Buying a new LCD... The joy n the pain(mostly pain)

unklerosco

Upgrading from my dell 2405 to an LCD TV as i dont use the dell as much due to the fact i've no pc... Just using it for my xbox 360 at the mo..

Anyways, been reading up here and on avforums n had settled on getting a 32" Samsung..

Checked the prices online n decided to head to currys/harvey normans/power city to see what the prices there where like..

All their prices are set around the same.. Most where around €1-200 more than online... I'd pay the extra just to have the comeback.

Anyways, in Currys the guy tried to tell me the samsung (32R71B) didn't have speakers(due to the fact u cant see them), Then tried to sell me the samsung surround sound kit(the 2.1 virtual surround sound) of which he knew nothing about... Eplained to me that the 8 little speakers meant it was the same as having 8 surround sound speakers n theirfore better than 5.1... By now i was just letting him rant for entertainment.

In Power City the selection of TVs was better but priced a little higher, not that it mattered.. all of the staff(including the manager) where standing around a tv watching Big Brother so getting any help wasn't easy..

Harvey normans was a bit better, staff seemed friendlier n "sounded" like they knew what they where on about but had a poor selection...

Anyways... The experience left me wondering where on earth i can buy a LCD in a Bricks n Mortar shop with the confidence that i know the staff are gonna help me, know what they are talking about and give a good service...

Anyone got any suggestions??? I know people will say to buy online but have had a few bad experiences(waiting 90+ days for a camera to be returned from pixmania!!) N if anything happens it'd be nice to be able to return to a shop..

zAbbo

I'm in the same boat as yourself, and this weekend I'll be going round the various retailers (stores you've mentioned and local electrical dealers).

I'll be taking down model numbers and prices, and going home to research from there.

WhatsGoingOn

am looking myself at the moment.
I expected that there would be much better offers in the sales though. There seems to be very little off TV's. I might wait for a couple of months for a better sale.

unklerosco

Agree on the sales... Parents got a 40" sony on stephens day, €700 off... If only i'd the cash back then..

Bugger all off at the mo, was hoping to get a TV tonight but that didnt happen.. Gonna try Harvey Norman in swords tomorrow n DID.... I know they'll be cheaper in a few months but a few months after that they'll be cheaper again and so forth.... That n my dell is sold so have to get me something soon...

The Ritz

The experience left me wondering where on earth i can buy a LCD in a Bricks n Mortar shop with the confidence that I know the staff are gonna help me, know what they are talking about and give a good service...

In my experience, you can get the reassurance of somewhere to bring it back to if something goes wrong, but the helpful staff who know what they're talking about are non-existent.

I'm in much the same boat as yourself, have the dosh for a new screen (currently mulling over the plasma/lcd debate, is it a biscuit, is it a bar....) and have overheard any number of technical gems being spouted to the unwary on the now familiar rounds of Powercity, DID, Harvey Norman's etc.

I have found a couple of the guys in Powercity Malahide Road to be helpful enough though even if their technical knowledge isn't quite at the enthusiast level.

One of the difficulties in making any judgement about the performance of the screens is that they all have their brightness and contrast jacked up to the nines so that they look nice and snappy in a showroom floodlit with flourescent lights. They're also set up jostling each other for floor/shelf space so it'd impossible to get a look at one in isolation from the others and they're typically being fed a fairly crap signal. In Powercity (Malahide Road) they do have a couple which seem to be getting a Sky HD feed and the difference between the picture on those and the picture on the umpteen others all sharing the same standard Sky feed) was stunning. I also noticed that a number of the screens had been "zoomed" (i.e. the Sky logo was half out of shot) meaning that the screen was scaling (pretty poorly) an already ropey feed - the result on LCD screens that I saw was atrocious........

I'm trying to do as much research as I can online and will narrow it down to a couple of 42" screens. I intend to ask one of the guys in Powercity who I've dealt with before if I can tote in my pc and hook it up to one of the screens to get an idea of what it really looks like - I have a shed load of HD material, test screens as well as SD stuff recorded off satellite on the PC from my own set up. That way I intend to get an idea of what the thing looks like with a "real world" feed. I'll probably try to do this at about 8.30pm, and get the guys to turn off some of the nearby screens, try my luck anyway.

As for the online option, I bought my projector sight unseen from the UK, but I had a very clear idea of what I was buying and already had a relationship with the supplier so I had no qualms whatsoever about it. I'd be a bit more reluctant to go that route with a big screen............

Good luck with your quest, tell us how you get on.


Ritz

beolight

best picture quality vis a via price is the sharp acquos xde series

should be able to point you in right direction on this when i pick up soundcard from you later;)

Good Boy

Found DID electrical in Lucan to be extremely helpful when I was purchasing a TV.
Maybe it depends a lot on the assistant that you meet.

Best of luck

Good Boy

mickoneill30

unklerosco wrote:

Anyways... The experience left me wondering where on earth i can buy a LCD in a Bricks n Mortar shop with the confidence that i know the staff are gonna help me, know what they are talking about and give a good service...

Anyone got any suggestions??? I know people will say to buy online but have had a few bad experiences(waiting 90+ days for a camera to be returned from pixmania!!) N if anything happens it'd be nice to be able to return to a shop..

What are Peats like these days. I used to work there years ago and at that time the guys in Hi-Fi were pretty good. No idea about now though.

Slaphead07

mickoneill30 wrote:

What are Peats like these days. I used to work there years ago and at that time the guys in Hi-Fi were pretty good. No idea about now though.

Incredibly bad... and not very helpful either. It used to be a pleasure and an education going to Peats but now you need to know exactly what you want. Alliance Electric on St Great Georges Street is imho the best place for TVs and associated shiney boxes. They know their stuff, they don't bull**** and they'll do a deal. What more could you ask for?

unklerosco

Update..

Went to DID Swords this morn, very friendly and helpfull... Didn't have the model i was looking for, he rang around a load of places but no one had it in stock. He said he could get it in next month n was willing to knock money off the RRP....

Harvey Normans in swords.. Very friendly again, fairly helpfull.. Spent about 30mins just talking about crap, he knew a decent amount but again didn't have what i was looking for.

Harvey Normans in Blanch.. Terrible, the bloke was a complete ass, they had what i wanted(a 37" Samsung btw) but he wouldn't sell it to me.. Said i'd to buy the 40" one, he wasnt selling any 37" ones till the 40's where all sold. I eplained I had money in my pocket to get a 37" one and he told me in a way to bugger off.....

Currys Blanch.. Usual currys/dixons/pcworld staff, but they had a 40" for €1600(€1700 everywhere else) got to talk to the manager n got it knocked down to €1300 which was cheaper than what the 37" would have cost so im a happy camper.... Tis sweet..

thegills

Unkelrosco,
What model did you buy? Lidl Moores Street still had some 40" LCD's for sale just after Xmas. €1299 with a 3 year warranty
thegills

unklerosco

That be the one... Samsung LE40R73BD

quad_red

unklerosco wrote:

That be the one... Samsung LE40R73BD

You got THAT for 1300 quid?? :eek: Seriously well done!

masterK

Agreed with the comment on the staff, went to Power City and asked a member of staff if an LCD had one HDMI port or two, he told me to go look it up on the website. Asked another member of staff who happily pulled the machine out to have a look.

Ended up with a 37" LG LC3R for €1050 on St. Stephens Day and after a couple of niggling issues I'm well pleased with it.

zAbbo

Took the plunge and picked up a LG 26LC3R and 37LC3R from Harvey Normans, not a fantastic deal, but reasonable enough at 2K.

Taking delivery of them in a few days.

GrumPy

unklerosco wrote:

In Power City the selection of TVs was better but priced a little higher, not that it mattered.. all of the staff(including the manager) where standing around a tv watching Big Brother so getting any help wasn't easy..

Lol, what branch was that?

unklerosco

Liffey Valley

GrumPy

unklerosco wrote:

Liffey Valley

They aint got a branch there

unklerosco

Near liffey valley then, near the NCT center n smyths... cant remember the name of the bus. park its in...

Rizzo the Rat

I am about to buy at 42" Philips LCD TV. I was wondering has anyone else recently purchased one of these and how do they find it? Any problems with blurring etc for sport??
Thanks

Cmar-Ireland

Are you selling the dell 24" Unkle?

unklerosco

Sold already..

connundrum

Hey, I'm just new to the whole 'biggerthanthou' TV experience and so went out to Blanch on saturday in the hope of seeing something nice.

In PC World they had this Polaroid 32" LCD for €750. Now this was the 1st time that I'd ever seen a Polaroid LCD telly, and I was just wondering if anyone would recommend? I was playing the XBox 360 on it and it seemed pretty sweet, but I would have liked to have watched proper TV on it.. but anyhoo!

Basically I've a budget of +/- €900 and the room is relatively small so 32" would be a good size.

Curry's sales guy was useless as he was banging on about how great LG and Samsung were and how crap Phillips was, then I gave him my budget and he tried to give me a Phillips 32" for a 'bargain' €850. Muppet :rolleyes: