I like the style of that one if it’s the TX-39GS352B and his old set is a Panasonic - oddly that size is not listed on Panasonic’s UK site so may be a Comet group special - I think I saw the smaller 32" model on Richer Sounds website yesterday.
Need to pop to a store to look at some of the the remotes and OSDs for some of the TVs I’m considering too - usability and remote ergonomics will be important for an octagenerian.
I would take a look at the What HiFi website. Lots of TV reviews there. I suspect you may have to subscribe to see the Which reviews.
Also bear in mind that the screen size quoted for TVs is the diagonal distance from one corner of the screen to the diagonally opposite corner. So the actual width of a 42 inch screen should be less than 42 inches. I may well be wrong about this but it might be worth checking.
Thanks Andrew - will check out What HiFi site, used to buy loads of such magsazine in the past, rarely do these days - I was aware of the the diagonal sizing but I suspect many people aren’t! I was going to mention it almost seems a bit archaic these days, especially since the frame of reference moved when we went to 16:9 TVs from 4:3. I guess people are simply used to the current measurements for comparison, but it doesn’t help much when actually thinking of what might fit somewhere! I suspect manufacturers would be loathed to move to a screen width measurement as customers would inevitably think they were getting less for their money!
Odd - I have an email with a good tip from TOBYJUG but can’t see the post in the thread - assume it wasn’t a PM of some kind.
I wonder how large, medium is? I bought a 26 inch Sony for my Father to use in the bedroom and it’s fine. So good that we bought one for our snug. Our LG OLED as good as it is would have been OTT for him.
Just get a Samsung smart tv with Freeview or because he has a dish freesat.
Well, I finally settled on this for £249 including 5 year warranty:
Samsung UE32N5300:
The compromises:
32" set - larger sizes would not really have worked elegantly
1080p Full HD - I don’t think 4k would be of any significant benefit to him at this size
Sound not brilliant - harder with smaller thin panels anyway I suspect, but I could always add a cheap soundbar if needed
Stand poor quality - L&R feet look ugly to me - they are also not that stable, require a wider stand and with a weight under 4kg I hope it doesn’t get knocked! L/R feet seem quite prevalent on many recent TVs.
Positives:
Fantastic looking picture for the price - these TVs have really come on in recent years in terms of vfm.
SmartTV - a double edged sword* - but ticked the box having iPlayer etc, Netflix, Prime Movies and the AppleTV app - I have accounts for these I could use.
Very reasonable price (JL price matched Richer Sounds, and I see the price has subsequently dropped to this, though RS offer 6 years warranty).
Fairly straightforward conventional remote.
Light and compact for transportation - unlike the old plasma whose stand was probably several times heavier than this TV and stand!
SMART TV features - nice to have EXCEPT they overcomplicate things massively.
During initial setup I skipped network settings just to test Freeview. This meant that a multitude of ‘Smart Apps’ did not appear - a reasonably simple inteface but poor contrast menus with light fonts on a lighter background (have you taken lessons from Apple Samsung?) - will need to check if there are any accessibility settings for menus.
Later I decided to test the SMART features, got presented with T&Cs for various stores and Samsung accounts I simply don’t want so skipped - seemed to be tracking/invasion of privacy to provide ads.
Was then asked if I wanted to add a few Apps - 1 of which was AppleTV, the only one I selected, hoping to keeep menus clean, but no it seemed only a handful were optional with dozens of naff default apps I have no interest in (and my father certainly wouldn’t), appearing in a new home menu row - the effect, a very cluttered confusing GUI when he would mainly want TV easily accessible.
Signed in to Netflix (I have the 4 concurrent user option), then it became instantly apparent he’d find navigating Netflix content a nightmare - I certainly do. In addition I think he’d get confused by the various family user profiles.
Next tried iPlayer - sign in with your beeb account it asked - he doesn’t use a computer and while I could create one for him, it’s just annoying when he has a TV licence, and not sure I’d want my BBC account associated with his TV and network access.
Ended up having to factory restore the TV to get rid of all the Smart options - I suspect there’s a way to edit them but it was late and simpler to try again another day!
So best intentions of getting some Smart content on there failed due to over-complexity.
Also Samsung’s TV+ internet channels are amalgamated and choice is good, but again it confuses/clutters menus.
As for user profiles it’s a big problem with Prime in particular - kids watch kids items on there as well as Disny Netflix, but more and more I seem to have icons for movies with a nookie theme or graphic horror that shouldn’t in my view simply appear in generic menus despite me applying content restrictions on viewing.
I am fairly sure that with iPlayer, ITV Hub, More4, etc you only have to create an account once and you are then signed in automatically when you return to use them at a later date. I have no idea what my account details are for iPlayer because I only ever used them once when I set up our Smart TV about 3 years ago.
I believe you are correct Andrew, it’s just a faff he and I could do without. I have particular distrust of the BBC and TV licensing - you are asked if you have a TV licence and reply in the affirmative - ok I don’t want to subsidise those who don’t pay, but AFAIAA there is no requirement to actually enter any valid licence details, which to me implies TV Licensing then track/aggregate identifiers from your email address, WAN IP, ISP etc and must be looking at ways of annoying you with licence demands! I can create accounts for the kids but again don’t really want to.
These smart TVs are like any smart device, it’s a faff to set up, ease of use comes from using it and it’s usefulness comes into play when used with other services and devices.
We never go into our smart TVs content, only what the skybox provides.
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