Thoroughly Confused Newbie

I'll bite;)

1-waiting for new models will give you more time to research but you'll pay more for a newly introduced model than for a current one.

2-If your Wife wants to surf the net on tv the best solution is to have a laptop connected to the tv--some higher end sets tout "browsers" but they are clunky and slow compared to what she's used to on a computer. Streaming services like Netflix are cool though.

3-Plasma, for market reasons, is indeed on it's way out as far as continued long-term availability of new sets past the next year or three. In some respects, particularly screen uniformity and off-angle viewing they are far superior to most lcds and led/lcds. If you buy one now it will probably be an "orphan" 5 years from now but parts and service shouldn't be a problem. LED/LCD will compete better with high ambient light, use less electricity, and have "whiter whites" when the screen goes to a solid white or light colored screen.

4-Your price point will get you a very decent lower midrange set from almost any of the good mfgs in an LED/LCD or a near videophile ST series Panny plasma. If you go LED/LCD consider one with an IPS panel (LG, Panasonic) for better off/angle performance. You'll be told that IPS panels don't have "good black levels" but this is less obvious unless you're watching a dark movie in a dark room.

I agree with Steve S, and here are a few more thoughts. CES is in January but the new models won't hit the stores until late March or after. I can't recall any great sales on older models when new ones arrive and I'm not sure the Superbowl leads to great deals on name brand models. Right now there are a bunch of 50-55" name brand models between $999 and $1300. I would avoid plasma, especially in a well lit room. 3D and WiFi each will add $100. You'll need a wireless router for WiFi to work. In LED models, you'll pay $100 more for the thinner, "slim" models.

The most important requirement for an LED is 120Hz. It allows for a smooth motion feature to provide some control for motion blur which may or may not bother you. If you get a 3D set, that spec should be upped to 240Hz if the set uses active shutter glasses. Other, higher, refresh rates publicized are marketing creations that attempt to combine other features.... just stick to 120Hz or 240Hz for 3D/active shutter.

Picture quality can diminish when sitting off to the side of LED sets. Go to Best Buy and look at various brands. LG is supposed to have the best viewing angle, but I feel most brands hold up well when viewed from the side.

Top tier brands are Samsung, LG, and Sony, with about 30, 12, and 9 % of the market share. You can't go wrong with them. To get an immediate snapshot of sets available, go to the Best Buy website/ Products/TV and Home Theater/ TV Finder. Enter price range 900 -1300, Screen size 50-55", Brand Samsung, Technology LED, select Display Results, and it will return ten Samsung sets in your price range. The EH models are slightly thicker and the ES models are "slim" models, and higher in price. http://www.bestbuy.com/

Switch to LG and find four sets. There are no 240Hz sets because LG uses passive 3D glasses. Check both LG and Samsung to compare. 14 top tier models to choose from between $999=$1300, not bad.

Also check out HDTV Basics and Home Theater Learning Center to learn more. Good luck. Enjoy your new TV.

All tv's will have issues. Some more than others (Vizio comes to mind) so it all depends on how critical you are and what you are willing to put up with or compromise for. 120Hz is nothing more than 60Hz x2 for motion interpolation with some extra controlling (LG calls it TruMotion, other mfrs have their own names for it). As far as when to buy, the best time for the current year is around the 2 weeks before Christmas. Late January/February you can find really good deals on the previous year's models because the mfrs need to clear out their inventory for the new models coming out. No tv is perfect and you can find very nice sets for around that $1000 price point that I wouldn't consider sub-par.

This is a great thread because I, too, am thoroughly confused. The difference between me and OP is that it is me that wants the new tv and my wife is indifferent
I've been looking at the ES6100 as it has all of the features I want. Now I'm reading reviews that say the black levels aren't very good. Is there a 55-60" tv with better image quality in this price range that still streams Netflix? My living room is relatively bright so I would prefer to stay away from plasma.

FWIW, I'm currently using a Samsung LN46A450 (circa 2008) and I am happy with the IQ on it.

Thank you all for the helpful posts.

Glenn

I don't think this model could be beat for your requirements in this price range. Especially since you like the picture quality on your A450 and have a fairly well lit room. The 120Hz upgrade over your 60Hz set is a benefit also.

Reviews you may be reading from professionals at CNET, Home Theater Magazine, etc., are targeted at very critical movie and home theater buffs who watch in darkened rooms. They typically prefer black levels on plasma sets. But plasmas aren't very good for daylight viewing or in a well lit room. Reviews on AVS are usually extremely critical because folks here are perfectionists or are having problems and are looking for solutions. Your best bet is to peruse the reviews at Best Buy and Amazon written by the average Joe. I just checked and each has over 200, with only a small number rating them below 4 on a 5 point scale, and many of those for issues other than the picture quality. Try to get to a store and check out and compare PQ, viewing angle, etc. on various models. Good luck.

The black level can be improved a bit with the use of properly placed bias light. That reduces eye strain in a darkened room (most feel that one should never watch tv/movies in a completely dark environment) and tricks the eye/brain into perceiving darker blacks with richer color.

Thank you for the responses. It's good to know that the reviews are skewed, and that the tv can be tweaked.

Glenn

I don't consider myself a newbie but I'm certainly no expert either. Every time I find a TV that I think will fill my needs I go home & look up reviews. Typically they say the TV is OK but there are better for the price. So I look at the others & they are also just OK, at least from what I'm reading. One has too much glare, one has excessive motion blur, another has poor black levels, etc.

It appears I need the $3,000 Sony HX950 with full array LED backlighting, but that's not going to happen.

When I go to the Samsung website & look at 52" - 59" LED TVs it displays 16 different 55" models. It's no longer a matter of "Good, Better or Best". It's not surprising that choosing the right HDTV can be a challenge.

My advice wait a week for CES and some of the announcement made then. This year was about big returns for most manufacturers, which meant OEM parts to keep manufacturing cost low and returns high. You could tell by the poor performance reviews from Sony and Samsung on pretty much all non-high/Flagship sets. I have tried a total of about ten sets this year and everything from severe uniformity, poor overall black level performance.....the list could go on for days. I would search your local Best buy's for 2011 open items or simply hold of for 2013.

Conventional wisdom says that to get the best bang for your buck, you either buy the two weeks before Christmas or the end of January/February to get the best prices on the previous year's models which are starting to get cleared out for the new ones which are coming. As far as a big return year, I think a big problem with returns is that a lot of folks are looking for that perfect tv, which doesn't exist. They want a 55"+ tv that has perfect pq, plays any audio/video format available, can surf the net like your PC, and has zero lag for those folks who just have to have a big screen tv as a gaming platform that plays like a computer monitor. I've been around here long enough to see people return tv after tv because of real, or imagined, flaws when in actuality, it was a perfectly good television (not a computer monitor). Sure, there have been some serious mfr issues with tv's (there always is) that warranted return, but I think it's pretty much split between returning a tv because it wasn't perfect or because it really did have a flaw. I think folks nowadays just want and expect too much out of a tv, based, in part on marketing speak, which forces some technologies to be implemented before they are truly ready or are represented in a way that is misleading. And, there are some, who just have to have the most current technology out there which hasn't really had a chance to mature yet in the "field" (in homes, not in some sterile test lab).

Another thought. If you have a set that you're happy with, consider waiting. Despite news stories that say prices aren't coming down, they are. In 2001, a 50" plasma cost $10,000. In 2008, a 52" Samsung LN52A860 120Hz set cost $2600. The $1000 Samsung 55" set (the 6000) we discussed above is, feature for feature, a replacement for that set.

PS: I just read a review in the January Home Theater magazine, and the reviewer was quite impressed with Samsung's Smart Hub this year. Check it out at news stands.

Millions of people every year buy new sets and don't notice nitpicky stuff that prompts the OCD folks around here to return half a dozen sets in search of some mythical level of perfection. They don't take as gospel some complaint here about a tv's pq that is really simply a case of poor pq due to lousy overcompressed source material. They don't put up "break-in slides" and go over the whole set with a magnifying glass looking for miniscule defects that never show up when watching normal source material. They don't base their judgement of a set's pq by how it looks playing pictures generated on the fly by a $300 game console or a rip of a rip of a pirated dvd.

So true.........Nice post......

There's a lot of truth to what Otto and Steve said.

And I'd like to re-iterate that lots of times the source material is not so hot. I mean cable and sat particularly, as it's squeezed within an inch of its life. But lots of Blu-Ray transfers aren't very good either. Not to mention the incompetence of re-encoding jobs done by warez kiddos. (Why anyone bothers with torrents/warez is a mystery to me). As a long time video hobbyist I know poor source material when I see it.

Anyway, I'm glad there are nitpickers. They serve as a useful check on the pro reviewers, whom I confess I don't trust much. I have a more selfish reason though. I got my 65" LG 65LW6500 open-box at a hefty discount, as new with warranty. I feel sure it was returned due to minor (to me) clouding/flashlighting. Hey, it's an edge-lit LED/LCD, what do you expect? And it's not evident anyway when playing a movie.
Edited by fritzi93 - 12/31/12 at 6:24pm