setups to make them more vivid in the retail environment lighting. Pay attention to the blacks for sure.

[Ted Calver]

Just helped an elderly friend buy a TOL 83" Sony from Costco with an added sound bar from Best Buy. Beautiful picture and sound. That sucker was heavy...two man job for sure. She has yet to master the controls, as it is a huge step up in digital technology for her...still needs occasional assistance when she fat fingers a button. She paid for it using a Costco Visa and that extended the warranty.

My daughter and her husband recently gifted us a new 77" LG OLED and Sony AV amplifier as unexpected payment for some work I did for them. I like the LG picture as well, if not better than the SONY. My grandson hooked up the amplifier to our 4 old Klipsch speakers and the surround sound beats my friends new sound bar, hands down.

You won't go wrong with either brand.

[Tom M King]

We bought five LG's not too long ago for a rental house. I just bought them from Walmart. 75" was the largest one for the great room. None are the fancy OLED, or any of that, but I was surprised at the quality of the pictures they show. I think the 75" was a little less than $800. I wouldn't spend double that for a "better" picture for our own house.

[Kev Williams]

As to pic quality, hard to beat our old Sharp. The "Quattron" part of the name comes from the fact it has a 4th yellow pixel, according to Sharp it's to enhance blue's. And behind each cluster of pixels is black. To this day when I see a movie or old TV show in HD on it for the first time the pic quality amazes me. Never had an issue with it till now. Some googling found a few other people with similar input-switching problems, and common to them, and ours, is that it seems to be a 'cold TV' issue, once it's been on about an hour it seems to quit doing it. No known 'actual' fix. Ours does it with no remotes of any kind in the room, and the controls on the side only access the menu's to switch inputs, no direct access to change anything. It acts almost like the 'flashback' button is the culprit, but I've chosen 2 HD inputs just to see and it always switches to the 'USB' input. It's also switched to a 3rd input a couple of times, but the USB input is ALWAYS one of the switch-to choices regardless of the other one. And there's nothing in the USB port...

thanks for the comments! Seems there's no 'wrong' TV to buy these days :)

[Wojciech Tryc]

Go for the OLED. That is the only technology offering true black at the pixel level. The others are marketing gimmicks trying to promote LED with zones going black. Absolutely no comparison….
Sony will give you few extra features and it offers your Android based TV if you like it. As per the actual oled display, Sony uses LG brand

[Paul F Franklin]

One point I will add...when our high end SONY died a few years back, I replaced it with a TCL model at about 1/10 what we paid for the sony. It's been fine for us, since my wife isn't fussy and I rarely watch TV. But when we installed the TCL, I noticed that there are almost zero adjustments you can make to the picture. IIRC, brightness was it. The sony, in contrast, had an amazing array of adjustments to allow you to calibrate it to true color rendition and adjust for many lighting conditions. If you care about being able to tweak the picture make sure the one you buy has the adjustments you want.

OK, one more point: Another thing the Sony had was a very matte screen that showed almost no reflections of windows or lights in the room, etc. The TCL has a glossier screen and reflections are easily noticeable. If you are always watching in a darkened room it probably doesn't matter, but the reflections bother me on the rare occasions when I do watch something.

[Stan Calow]

We bought a 70" Samsung last year from Sam's Club. Generally happy with the quality and features. I have no idea what kind of system it uses, just that it was a great price. However, I suggest that you verify total compatibility with your streaming service if you have one. Other guidance: check the sound - we found a lot of TVs had weak sound systems.

[Frank Pratt]

https://www.rtings.com/tv is an excellent TV review site.

[Bill Dufour]

My niece bought a big screen tv and it was too large for the room. You had to swivel your head to watch football.
Bill

[Tom M King]

I remember in 1968 I talked my Parents into buying our first color TV to watch the Olympics. It was a 19" Zenith, and cost $279 then.

We bought a 55" LG for one of the bedrooms in a rental house. It has an amazing picture quality compared to anything of old, and plenty good enough for me. It cost $279 last Fall.

[Bill McNiel]

FWIW - approximately a year ago I replaced two semi large flat screens after performing an insane amount of research. General result is;

Samsung QLED- better for areas with brighter ambient light. 65" for Master Bedroom.
LG OLED- better for dark rooms and has, I believe, a wider viewing angle. 55" for the Den.
Sony - adds more built in electronics and higher cost. Not worth the extra $ for us.

All three have multiple levels of products. This is where seeing them side by side helps immensely. When the difference in picture no longer affects your viewing, stop.

Make a list of priorities regarding type of usage (Gaming, sports, movies, internet, etc.). How many HDMI ports, burn in rates, etc.

Check out the reviews available on the Internet. I found several sites that had no allegiance to any particular brand.

Best pricing was at Video Only versus Best Buy, Costco, etc., at least here in the Northwest. Video Only will pay $ for old trade-ins. The sales people really know their products and never tried to "up sell" me).

Sound Bars are a really nice add but you can get by without it or add later.

Hope this helps a bit Bill

[Michael Schuch]

My TV priorities:

1) Mat screen finish instead of glossy screen finish!!!!

2) Reliability.

3) OS - user interface.

I will not buy a TV with a glossy finish on the screen! They reflect way too much light making even a very bright screen hard to watch if in a well lit room.

I have owned LG, Vizio, Samsung and off brand TV's. Samsung is my top choice for a TV and I would probably like a Sony too but I have never owned one. LG and Vizio TV's have both given me major problems early in their lives. Samsungs have lasted very well for me.

Picture quality is pretty much a non factor to me other than how glossy the screen is. I have a couple year old 4K 82" Samsung Q80 QLED in my living room and a several year old 4K Vizio 75" in my bedroom. Despite a big difference in price and age I can not really tell any difference in picture quality. The Vizio used to be in the living room but moved into the bedroom when the LG tv in the bedroom died and then the Samsung replaced the Vizio in the living room. The viewing experience between the Vizio and the Samsung is not noticeable to me.

Vizio does not keep up on their OS / UI updates making a ROKU or similar necessary. At about 3 years old the capacitors on the power supply on my 75" Vizio went bad. I replaced the cheap crappy capacitors on the PS board with quality capacitors of a higher rating to bring the Vizio back to live. There were instructions all over the internet on how to do this because it is a very common problem on Vizio TV's across all of their different models and sizes.

To me HDR is just marketing hype rather than something that will make any kind of viewing experience. Viewing a 61mp 36 bit photograph from my Sony mirrorless camera has no distinguishable difference between HDR turned on or off on my 55" Samsung TV used as a monitor connected to my workstation/PC.

QLED is a marketing ploy to cover the fact that Samsung has nothing to compete with LG's OLED sets. I see that this year Samsung has finally jumped on the OLED bandwagon. On OLED sets every pixel emits its own light. Every other LCD set is lit from the back and filters out unneeded light for each pixel. QLED is just marketing BS.

8K resolution is worthless to me. I can't tell the difference between 1080 and 4K content on my current 4K TV's. I have no use for 8K. I stare at a Curved Samsung 4K 55" TV as my monitor for software development 8 to 12 hours a day. In this role 1080 vs 4K is very noticable. But I still do not see a need for 8K.

60Hz refresh rate is plenty for my uses. The human eye is not fast enough to really see any advantage to a higher refresh rate for normal TV viewing.

TV showrooms are worthless! I CAN see how glossy a TV screen is and how much light it reflects but they don't give you the remote to test drive the OS. The OS is a big deal on how well a TV works for me. EX. Samsung has a channel guide with programming descriptions for over the air (OTA) programming. Vizio does not. On my Vizio I have to select a channel then press the info button to see the programming descriptions... VERY ANNOYING! My LG was similar. The SAMSUNG OS is MUCH better in this respect since I can get a grid of my OTA channels with the program name and program description as well as displaying the descriptions when channel surfing... MUCH BETTER! Roku's etc. do not have OTA tuners so the TV's tuner functionality make a big difference to "Me".

Any noticeable differences in actual picture quality on a showroom floor is just the screen settings. Pretty much every 4K TV has a more than acceptable picture quality for me. Picture quality stats are pretty much just hype with very little actual meaningful differences. (Exception - Viewing angle does make a difference for me).

OLED vs LCD differences are real! This LCD screen vs that LCD screen is not really significant in all but the very cheapest of the cheap TV's. OLED's are bright and beautiful but they were not worth the price premium "to me" when I bought my 82" Samsung 2 years ago.

Most TV manufactures do not make their own screens. They buy their screens from a screen manufacture and pair them with their own case and computer/controller. 3 TV's from 3 different brands having the exact same screen is not unheard of.

Just my opinions on TV's... take them for what they are worth. :)

[Alan Lightstone]

A lot of information from Michael, though I disagree with some of it.

I much prefer OLED TVs. We have all LG TVs. The Samsung QLEDs (which is marketing nonsense as they are not OLEDs) have the advantage in brightness, but with less contrast (no absolute blacks like OLEDs.)

HDR is stunning. We get a couple of HDR channels from DirecTV and the picture is markedly better than normal TV. It is truly amazing. My friend bought a 85" Samsung, and doesn't get HDR channels, and the picture is not nearly as nice.

TV showrooms are totally worthless. The TVS are set absurdly bright with the contrast turned up all the way. They do nothing to show you which sets are good.

Most TV sound is awful. I have sound bars on all my TVs. Even more important as you get older and your hearing gets worse.

For a very bright room, you can make a good argument for the Samsung QLED vs an OLED as they are significantly brighter. That being said, even in our brightest room, the OLEDs do just fine.

8K is worthless now. And perhaps always. Difference in resolution can't be seen unless you are uncomfortably close to the set. All marketing nonsense, and no 8K broadcasts out there that I know of.

Just one man's opinion.

[Michael Schuch]

A lot of information from Michael, though I disagree with some of it.

I much prefer OLED TVs. We have all LG TVs. The Samsung QLEDs (which is marketing nonsense as they are not OLEDs) have the advantage in brightness, but with less contrast (no absolute blacks like OLEDs.)


I would love to have an OLED TV someday! :) From everything I have seen they have a superior picture to LCD screens. They have that pop like old plasma sets used to have.

I completely agree QLED is just marketing BS!



HDR is stunning. We get a couple of HDR channels from DirecTV and the picture is markedly better than normal TV. It is truly amazing. My friend bought a 85" Samsung, and doesn't get HDR channels, and the picture is not nearly as nice.


This is not my experience but I could be wrong. I think most current sets support HDR so I don't believe the point is worth arguing about. When I bought my Samsung a couple of years ago the price difference for HDR was significant and I paid the extra for HDR. I don't believe this is still the case.



TV showrooms are totally worthless. The TVS are set absurdly bright with the contrast turned up all the way. They do nothing to show you which sets are good.

Most TV sound is awful. I have sound bars on all my TVs. Even more important as you get older and your hearing gets worse.


I should have mentioned that it has probably been 35 years since I listened to a TV program through a TV sets speakers. I have an old AVR receiver with good speakers on both of my main sets. I doubt I would watch TV at all without quality sound to back it up. My experience with the latest AVR tech is that it is also mostly hype which I don't find is worth spending my money on... besides I have always purchased all of my AVR receivers used and a generation or two old.



For a very bright room, you can make a good argument for the Samsung QLED vs an OLED as they are significantly brighter. That being said, even in our brightest room, the OLEDs do just fine.

8K is worthless now. And perhaps always. Difference in resolution can't be seen unless you are uncomfortably close to the set. All marketing nonsense, and no 8K broadcasts out there that I know of.

Just one man's opinion.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

We replaced our still working TV with a massive sony 75 or 80 inch, (IDK). She bought it. I don't watch much regular TV. I do watch quite a bit of You Tube and other instructional videos along with some documentary app that came with the big TV, She watches the Sony multiple times more than I do. I watch the old 55 inch Samsung most. The thing I liked about the samsung was that I could surf the internet without a computer. It was a bit slow, but I even posted on this forum from that Samsung and the wireless keyboard I linked to it. The computer chips for the TV can't be that expensive. I do not understand why they use such limited capacity chips in most TV's. My Samsung in the Kitchen is only a 32 inch, but when cooking (I am retired but Mrs. still works) I have videos playing. Sometimes wood turning, sometimes cooking, or old 1950's TV shows. My cell phone is linked to the Kitchen Samsung. I can use the tv like a slide projector using my phone and have done so for presentations to groups, It isn't power point, but it works.

[Kev Williams]

Much appreciate all the replies, gained some new insight on current TV tech :) - However, this morning I stumbled onto a way to shut down the USB input, and it worked, so new TV plans are on hold for awhile...

Xmas maybe? :D

[Bill Dufour]

Decades ago I read that by the time you can afford the best quality stereo system and speakers your ears can no longer hear the difference. I bet eyesight is similar?
Bill D

[Mike Soaper]

https://www.rtings.com/tv is an excellent TV review site.

Agree

I think it was there that someone said on some google based tvs the tv's user changed setup/preferences are saved on their google account, which could be good or bad depending upon how much you like google

[Jerome Stanek]

My first big screen TV was an RCA color 25 inch back in 1971. It was $595 at that time. We saved up by putting my National guard pay in a seperate account until we had enough to buy it.

[Michael Drew]

I have a home theater with a 4K projector and 110" screen and entirely too much money invested in a 7.4.2 Atmos sound system. That is where the quality of the display really matters to me, but I also have a TV in my great room where we spend most of our "veg time" watching brain numbing tv shows and Sunday football games..... I totally agree with Michael about anti-glare screens. Unless you have the TV in a light controlled room, glare will obliterate any descent picture the display might be capable of. HDR does look spectacular in my theater, but it's completely light controlled, with dark matt painted walls and ceiling. Big difference.

Samsung is generally the display manufacture I lean towards, although, LG and Sony make good products too. If you watch sports, you'll want a display that had good motion control. The faster refresh rates, like 120hz help, but some displays have pretty good tech that can trick your mind into not seeing motion (like a football through the air). My great room TV is ab 65", 4K Samsung. Don't remember the model, but it has a great picture. It was an "open box" sale unit I found at Best Buy. 50% off. Best Buy usually has these open box sales units that are worth consideration. They are generally one or two models behind the latest and greatest model, might be a store display unit, but will usually come with a fool warranty, or a Best Buy warranty.