solly

My 12 year old 55 inch Mitsubishi TV took a crap !! when I bought it 12 years ago it was a slam dunk no brainer, there was a place called Ultimate Electronics and they were going out of business so I waited until they went through the usual liquidation crap the longer you waited the bigger the discounts got. I went in on the closing days and they had this floor model Mitsubishi 55 inch on the wall, no box but it had all the manuals and paper work, the remote was missing but they provided me with a universal remote ( I called Mitsubishi customer service and the sent me the proper remote free of charge !! ) anyway at the price I paid it was a no brainer no research required at that price it was grab and go and for 12 years it has been flawless not one issue but she died 3 days ago.
I started my research for a replacement OMG !!! the more I research the more confused and undecided I become !! I'm not a big tech guy but I understand the improvements in TV'S over the years and I understand the difference between plain l.e.d and
Qled, Neo Qled an Oled but damn when you read the manufacture propaganda or speak to the salespeople it's the old adage "if you cant dazzle them with technology baffle them with bull **** " I can wade thru most of it.
Here's what it boils down to and what I'm wrestling with I'm retired and worked long enough and hard enough to start to enjoy the fruits of my labor however I can still be a bit of a cheap *** and don't like to waste money you can buy 55-65 inch old tech LED's starting at $450
go midrange QLED starting at about $600, mid upper range OLED for about $1000 all the way up to $3000 (that aint never going to happen) I'm at the point where I'm about to say Solly this will probably be your last idiot box splurge a little go for the gusto !! (not a $3000 job ) maybe something in the upper mid range.
I have been looking for 3 days now and in side by side comparisons I can see the picture/color/contrast difference between the price ranges, I do enjoy my TV and movies but does my enjoyment match the $$$$ amount ??
There are so many options out there now it's starting to numb my brain a little !!!

Greg Rogers

I know what you mean, I expected to pay about $400 for a 50" and ended up paying $1000 for a 55" Samsung. It is nice but since it has been so nice out I set up TV and left wife to figure it out, etc, as I went over to barn. Well now it is talking away at us with a Alexa voice reading all the info we don't need- very irritating. I went to Bet Buy and at least talked to someone, and can compare the brightness etc as the Tv's are right next to each other- some of the cheaper ones are grey looking..

H/o

Lets not forget all the preloaded apps like netflix, apple TV, ect they have which does factor into the pricing so that's another factor you have to deal during your shopping. Don't think that free 3 month trial isn't set in the retail price.

Weezer

Solly, a few pieces of advice on your tv search.

1. STAY AWAY FROM LG!!! All of their stuff is junk. I have an LG as my main tv, and even though it still works, some of the apps like to freeze up (NetFlix in particular), and it will just randomly crash while we're watching tv, and has to go through a reboot cycle. Happens at least once/week. I hate it.
2. If you have a choice between a smart tv with preloaded apps, or another tv without it, get the one without the smart tv feature. The better course of action is to have a plug-in ROKU, FireStick, or AppleTV. What they don't tell you is that the smart tv tech can become outdated, to the point that apps may not run on it well (or stop running altogether). I had this happen with a Vizio smart tv, and now I cannot use any of the apps on it. I had to buy a separate Roku plug-in device. I also suspect this is the reason that my living room LG likes to freeze and crash.
3. Plan on purchasing a sound bar if you do not already have one. All of the flat panel tv's have down-firing speakers in them now, and the audio quality is garbage. I'm not deaf, but do have tinnitus, so I am almost always watching tv with the stereo on, pumping it thru the 5.1 setup, so that I can hear it.

RandyS

IMO, one of the best choices you can make is SONY. Our first Bravia (52") lasted over 10 years. Our new 75" one has an outstanding picture and the software can be updated so we don't have to worry about obsolescence for quite a while. We bought it from Amazon and they even offered us a payent plan........

Frisbee_k9

You're so right. I researched TVs some years ago and when trying to compare pricing with same model at Best Buy, Costco, Etc the models were different in number of HDMI ports or USB ports. Made me crazy.

Weezer

Sony & Samsung are both considered top of the line.

The ability to perform software updates is important, but when that hardware becomes dated, that is the issue. I was none too happy that I couldn't perform an update on my Vizio, and had been in contact with the company directly. Technical customer service confirmed the hardware was out of date. Still a great tv, just had to add a new Roku plug-in to it.

Dream67Olds442

^^^x2^^^

Solly - I agree with Jeff 100%. My wife and I are home bodies and enjoy watching our TV. My wife enjoys her shows and I enjoy watching sports. We bought an upper tier Samsung 70-inch OLED for our living room about 4-years ago for around $1,200. I looked at it like this, if I paid $1,200 for the TV, and it lasts me 10-years, it's costing me $10 a month for a TV that has an incredible picture and something that we enjoy several hours every day. With that in mind, my suggestion is to buy the largest, highest quality one you can get yourself to shell out the money for. P.S. to me there is a world of difference between watching a 55-inch and a 70-inch or larger, of equal picture quality. Just my 2-cents.

solly

Finally made a decision and went with a 65 inch Sony Bravia OLED seemed to get good reviews, the software can be updated and the sound was the best I heard with out a sound bar, something called acoustic surface audio plus { ASAP } pretty cool technology they use the screen panel as a speaker , I have to have it delivered ( free) because you can't lay it flat and it was to big to stand upright in my Grand Cherokee
I will review after I have had it a while.

edzolz

I have to disagree with this. I have an LG owned for ten or more years and have never had a bit of trouble. The problems are probably like car assembly lines. It matters what day of the week or what shift the product is assembled on.

Koda

My car assembly lines are smarter than me it seems some days, not that that takes much.

I am not the guy to ask about TVs; I'm working on sending Columbia SQ quadraphonic modules out for recapping. Tedd's stuck in the 50s....my AV is stuck in the 70s.

solly

Update !!
For you T.V. guys out there. My review of the Sony Bravia OLED 65 inch XR6580J. First I'm not a TV tech nerd so I'm not going in to NIT's
refresh rates or gaming, what I will go into are the basics picture Quality, and sound quality, I did a lot of research and narrowed it down to the big 3 LG, Sony and Samsung side by side all OLED, as far as picture quality I think they were all pretty equal, What put the Sony over the edge was the sound. I thought that the Acoustic Surface Sound was a little gimmicky and in the store it sounded better but in all honesty it was a little hard to tell in a busy noisy store, where it really shines is in the home environment !!
I never had a sound bar on my old Mitsubishi led/lcd because it had a built in16 speaker system and that was good enough for me, however Sony managed to come up with this system and it works !! the sound actually comes from the screen and the sound corresponds to either the speech on the screen or the action on the screen car wrecks, explosions etc... I checked it out and the sound is actually coming from the screen. There are two small speakers on the back to handle the bass, there is also a dialog setting that actually works, I enabled it and it works great (my hearing is starting to suck, air hammers in the shop and according to my mother that damn rock and roll music)
My only knock on this thing is that the instructions provided are kind of vague, Sony has a lot of links and customer support but I have to admit
YOU TUBE was a tremendous help in getting all the remotes synced and working together ( *** remote, Firestick remote and Sony TV remote) not trying to sway anybody here just putting the 411 out there for anybody that may be in the market for a new TV.
I'm really happy with it and I'm afraid it may be a little harder to get my *** out of the Lazy Boy.

VC455

That was a good question with very helpful replies and a nice report at the end.

I've not had a TV for about 30 years and would like to get one again. I, too, was a bit overwhelmed with the choices. Now I feel much more confident to make a good selection.

Thanks all.