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

[aadix]

hey guys,

how good is the samsung plasma: 50B450? its retailing in hyd for 55k along with the upscaling dvd player. enquired about 50B550, i believe it been stopped.

any word on the panny 50" pricings?

[theragingbull]

Originally Posted by gendarmee

Bought this one last month end. They seem to have updated the website since then, back then there was no information about LH 50 or LH 90 on the website.
Yes, the list price is 90K. 82K is the festive price, 76K is what the dealer offers it for. Refusing the freebies with the set lessens the price to 70K. Then a bit of cajoling for the best price gets it down further. Though, the branded showrooms or LG showroom's best price w/o the freebies was between 73 and 79K.

I went to Kohinoor electronics to inquire about the LG LH90(LED) but to my shock they told me that LG has discontinued the model within 20 days of launch due to poor customer response since the TV was thicker as compared to Samsung LEDs!

[jassi]

anyone who contemplating if LCDs are better than plasmas - look at this
Best HDTVs overall - CNET Reviews
Best 5 HDTVs: Picture quality - CNET Reviews

panny plasma is number 2 - superseded only by samsung's LOCAL DIMMING LED LCD.
This is exactly what I had put in an earlier post
local dimming LED LCD > Plasma > LED Backlit LCD > LCD
Also local dimming LED LCDs are very expensive and once prices drop should be the goto HDTV technology :-)

[-NUT-case]

Hi all,

First of all i want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. I landed up here about 6 months back looking for information on plasma as i had planned on getting a plasma over an lcd. After reading through almost the entire thread i went ahead and bought a pana pv80 . I also got a good deal on it thanks to information from a member who had posted in this thread. Saved me about 15 k at that time. Got my pv80 for 50 k when it was being sold in the showrooms for 60 - 65 k.
Am very happy with the tv so far. It is an absolute pleasure to watch movies on it with the lights dimmed and it makes SD material (read cable) look almost like HD.
There is very little heat from the plasma. In fact my old 29'' crt used to get much warmer.
As regards electricity consumption i cannot comment as i had also bought a new AC and a Geyser at the same time and so is difficult to say how much the plasma has contributed to the higher electricity bills.

The newer plasma models which are out from pana , im sure can compete with even the LED tvs which are out now . In short am very happy with my purchase. Adding some pics of my set up.

• Hardly any glare on the screen as the lights are above the tv .

[gendarmee]

Originally Posted by theragingbull

I went to Kohinoor electronics to inquire about the LG LH90(LED) but to my shock they told me that LG has discontinued the model within 20 days of launch due to poor customer response since the TV was thicker as compared to Samsung LEDs!

Marketing gimmicks, I suppose. Lot of humbug I heard too while asking for a demo of this one. Was about to take LH 50 but saw this one's ad in the news paper so went to the LG showroom for a demo. They said 10 sets sold out on the first day, he added that its thicker than LCDs and not worth taking as LED tvs are new, so its untested tech and that LCD LH50 would be better, as it delivers better contrast ratio than plasma TVs.

Went to the other LG show room, he said that he'd sold off all the stock hence and doesnt have any on display, he added that LEDs have a short life span, which will lead to dark spots on the screen as the LEDs die out and that they have been receiving complaints of fuzed leds from 3 out of every five customers...He also added that lh90 is an old model but the company didn't advertise the model because of these problems, hence LH50 is better.

These sales managers couldn't differentiate between a regular LCD and a LED LCD, calling it a LED tv...When i called LG customer care they said they hadn't started shipping the set everywhere yet, that it was scheduled for a launch during diwali...when i got to check it out a day later at a regular electronics store with dish tv, i liked how the black bars above and below the video were pitch black.

Could check this thin one out, LH95 - LG Press Releases - LG Global Site

Originally Posted by jassi

Also local dimming LED LCDs are very expensive..

LH90 has the local dimming option.

[jassi]

Originally Posted by gendarmee

LH90 has the local dimming option.

yep it is number 5 in the links I posted above (HDTV overall) and it has a favorable review too - but look at the pros and cons carefully
LG 47LH90 Flat-panel TV reviews - CNET Reviews

[watashi75]

Guys, I have a slightly off topic question. I got a 32" Sony Bravia 2 years back. After crossing the 1 year warranty period the display started giving problems and finally died out. The Sony service center guys gave a quote of 30K+ for replacing the LCD panel + some circuit board, and without any warranty on the replaced part. This is a ridiculous price and I am better off buying a new TV.

Now my question is what components can I salvage from this defective TV? Can I sell some parts of it individually on eBay or do I need to scrap it altogether?

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by watashi75

Guys, I have a slightly off topic question. I got a 32" Sony Bravia 2 years back. After crossing the 1 year warranty period the display started giving problems and finally died out. The Sony service center guys gave a quote of 30K+ for replacing the LCD panel + some circuit board, and without any warranty on the replaced part. This is a ridiculous price and I am better off buying a new TV.

Now my question is what components can I salvage from this defective TV? Can I sell some parts of it individually on eBay or do I need to scrap it altogether?

I am in a similar situation with my Sharp LCD. Repair costs 50% of the price of a new TV.

[zaks]

Just an update - though some satellite channels look not so good on the LCD TV compared to the CRT some sports channels and other channels like History come really good. I recently bought a DVD player and played Babel and the movie came out just brilliant on the Pana 32" LCD. I couldn't believe it could be so good.

[v1kram]

Originally Posted by santosh.s

V1kram, sorry if you have already made your purchase. Even I had short listed S10 and G10, so my thoughts may be helpful to you. What I see is that both models are close to each other on most important specs, as compared to older PV8/PV80 models. Following are important differentiating factors.

1. Resolution:
G10 & S10 are true full-HD with moving picture resolution of 1080 lines.
PV80- HD ready, no idea about moving picture (fullHD PV800 had 900 moving picture resolution, so PV80 may be something about 700)

2. Panels:
G10- G12 neoPDP
S10- G12
PV80- G11

3. Intelligent frame creation:
G10- yes (600Hz sub drive)
S10- yes (550Hz sub drive, 600 is better number since it is divisible by most common frame rates 24, 30, 50, 60 fps)
PV80- not sure, but it had some 100Hz option.

4. Vreal processing (I don't really know whether it has anything to do with frame creation as such, or it is some different kind of processing)
G10- Vreal 4 pro
S10- Vreal 4 pro (all 2009 fullHD models have 4 pro, HD ready models have Vreal 4)
PV80- Vreal 3

5. Equivalent steps of gradation (I guess this gives relative comparison of color accuracy of pannels)
G10- about 6K
S10- about 5K
PV80- about 4K

6. Contrast:
G10- 40,000:1 (dynamic 2000,000:1, touted as "infinite" black)
S10- 30,000:1 (dynamic 2000,000:1)
PV80- 15,000:1 (dynamic 1000,000:1)

7. Cost: I got following last quotes, apparently as Diwali offer with 3 years warranty-
G10- 72.5K
S10- 57K
C10- 45K (which should be better than PV80), also 47K with a free microwave oven.
However, that offer was valid till 25th October, just a day before your post.

I chose S10 because it appeared to be equivalent to G10 in most aspects (on paper) and extra 15.5K premium plus waiting period of 1-2 months was not justified.

Thanks for the comparison Santosh. I finalised on G10 and got delivered yesterday, installation will be done today and i got at 70,000 after so much of bargaining. S10 was quoted 65,000 that's the reason i went with G10. I have opted for Tata Sky since the cable quality will not be that good. It comes with 3 year warranty (diwali offer) and some scratch card offers.

I have a harmon kardon home theater system which i have asked the panasonic people to connect it while installing the tv.

[theragingbull]

Originally Posted by watashi75

Guys, I have a slightly off topic question. I got a 32" Sony Bravia 2 years back. After crossing the 1 year warranty period the display started giving problems and finally died out. The Sony service center guys gave a quote of 30K+ for replacing the LCD panel + some circuit board, and without any warranty on the replaced part. This is a ridiculous price and I am better off buying a new TV.

Even a friend of mine who had a Sony Bravia encountered the same problem within 1.5yrs! No doubt SONY TVs are hardly selling nowadays.

[harry10]

Originally Posted by theragingbull

Even a friend of mine who had a Sony Bravia encountered the same problem within 1.5yrs! No doubt SONY TVs are hardly selling nowadays.

The prob with Sony isn't only LCD specific.
I had bad experience with Vaio laptop as well so sold it and bought dell and quiet happy since then.

[watashi75]

Originally Posted by theragingbull

Even a friend of mine who had a Sony Bravia encountered the same problem within 1.5yrs! No doubt SONY TVs are hardly selling nowadays.

What did your friend do with the LCD set?

Right now our TV is just occupying space and sitting like a decorative item in the house. Is there something that can be salvaged like some chipset or microcontroller or power panel that can be used for some DIY electronic project?

For example, don't know if it is feasible, can we cut a part of the LCD panel and connect it to some microcontroller for display?

[cooldude1988765]

Originally Posted by watashi75

For example, don't know if it is feasible, can we cut a part of the LCD panel and connect it to some microcontroller for display?

This is definately not possible AFAIK

[Ajaybiz]

Folks after using Penny PV-8 for over a year i am thinking of changing my bed rooms 21" CRT with some 32" LCD as cant put another Penny Plasma, it will be too big.Sort listed Philips 32PFL5609 and 32PFL5409 both are same in features apart from the first one is full HD and costs around 4-5K extra.
Need advice which one to choose as normally going to watch Tata Sky, Upscaled DVD's or some HD movies via Xtreamer Media Player.Does full HD really matters for 32" TV if the content is HD or full HD?