Can you believe I've never owned a...?

[cambridgealex]

TV?

Left school 8 years ago and had one year in a shared house with a TV, but never owned one, or even used one for most of my adult life so far.

It's time.

Choose me a good one please blonde. 4k and curved are the buzz words about town these days I hear. Doesn't need to be too big (but I don't know how big 50" is for example), but happy to spend some wedge - around £1k but if thats excessive then say so.

Want it for Sport mainly, but linking it to Netflix, youtube, iplayer etc etc would be neat.

[buzzharvey22]

"But I don't know how big 50 inches is"

Yeah I'm stumped as well.

[Rexas]

"But I don't know how big 50 inches is"

Yeah I'm stumped as well.

I'm sure if you ask Verndog he'll claim he could show you.

Fwiw I've never owned a tv either, my mrs does but I never use it. She doesn't much either, unless she hooks the laptop up to it for netflix or whatever.

[Omm]

Probably best to go to a Currys/PCWorld megastore, choose the tv you like the most and then go and buy it online, got my last 50" tv £400 cheaper doing it this way and I had the benefit of seeing it first.

In other news I needed a HDMI cable on Boxing Day to connect a gaming chair to the Xbox for my son, found this

http://www.futureshop.co.uk/audioquest-diamond-hdmi-cable-16m-p-5290.html#.Vn-DA3rfWrU

 

[Ironside]

Probably best to go to a Currys/PCWorld megastore, choose the tv you like the most and then go and buy it online, got my last 50" tv £400 cheaper doing it this way and I had the benefit of seeing it first.

In other news I needed a HDMI cable on Boxing Day to connect a gaming chair to the Xbox for my son, found this

http://www.futureshop.co.uk/audioquest-diamond-hdmi-cable-16m-p-5290.html#.Vn-DA3rfWrU

 

I order half a dozen

[EvilPie]

I'm in the same boat at the moment as I'm seriously considering an upgrade for my tired old screen.

The best place to look is here: http://www.whathifi.com/news/boxing-day-sales-best-tv-deals-smart-hd-4k-tv

There's loads of reviews on what hi-fi and I've always found them to be really good. If you're not in a rush then buy the magazine for a few months until you get comfortable with what's out there. If you need one now then the reviews in that link will have to do.

Regarding screen size 50" is pretty big but if you've got room then go for it. To give you an idea this is what a 50" screen looks like on a 4m wide wall:

Click to see full-size image.

Bear in mind that new screens have hardly any trim around the edge so a modern 55" screen would probably appear about the same overall panel size and a 50" would just be the bit within the black trim.

There's no real need for 4k at the moment as there's hardly any content to play through it. Most of what is available is on Netflix or youtube though so in your case it may be worth it. If you're not getting a 50"+ screen then you're not going to need that many pixels anyway.

Curved seems to be a gimmick. There doesn't appear to be any real use for it other than to look cool. I might have to get one myself though because they really do look cool.

A smart TV will do lots of cool online stuff although not all smart TVs do Netflix so look out for that. I think Samsung and LG both have Netflix within their OS but not many of the others. There's other ways of getting Netflix such as hooking up your laptop but you're much better off keeping it separate in my opinion. Many have wifi for streaming but you may suffer from jitter if your wireless connection isn't great. Better to have a wired connection if you can and also you'll need 30Mb/s to stream 4K from what I understand.

It's a huge minefield out there so very best of luck. Whatever you buy be happy with your choice and don't look at TVs again after you've made your purchase. It won't be long before you see the same TV at half the price so you'll just upset yourself........

[Kev B]

TV manufacturers change models around March. IMO either grab a sale bargain now or wait until then. A few years ago I got a 3D smart TV. The new model was coming out in April and the old one was all singing/dancing enough for me. Paid £799 for it, original price £1899. 

[RED-DOG]

Does anyone else remember when tellys had just the two channels and you had to get out of your chair, walk across the room and turn a big knob to switch between them?

[bobAlike]

Does anyone else remember when tellys had just the two channels and you had to get out of your chair, walk across the room and turn a big knob to switch between them?

Yes I've read about them somewhere.

[RED-DOG]

If you wanted to watch something at 8pm you had to switch on at 7:55 to let it warm up.

[Kev B]

Does anyone else remember when tellys had just the two channels and you had to get out of your chair, walk across the room and turn a big knob to switch between them?

No I'm far too young.  

[doubleup]

Does anyone else remember when tellys had just the two channels and you had to get out of your chair, walk across the room and turn a big knob to switch between them?

Two channels?  We used to dream of two channels.

[Ironside]

I loved watching snooker in b&w tom

[pleno1]

samsung curved b+w, 52 inch, not sure exact model number i have, will post in week or so when I'm back home. massively recommend.

[cambridgealex]

Presumably you'll need to buy a home cinema or sound bar set-up along side. Whats the difference in all those hundreds of options for those?

If you want to record stuff then does the TV have that in built or do you need a DVD player with recording capabilities?