It was almost 5 years ago, I remember going to an electronic shop and deciding on buying a TV. Back then, a FLAT monitor TV was the rage. And 21" didn’t seem very small. I always had fights with my wife when she had her serials running and I wanted to watch my favorite sports channel. A lot of research and I landed on a Picture in Picture model LG 21" Flat screen TV. It was nice, really worth the price back then, especially when I can watch my channels at the same time as the saas-bahu serials.
5 years passed on. After I upgraded my home PC monitor to a 19" the TV screen didn’t actually look that big any more. I wanted to get a latest top of the line Full HD TV and to be more precise an LCD TV. Now that LED TVs are out, I feel they are still outrageously priced. Again, a lot of research went through looking for a good LCD too. But it was sad to know that none of the new LCD TVs have a PIP for a TV Tuner. I can have a PIP for video component but not for a TV Tuner. Sad, but then again, no more TV Co-Axial cables, its all DTH boxes now a days. That’s okay, I am ready to move out of that PIP mind set now.
We have so many brands to choose from, each brand trying to beat the other either compromising on sound or video or feature wise. I wanted to get the best bang for the buck and settle for something that would last me for atleast more than 5 years. Waited for the right moment and around the 15th of August this year, a famous Electronic showrrom at Panjagutta had really good deals on LCD TVs. I went there with my family and got some quotes on Sony, Samsung and LG LCD TVs. The salesman today, are of no help at all. The shops are so business minded, they don’t care to think about the customer rather than on selling the product. You ask questions about the product and the salesman gives you that question mark look making you feel bad for asking him a techie question. Anyways, I went back home, googled details about the different brands and finally came to a conclusion of getting a Samsung 32" FULL HD LCD TV. A similar model in Sony with the same exact specifications was available for almost a whopping Rs.8k extra. But that’s just a brand hype "SONY". You really gotta be smart to know what you are spending that kind of money on or a die hard sony fan.
Finally, I decided on a Samsung Series 5 LA32B530P7R TV and it almost 4 months later it still blows me away with the picture and sound quality. At the time, I had purchased this for Rs.34, 300.
You can check out its website at: https://samsung.com/in/consumer/tv-audio-video/television/lcd-tv/LA32B530P7RLXL/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail
My reasons of buying an LCD TV was -
One - The screen size and for a living room of my new apartment, a 32" was the best suitable TV. LCD TVs need a good viewing distance to actually see the picture clearly unless you see everyting at 720p or 1080p resolution.
Two - Full High Definition support to watch those out of this world high qualtiy - true picture like videos. My personal favorite is - ROGUE 1080p with the amazing detail.
And finally, the size and width of the screen so I can wall mount it and save on space and make the living room some what upto todays standards of luxury space.
I connect my PC as well to this TV and with a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, the clarity is stunning and video playback is simply "AWESOME". Although, the TV has dolby surround built in, it’s just stereo speakers and am planning on getting a 5.1 surround home theatre system to make it feel more cinema like.
You can read more on the specifications of this TV on the internet. In the mean time, I think I will put in a ACT II packet in the microwave and get ready to play a good second show movie.
-Ciao