Feb
14

Best LCD TVs - Review Sumamries

Filed Under LCD TV Reviews, Samsung LCD TV, Sony LCD TV | Leave a Comment

You can drive yourself a bit mad running around the internet trying to decide which are the best LCD TVs, or best anything else for that matter.

With LCD TVs “best” is temporary anyway given the rate of progress in the technology. The best from 3 or 6  months ago at any point in time has probably already been overtaken by something better and maybe cheaper too!

Nevertheless “upgrade fever” is a well known medical condition that afflicts mostly the male gender when it comes to technology toys of any type.

Latest features that you absolutely gotta have in your LCD TV:

  • 1080p resolution
  • Full-HD tuner to allow you to see HD broadcasts and Blu-ray disks in their native format.
  • LED backlighting, which results in deeper blacks and better colours, and
  • Home networking, so you can stream media from another PC or a home server.

If you are suffering from upgrade fever right now, here’s a few LCD TVs that you coulda, woulda, shoulda buy or bought! :-)

LCD TV Reviews by CNet in late 2008:
1.  Samsung LA46A950  Editors’ choice 8.8/10

They say: “The Samsung LA46A950 is without a doubt the best LCD television we’ve seen up until this point”

2.  Sony Bravia KDL46W4000  Editors’ choice 8.7/10

They say: “The Sony Bravia 46W4000 offers exceptional image and sound quality at a reasonable price.”

3.  LG Scarlet 42LG61YD 8.5/10

They say: “The LG Scarlet 42LG61YD is an exceptional 1080p television with great design, features and a well implemented 100Hz mode. Considering the cost and the improvements over the previous Scarlet, this is definitely a good buy.”

Smarthouse Reviews Late 2007:
BEST LCD TV 36″ to 50″: Toshiba 42WL68A

They say: “Toshiba has made a string of excellent LCD TVs, and this 100Hz W Series is top-notch. Thriving on high definition content, this series produces spotlessly clear picture, surprisingly great audio and plenty of connectivity.”

Highly Commended: Sony KDL40XBR

Well Worth Buying: LG 47LB2DE

LCD vs Plasma Shoot Out
In late 2007, Sound and Vision took took the best Plasma TV they could find (Pioneer Elite PRO-110FD Kuro) and the best LCD TV they could find (Samsung LN-T5281F) and compared them in a carefully calibrated match.

The winner as the Pioneer Elite which at the time they rated as “the best flat panel ever” and “the best TV ever”.

The main difference was how much better the Pioneer plasma displayed blacks compared to the Samsung LCD. The Pioneer “made the blacks on the LCD look gray, even though the Samsung had the best blacks ever seen from an LCD”. On the plasma, objects appeared more etched and dimensional against the dark background, thanks to the extra low-level detail.

Samsung-LN-T5281F-LCDTV-vs-Pioneer-Elite-PRO-110FD-Kuro-plasmaTV

Summary:

If you can think rationally through the haze of upgrade fever, remember the Buying Tips:

  1. Decide what features of an LCD TV are most important to you.
  2. Make a shortlist of models that meet your criteria in #1.
  3. Set your budget.
  4. Go and see a few TVs before making your decision.
Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • bodytext
  • Bumpzee
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Mixx
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google
Feb
26

Samsung & Sony Battle To Be LCD TV Top Dog

Filed Under Samsung LCD TV, Sony LCD TV | Leave a Comment

During the last quarter of 2007 and January 2008, Sony took over from Samsung as the top LCD vendor in some countries such as a Taiwan, on the back of big price cuts it made in Dec 2007.

Recent data from the market-research firm DisplaySearch, has shown that Sony overtook Samsung Electronics as the world’s biggest manufacturer of LCD televisions with 19.5 percent of the global market share in the last quarter of 2007. Samsung had 19.3 percent in the same period and Sharp was ranked as No. 4 with approx. 10 percent of share.

To meet growing demand Sony has said it is planning to also buy television LCD panels from its rival Sharp during 2008 to diversify its procurement channels to meet growing demand and cut costs.

Sharp will provide 10th generation 40 inch High Definition LCD TVs from its plant in Sakai, Osaka prefecture, which is slated to start operating this year.

Historically, Sony sourced a major part of its LCD TV panels from S-LCD, a manufacturer of LCD TV panels based in Tangjeong, South Chungcheong Province in South Korea. S-LCD is jointly owned by Samsung Electronics and Sony.

Samsung Electronics and Sony jointly established the LCD maker with an investment of 2 trillion won in 2003. Since then Samsung has been buying half of S-LCD’s output and Sony the other half.

Panasonic has also recently announced plans to diversify away from its current a plasma-centric business and build a new manufacturing plant for LCD panels in and to strengthen a three-way partnership with Hitachi and Canon.

The fight for market share and dominance among the world’s leading LCD TV makers has taken on a new direction with these panel procurement deals between Japanese firms.

These initiatives have happened at a time of management turnmoil at Samsung Electronics ― the world’s No. 1 LCD maker in recent years - where executives are preoccupied soothing investors’ worries over the deepening bribery scandal involving the Samsung Group.

Industry estimates suggest that global demand for LCD TVs will reach 155 million units in five years, up from 74.8 million in 2007, primarily driven by strong sales in China and the United States.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • bodytext
  • Bumpzee
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Mixx
  • NewsVine
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Google

← Previous Page — Next Page →