Buying a Flat Panel Display (LCD/Plasma/LED etc)

[vcash]

I took the plunge this past weekend and picked up a Sharp Aquos LC32A37m. As you can see in my previous posts, I was leaning more towards a Samsung Series 4 26” or a LG 26” – both priced between 24K to 25K. I made up my mind and walked into Croma on Saturday to pick up the Samsung Series 4 for 24.7K and free Airtel DTH box (Which was worthless to me as my building does not allow DTH) but I did not pick up the TV because Croma wanted close to 4 days to deliver and mount the TV which was not acceptable since I have to travel this week.

I figured I would try Vijay Sales on Sunday instead to see if they could facilitate a quicker delivery at a similar price. So when I walked into Vijay Sales on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a ‘Deal of the Day’ – a 32” Sharp Aquos LC32A37m for 24K with exchange or 27K without exchange. I compared the display to a a Samsung Series 4 and a few other budget LCD models in the store and I found Sharp’s quality to be, well sharper than the other TVs. 2 minutes of rationalization and a salesman’s promise of delivery and installation within the same day, I whipped out some plastic and charged my semi impulsive purchase to Citibank. I spent 2K more than my budget but I figure this premium for a better quality panel and a larger size would be worth it.
Anyway here are the specs:

1) Screen Size: 32”
2) LCD/PDP: ASV / Japan
3) Backlight System: 3 Wavelength
4) No. of Pixel (H*V): WXGA (1366*768) / 720p
5) Brightness: 450cd/m2
6) Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 10000:1
7) Native Contrast Ratio: 1500:1
8) Viewing Angle: 176 degrees (H/V)
9) Signal Processing: 8 Bit
10) Digital Comb filter: 3D Y/C Separation
11) High quality picture AQOUS Platform
So what do we think – Was this a good purchase? And is the native contrast ratio high enough?

-vcash

P.S. I only have In Digital Cable available in my building – My cable guy says that while a Digital CAS box is available to purchase, I really don’t need it since he can connect the RF Coax cable to my TV directly and I would not see any quality difference? Is this true – I always thought that the quality form a digital box was clearer. Any clarifications on this would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[Sachin26]

Originally Posted by arindamray

Can you please let me know what's the best price for the following two LG 32" models in Bangalore and in which shop.

32LH20 (HD ready, MRP: 38,000)
32LF20FR (Full HD, MRP: 42,000)

Which model do you recommend?

I have brought 32LH20 last week. In Noida CROMA quoted 33000 with a offer of a cheap Home theather(not sure of brand) free worth 4500 but they were asking for 2 dyas for delivery, got it from LG Shoppe for 32500. Got 2000 in exhange for my 10 yr old Akai 21. Effective Price paid 30500/. Hope it is a good deal

[coolclouds]

I have LG and Samsung (32) in mind. Which one is better in terms of service/spares (if required) in Bangalore?

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by vcash

I was pleasantly surprised to find a ‘Deal of the Day’ – a 32” Sharp Aquos LC32A37m for 24K with exchange or 27K without exchange.
.............
My cable guy says that while a Digital CAS box is available to purchase, I really don’t need it since he can connect the RF Coax cable to my TV directly and I would not see any quality difference? Is this true – I always thought that the quality form a digital box was clearer. Any clarifications on this would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Nice price ! I had got a quote of 24.5 for a 32a33m at eZone. It was their last piece. I too felt that it was better than the Panny LE8.

Maybe your cable-wallah transmits digital. The CAS possibly does not do any processing. It just decrypts the incoming signal. Now if the signal itself is not encrypted by him, then directly connecting the RF coax should give the same result. I could be wrong though.

[vishaltanksale]

guys, any insider info into eZone blind fold this weekend?

[jkdas]

Any hows this VIERA TH-P42G10D ?

[kb100]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Any hows this VIERA TH-P42G10D ?

Close your eyes and buy it!

[oss]

Originally Posted by jkdas

Any hows this VIERA TH-P42G10D ?

How much are you getting it for? This is one of the best in this side of 1lac

[VSG12777]

Originally Posted by aadix

hi werfish, would suggest the panasonic if the pricing is good and around/below 44k.

after that would suggest the lg panel cos i have been fairly impressed by it.

lg plasma guys, how good are the plasma till date, any ghosting? did any of you connect it to a computer/laptop?

vsg127777 sir, one of your friends picked up a 50pq30, how is it holding up?

any minus points? am keen on the 50" of the lg plasma mainly cos of their amazing price and quality almost on par with panasonic.

jassi and other panny guys, what do you think of the lg plasma?

Hi Aadix

I got an LG 42PQ70 plasma for 46k in July for my parents' place. This is the top of the line in LG's 2009 plasma range - fully frameless, USB, DivX, JPG, Bluetooth, 3 HDMI inputs. The plasma is superb to say the least. I have tested all possible sources - DVDs, DivX, JPGs, Blu ray 720p rips thru my Western Digital HD Media Player thru HDMI, etc.

The 50PQ30 which my friend picked up is also doing well. His family is very happy with it. I copied some of my original dual layer English DVDs (down converted to single layer DVDs) and he says even those (like Spiderman 3, Die Hard 4, MI 3 etc) look superb on the 50PQ30. One thing I would like to mention is that the PQ30, PQ60 and PQ70 have basically the same panel. There is a slight difference in the contrast ratio in the PQ70, extra HDMI ports, Divx feature, frameless design etc. But the panel is mainly the same. So by and large the picture quality overall on these 3 panels is almost the same. And very good, so to speak.

As for connecting a computer to the plasma, yes - I did this last week since I picked up a new HP Pavilion DV6-1154TX (top of the line of their Indian Pavilion laptop range - costing 65k + taxes). This laptop comes with a HDMI output, 1 GB dedicated ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics, 500 GB Hard drive, 16 inch widescreen display, fingerprint recognition etc. So I wanted to do some big screen gaming on the plasma using my laptop.

And I did. Display on the plasma was quite sharp, and the laptop was set to its highest resolution - 1366x768. I set it up as a clone on the plasma, so that I had the display both on the laptop screen as well as the plasma. The games looked fabulous to say the least, and were as smooth as they were on the laptop. I tested Need for Speed Most Wanted, Carbon, Undercover, Outrun 2006 Coast To Coast, Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Prince of Persia 1-4, Street Fighter 4 etc. Superb. It was an amazing experience ... big screen gaming. I felt as if I was playing using a PS3 or Xbox. Since I had a USB Wireless keyboard and mouse set on the desktop at my parents' place, I had connected that to the laptop, so that I could put the wireless keyboard on my lap and play !!

The laptop provides digital multi channel sound through HDMI. Since my Sony receiver does not have a HDMI input, I connected the HDMI from the laptop to the plasma and could get only stereo sound. Monitor out from the plasma was connected as Audio In to the Sony receiver in one of the unused input modes like CD, Tape etc. If I had a HDMI receiver, I could have got full surround sound in NFS Carbon, UnderCover etc.

Overall, I would highly recommend the LG 42PQ70 (now the 50PQ70 is also available for around 65k) as it is superbly priced for its quality and features. In fact features wise, the LG beats almost all the others. Menu navigation is excellent and very easy to use as well. Photos of the menu options etc are there in this thread in the earlier pages. Please do have a look as they were posted by me.

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

For the price you pay for the 50" LG with a so so panel, you'd get a Full HD panasonic G10 which is almost as good as the Pioneers.

Its almost mindless to prefer size over quality.

ROC,

I wouldn't agree with you on the point that the LG has a so-so panel. The new LG plasmas are in fact very good. I am able to confidently say this since we have a brand new 42 inch LG plasma at home.

Originally Posted by aadix

yes very true sir, but unless until i pick up a av reciever with an upscaler such as the onkyo TX-SR706, whats the point in having a full hd screen? esp when blueray dvds are so expensive and the only way to experience true full hd would be to download up from the net, which again is a cumbersome process.

my most of the tv usage would be tata sky only. so the only way would be to get an hd upscaler to utilise the full potential of the tv!

i too am a panny (& sony) fan (have a 42pv7), but after checking out the lg panel was fully confused! its honestly good.

plus add to the fact that i already have a 42" panny and a 40" sony.

wanted to check out the g10, but it is still yet to arrive in hyd, esp since its a neopdp panel, wanna check it out before i finalise.

the other point confusing me is, am getting the lg 50pq70 for almost 5k cheaper than the panny 42g10.

have you checked out the lg panels sir?

Aadix,

Full HD is not really worth it, since in order to appreciate all the extra detail in the picture, you have to sit quite close to the tv - like 6 feet for a 42 inch tv. This is something that most of us would never do. I mean, let me quote my setup. We used to sit around 10.5-11 feet from our Thomson 29 inch TV. Now after we got the 42 inch LG plasma, we are sitting at about 14.5 feet and the big screen experience is still pretty good. Maybe anything further than this would make the 42 inch tv look small. And we were actually considering a 50 inch plasma for the same hall !!

Search on the internet and you would find that at a distance of more than 8-10 feet, you would see no difference between HD Ready and Full HD. 720p blu ray rips played on the plasma thru my Western Digital HD Media Player look amazing.

Originally Posted by aadix

thanks jassi, btw any clue about the pricing of the G10? the hyd panny brandshop quoted it close to 1l, and said he will confirm in a few days, if thats the case the panny is out of the picture. they have no clue about the s10.

vcash: bargain more, the lg 26 incher is available for 22k here in hyd at the lg brandshop.

1 lakh for a 42 inch full HD plasma ? Just not worth it in my opinion.

Originally Posted by jassi

please tell me its some lcd salesman who told you dynamic contrast ratio is important! Its like pmpo which makes a lame audio system seem like it has a monstrous gazillion watts of sound output.

Fantastic point there, Jassi.

[aadix]

thanks vsg for the input,

am still confused about which screen to go in for but will take the decision shortly,

the price am getting the screens from my distributor are

rough prices:

59k for the lg 50pq70
64k for the panny 42g10

lets see, the g10 is coming in for demo on monday and then will take the decision.


i have heard that the lg is still facing temp image retention issues, did you face any?

[oss]

Originally Posted by aadix

am still confused about which screen to go in for but will take the decision shortly,
the price am getting the screens from my distributor are

rough prices:

59k for the lg 50pq70
64k for the panny 42g10

lets see, the g10 is coming in for demo on monday and then will take the decision.

64k for G10 is unbelievable. Last i heard was 74k for G10 42".

I think you should go for it without much hesitation.

[jassi]

64k for g10 sounds like a really awesome deal - i am not sure if the LG can compare to the latest panny

[black12rr]

Guys any LCD 32 + has picture in picture feature ?

My present 29 inch LG CRT has this feature that , I can see one channel on left with sound( news or movie) and the second channel , on the other half of the screen without audio ( like cricket or moto gp ) . This is a really good feature and I want my next LCD to be PIP also .

PS:This feature greatly reduces the tension b/w family members .

[kb100]

I would buy the Panny - eyes closed! - But that's just me! (and I did)

[greenh0rn]

Originally Posted by aadix

am still confused about which screen to go in for but will take the decision shortly,

64k for the panny 42g10

lets see, the g10 is coming in for demo on monday and then will take the decision.

Man, why are you confused still? This is surely deal of the thread- go for the Panny!