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Help me choose a tv?

Hello, here's what I'm doing. I want a 46 inch size. I don't want or care about 3D, and can take or leave "smart tv". Please help me decide, or make suggestions. I don't really want a plasma tv, but I know they can achieve better blacks. I mostly watch satellite 1080i tv, but I do have a growing collection of blu rays and a slightly old Sony player. I don't play any video games.

I consider myself quite critical of video quality, but not willing to spend thousands right now. I had a Panasonic front projector onto a Da-Lite 130 inch screen for years, but sold the projector...and am not willing to spend what it would take to have a nice front projector again just yet.

Right now I am on a budget.

I recently bought a Samsung LED tv, but plan to send it back. It's a UN40EH5000. It has a problem with purple/pink halos around dark objects in motion. Other than this it looks fine. I tweaked the white balance to my liking, and I do like the color palette a lot. There don't seem to be any other obvious motion artifacts other than the above. As long as things are bright, the motion looks decent and at least detailed enough. But I just can't live with the pink halos. The black level can go dark as long as the backlight is below 50% in a dark room, but certainly I know it lacks the shadow detail of the best TV's. I do notice that everything turns blue-ish as it gets dark, which I had read in a pro review before buying the tv. Kind of annoying, but nothing like as bad as the pink halo.

I found a thread, I think at avs forum, which described the halo problem. No reasons were given other than "the panel is defective". In my opinion, it's possibly just meant to be this way, because it's not noticeable other than when dark objects are in motion (such as with most any tv drama or action show, or movie, where the obligatory technique used is of everything being shot in shadow and backlit...with lots of people who have black hair and dark clothes, etc). The discussion mentioned that this is probably a Sharp panel, but in a Samsung tv...and that the Samsung panel is better.

I've decided I don't care, and want to try something else. I want a 46 inch size, and will not be trying my luck with the 5000 series of any size anymore. So far the only tv I've seen in a store that I really liked, was way above what I'm wanting to pay. At around $1200, the Samsung UN46ES7100 looked fantastic. Of course it is a 3D with all the bells and whistles, and a waste of money in my opinion.

So I think I am beginning to narrow it down to maybe only two choices. LG 47LN5400, or Samsung UN46F6300. It's possible that this Samsung's LED lighting technique is inferior to the LG...I'm not sure just yet. I have not seen them side by side.

Do any of you have an opinion on these two, or could you suggest something that might be better for similar money? The Samsung is currently $749, the LG is $599. The Samsung is a "smart tv", the LG is not. I don't currently use Netflix or anything else on the net, and my dvr can browse youtube...so I don't see a smart tv as a necessity, but in the future it might be nice. And certainly it might help the resale value, or at least the ability to resell the tv a few years down the line.

Thanks for any help you all could provide! Carl


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Topic - Help me choose a tv? - CarlEber 15:08:32 07/08/13 (53)

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