[aussielad]

Ok, so I want to buy a TV. I've pretty much decided on a LCD screen rather than Plasma because they seem better. Does anyone have any experience buying a cheap (and I'm wondering nasty?) LCD TV. Is it worth paying the extra to get a well known household brand?

[KnowItAll]

Try watching them with the same source material. See if the shop will let you play your favorite DVD.

I'm personally biased towards mid range brands for some stuff .. and HK$10K+ purchases would fall into that category. Love the phillips we have with the Ambilight features.

[jimbo]

Also some of the brand names from say the cheaper end such as TCL, Rogers etc share the same screens as Phillips, Samsung etc as theres only a few screen makers out there in Taiwan.

I have a Phillips LCD too and have to agree that the quality is superb.

[claireabella]

I got a LCD from pricerite and have to say it si really good - was reduced from 10K to 6K which I thought was a great deal!

[Lammarite]

I bought a JNC 28" after doing lots of research on it. The screen is top notch and the resolution was better than the Sharp which was higher in cost. At 9K or so I could have bought 2 of them for the price of the big brand ones (though the prices have droppped since then).
Definitely worth going for LCD over plasma.

Oh- almost forgot- I got a good discount on a DVD player with it and a free Karaoke microphone- you don't get that from Philips!

[hbrand]

Yep I'm with Claireabella, go BYTEPRO!!! Seriously not a single problem with our TV from pricerite either, I'm certain it's the same as a Philips and they just put a different badge on. Ok so you get people coming over saying "What the f$% is a BYTEPRO", but who cares right? It's quite a funny name I think - I am easily amused

[Lammarite]

You could always take BYTEPRO off and put a Phirips badge on it!

[Carlos98326194]

hello everyone!
I have search from the net that OLEViA is a pretty good brand considering of its cheap price. have anyone here tried it?

[JohanSWE]

well low brands tend to use past generation chips, not the latest ones from genesis that are the best, and by the way nothing beats SHARP's LCD's!
And dont be fooled by the maker of the panel, 99% is Samsung / sharp.
It's still the chip thats most important.
Alot of low/mid range brands use a 26" model chip in 32" LCD to save $$ and you can tell the difference in the strech, try to look at image positioning, scaled screens tend to cut/zoom the image, one good marker is logos and such in corners as scalde ones tend to get pushed away or croped.
Just a few pointers to keep in mind.

[PhilE]

JohanSWE - I'm not sure what you're saying about the chips from 26" being used in a 32" panel causing stretching issues. All LCD and Plasma TVs I've ever come across will scale a Video source (e.g. PAL, NTSC) to their native resolution (e.g. 1024x768, 1366x768 or whatever) and also display a PC signal if fed at the same resolution (and often many others).

Where the scaler/deinterlacing chips make a bigger difference is in the quality of motion artefacts when playing a video source. Some of the bigger brands have a history of being very good at this (e.g. Fujitsu in the plasma world) and you'll find some people go to extreme lengths to feed their panels the best possible native-resolution image (e.g. using an external scaler). For most people tho, the panel's internal scaler and deinterlacer is perfectly good enough (or they just use a PC).

KIA's advice is the best - if you can get a selection of your primary viewing sources (DVD, NowTV?) hooked up to the panels in question. Also, don't let the shop use high contrast animated films like Shrek to wow you with the screen - take darker material and/or movies with a lot of fast action - to check how well the screen shows detail in dark scenes, how it copes with rapid motion or sports, and to give you a feel for the 'black levels'.

If Philips appeals as a brand, the Philips Centre on 17th floor of the Hopewell Centre in Wanchai is usually fairly quiet so they may be willing to help.

2 other excellent sources of user reviews and technical info (though maybe they won't cover some of the local asian brands) are:

http://www.avforums.com - UK/Europe bias
http://www.avsforum.com - US bias