November 2016 cheap TV thread

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Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
101
91
Kaido said:
$380 - 43" 4K TCL Roku TV - plus $150 Dell eGift Card:

https://slickdeals.net/f/9329683-43...mart-tv-150-dell-egift-card-380-free-shipping

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/tcl-...v-43up130-uhd-tv/apd/a9246319/tv-home-theater

So $380 OTD & a $150 Dell GC in 10-20 days. TV is essentially $230. 4K Roku is $100, so the TV itself is basically $130.
Click to expand...
Eh. I've looked at many a "Dell GC deal" in the past, but they awlays seemed like such a questionable proposition in the the final analysis that I stopped even looking at anything on which the up-front, out-of-pocket cost didn't represent a signficant discount, which is rare... And God knows, there are dozens of threads on Slickdeals where the loudest proponents have basically just been rolling GCs over and over on similar deals, effectively giving Dell lots of long-terms, interest-free loans...
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,745
4,563
136
I went with Sam's 65" 4k Vizio for $598 and honestly, I don't see how the extra 5 inches with the with 70" is worth it at $930 unless it has HDR/120hz the whole works etc. Then again, my own tv's specs listed 120hz effective refresh rate. It's Vizio's way of saying it's a 60hz panel.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
Sonikku said:
I got the 65". The picture I snapped with my phone doesn't do it justice. It makes the 40" Westinghouse I had look like a toy in comparison. It just BARELY fit on my tv stand.





So far I'm pleased. WoW and Battlefront definitely look nicer in 4k than they did in 1080p. Or maybe they don't and it's just a better panel than my last one was across the board. Either way, right out of the box it had better picture quality that my last tv did by a country wide mile. Web browsing from my couch is MASSIVELY improved, text is a synch to read compared to my 1080p 40". This was a sorely needed upgrade that hit the mark, but bear in mind it makes concessions. No HDR, no built in tv turner, 60hz, not 120hz as its specs misleadingly suggest, so so sound. But these were worthwhile sacrifices for me to get a 65" 4k tv for $598. I use a sound bar anyway, if you rely on a LCD screens speakers you're doing it wrong. I don't know what the response rate is as it is not listed in the specs, though I will say Battlefront set to 60hz with v sync on was buttery smooth. Just bear in mind the remote control is bare bones. It can't do much of anything without the smart cast app and because it isn't compatible with my Samsung Stardust phone I basically can't get the most out of this tv's settings.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the review!

Can you read the text if the scaling is set to 100% and you get real close? Are the letters blurry and hard to read?

P.S. Here is page with some tests on it---> http://www.geeks3d.com/20141203/how...-chroma-subsampling-used-with-your-4k-uhd-tv/
 

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,745
4,563
136
The review website I read for the Vizio E series suggested that it's pretty mediocre for web browsing and text reading. But if that's true, I can't even imagine how buttery perfect displays are that get high marks in said category as text is a piece of cake to read on the E65.



That text from the LG taken looks god awful. It isn't at all what I'm looking at as I type and web browse as we speak on it from 10 feet away.
 
M

mikemcc

Member
Oct 6, 2005
86
1
71
I went into Costco yesterday because I needed to get a new pair of glasses and I had to renew my Costco card. When I did, the lady told me that I should check out the TVs because their BF sale started that morning. Wow -- they had some great deals on very nice looking TVs. I really wanted to pick one up and take it home, but I have an HTPC that's about three years old. It has 4TB of storage that is nearly filled up. I have to either watch a lot of stuff or delete some. (I am over-optimistic as to how much time I have when I record things... LOL...) My HTPC is about 3 years old and I have a 55" 1080P Samsung that has a great picture. Of course, my HTPC won't do 4K since it is 3 years old and I really can't upgrade it because with all of the things I would have to replace, I'm sure I would break DRM. So, I thought about getting a TIVO from my cable company and putting it on a different input, but the storage on those is so pathetically small that I can't see the point. I think it holds about 75GB of HD video so I can just imagine how little of 4K programming it would hold. I know there is not much 4K programming out there right now, so that might not be an issue today, but I'm thinking with so many 4K TVs out there, consumers are going to demand more 4K content from their cable/satellite providers. I guess I will just have to sit on the sidelines and watch all of the great deals you folks are getting! I recently remodeled my house so seating in the LR has changed and a 65" 4K would be very welcome, as compared to my current 55". WAAAAHH...
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,705
5,462
136
Kaido said:
$280 - 50" 1080p Sharp Roku TV:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sharp-50-class-49-5-diag--led-1080p-smart-hdtv-roku-tv-black/4863102.p

This is a smokin-hot deal...huge TV, Full HD, built-in Roku, $280 shipped...ridiculous!
Click to expand...

Second-best deal I've found is a 32" Samsung 1080p LED Smart TV. For starters, 12% cashback from Dell from eBates:

https://www.ebates.com/coupons/dell-consumer/index.htm

Sign in & click the button to shop through Dell. Search for "UN32J5205AFXZA" and add to cart. Check out ($202 with tax for me) & verify that the "show savings" link at the bottom by the picture of the TV shows the $100 eGift card. So in 3 days or so, your 12% eBates cashback should show up in your account & within 20 days, your $100 Dell emailed gift card should show up. Nice deal if you could use a Dell gift card...
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,554
10,171
126
Avera 40EQX10 40-Inch 2160p 4K LED Television

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16889651008&ignorebbr=1

$219.99 FS

I may regret this. Amazon reviews claim only 4:2:0 chroma at 4K@60, so in theory, will suck as a PC monitor. Also mention of forced sharpness enhancement, and no way to adjust settings when in 4K mode.

Has HDMI2.0, HDR, local dimming support.

Edit: DEAD already. Still live on ebay, maybe not for long.
Edit: Back in stock on Newegg. Maybe they're trickling out stock over the entire sale period, to make things more "fair". Or maybe they're actively getting shipments in, or shifting stock between their ebay site and their main site.
Edit: 2016-11-23 7PM EST DEAD again.
Edit: Back in stock.

NOTE: This 4K HDTV on ebay, NO RETURNS. Which is kind of weird, since it qualifies for extended holiday return period on their main site.

Cheap! (Maybe for a reason?)

Edit: Frys.com link (read for specs ONLY, don't buy here, it's $399):
http://www.frys.com/product/9007157

Signal Compatibility 480i,480p,720p,1080i,1080p,2160p
Click to expand...

No 1440P for PC users?

Edit: I received my UHD TV. Set it up, no problems. Looks fairly decent, Skyrim looks pretty amazing at 4K. Text web pages like these forums were a bit hard to read, due to the small text size combined with the auto-sharpening filter that you can't turn off while at 4K res. When I bumped my scaling in Windows 10 64-bit up to 125%, things look better. Some of it may be that I still have VSR turned on in my AMD control panel, let me try disabling that.

Edit: Yep, VSR was also applying a (shader-based?) sharpening filter. Now the text is even better.

Edit: Interestingly, the menu screens looked IDENTICAL to my Westinghouse 24" 1080P HDTV that I had been using. I wonder if they are made in the same factory? Or is there some sort of "standard" HDTV OSD OS firmware package, like an AMI BIOS or something, for TVs?

Edit: I put VSR and GPU scaling back on. Then, I selected the highest VSR resolution for the desktop that my RX 460 4GB card apparently supports, 5120x2880. Then, I adjusted the Windows 10 scaling, to 125%.

Edit: A few days into using it, I like it, even with the shortcomings like the forced sharpness enhancement in 4K mode. 125% scale factor in Windows 10 seems to allow the text to be readable.

And, if if I had to guess, I would say that HDR seems like it's working, watching YouTube 4K videos? At least, the 4K fireplace, and 4K Costa Rica nature videos looked really amazing and lifelike. The colors on the nature video really POPPED.

This set is AMAZING to game on or watch videos on. Text is so-so.

I saw the fourth review on Newegg, someone was using a GTX 1070, and thought that the colors weren't very good. I think that his setup, using "limited" color range, and not being set up to use HDR, is the reason. I know that my RX 460 4GB Nitro card DOES support HDR.

Edit: 2016-11-27, I ordered another one from ebay, they dropped the price to $199.99 FS. I guess I felt the need to "double down" on the deal and cost-average downwards. Plus, I really did want two of them, for both PCs. (Almost ordered two initially. Glad I waited on the second one.)

4K is amazing for productivity. It's like having four 1080P monitors hooked up, without the space, power, hassle, outputs, etc.

Edit: After using this TV for a few weeks, I like how it looks with my RX 460 card in Win10 64-bit, and Linux @ 1080P looks OK too, but I just hooked it up to an ITX PC with an i3-6100 using the iGPU over HDMI @ 4K30, and it's less than great. Reading some sites in Firefox, is very difficult. Using Win7 64-bit with some Intel iGPU driver on this box, so no VSR, and probably no HDR. HDMI 1.4, I think.

Also, there seems to be some backlight glow, with a black background screen.

Edit: Hooked up my second one, finally. This rig has a couple of 7950 3GB cards in it. Those cards only support HDMI 1.4 and DP 1.2. So I would need one of those Club3D DP-to-HDMI2.0 active adapters to use these cards @ 4K60. But interestingly enough, at 4K30, the Radeon Settings is showing 4:4:4. No wonder the text is easier to read than my other one, which is running on an RX 460 4GB Nitro card, at 4K60 / 4:2:0 (maybe 4:2:2?).

It is my understanding, that it is a limitation of the HDMI2.0 spec, that you CANNOT do 4:4:4, 4K60, and HDCP2.2, all at the same time. Given that factor, it would be a nice option, if the firmware let us disable HDCP2.2, and use 4:4:4 @ 4K60, for desktop / computer usage.

Also, there are four physical HDMI ports. Which explains why the firmware shows four HDMI inputs. Some of the online sales sites for this TV, list "three HDMI2.0 ports, one MHL port". Which, I think, MHL is backwards-compatible with HDMI, but it may only be 1.4 or 1.3. So this thing only has three 2.0 ports, I think. Which is still plenty.
 
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Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
101
91
Via Slickdeals, here's another Dell gift card offer - the Samsung 40" smart UN40J5200 at $249.99 (with $100 GC) but this time the base price is only $2 more than Best Buy's current sale price on the same model, so in this case the GC is more of a real "bonus" than the "pseudo-rebate" they usually are (which to my mind makes it easier to find something to "spend" it on later instead of feeling like you have to find an especially good deal to make it worth buying into the original deal in the first place...)

ETA: Fwiw, rtings.com isn't particularly happy about this set either (seems to be a common theme among the cheap(er) TVs I've been looking at), in particular citing rapid loss of color accuracy as you go off-center, but also motion blur... On the plus side, they say do say "movies look good" because it has good blacks, but presumably that only applies if it's a "slow" movie and you're sitting directly in front of the set?
 
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M

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
101
91
Kaido said:
40" 1080p Vizio: $179.99
http://www.target.com/p/vizio-d-series-40-class-full-array-led-tv-black-d40n-e3-/-/A-51367925
Click to expand...
The extra 10% discount is dead but fwiw, I'll mention that it seems this model D40n-E3 apparently replaced the E40-D0 under the same DCPI, and at least on Sunday, my store had some of both models. (The E40 doesn't show up on Targert's website at all at the moment, but as of yesterday, anyway, if you did a Google search on the E40, the "shop now" side panel had a Target link IDed by that model number, but which actually led to the page with the D40n that's currently assigned to the DCPI.) Whether Target locations generally had/have both models, I don't know, but if anyone's interested in a cheap smart set, it might be worth looking into. (Fwiw, the two models have different UPCs, although they share DCPI 008-09-0107. The UPC for the D40n is 845226014307 and for the E40, it's 845006013959.)

One of the things that drives me nuts about Vizio is the multiplicity of model variants (with little to no explanation of the differences), which makes it hard to find reviews of exact models (I could find nothing at all specifically for the D40n-E3, for example), but fwiw, rtings.com isn't very happy with either the E40 or the (similar? but not identically-styled) D40, but does give the D40 better marks for basic PQ. (Though whether the D40n-E3 is comparable to the D40-D1 is probably anyone's guess; I myself don't have the least clue.) On the other hand, the E40 is native 120Hz and has Smartcast. I'm not particularly interested in smart features, but I didn't realize the E40 would be an option before I got to the store (and don't have a smartphone to check online reviews on the go), and since they were selling out fast, I ended up buying one of each, planning to return whichever I like less...

And as I invariably end up doing, I later started thinking it might be worth going with another set altogether (like a $220 or $250 40" Samsung?), though it's really hard to argue with the $160 price tag on these... All of which is leaving me wishing I had the money to "blow" on a really good set without particular reference to cost, but that's really not an option at the moment, so I'm stuck trying to figure out what to trade off for which lower price level...
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,705
5,462
136
Mike64 said:
The extra 10% discount is dead but fwiw, I'll mention that it seems this model D40n-E3 apparently replaced the E40-D0 under the same DCPI, and at least on Sunday, my store had some of both models. (The E40 doesn't show up on Targert's website at all at the moment, but as of yesterday, anyway, if you did a Google search on the E40, the "shop now" side panel had a Target link IDed by that model number, but which actually led to the page with the D40n that's currently assigned to the DCPI.) Whether Target locations generally had/have both models, I don't know, but if anyone's interested in a cheap smart set, it might be worth looking into. (Fwiw, the two models have different UPCs, although they share DCPI 008-09-0107. The UPC for the D40n is 845226014307 and for the E40, it's 845006013959.)

One of the things that drives me nuts about Vizio is the multiplicity of slightly different model numbers, making it hard to find reviews of exact models (I could find nothing at all for the D40n-E3, for example), but fwiw, rtings.com isn't very happy with either the E40 or the (similar? but not identically styled) D40, but does give the D40 better marks for basic PQ. (Though whether the D40n-E3 is comparable to the D40-D1 is probably anyone's guess; I myself don't have the least clue.) On the other hand, the E40 is native 120Hz and has Smartcast. I'm not particularly interested in smart features, but I didn't realize the E40 would be an option before I got to the store (and don't have a smartphone to check online reviews away from home), and since they were selling out fast, I ended up buying one of each, planning to return whichever I like less...

And as I invariably end up doing, I later started thinking it might be worth going with another set altogether (like a $220 or $250 40" Samsung?), though it's really hard to argue with a $160 price tag on these... All of which is leaving me wishing I had the money to "blow" on a really good set without particular reference to cost, but that's really not an option at the moment, so I'm stuck trying to figure out what to trade off for which lower price level...
Click to expand...

Yeah, and not only switching up model numbers, but also switching up brand names - apparently Sharp is a crap brand now because they were bought by Hisense, saw some negative reviews floating around on the post-purchase models. Although again, I've seen some low-end 4K sets that have a pretty decent picture, so it's all relative!

Same deal for me with pricing. I just picked up a 65" TCL 4K TV, which was a big investment in & of itself...I was considering an equivalent OLED, but even at the "discounted" $3K price, it was still too much for me to stomach haha. The TCL was 1/3 that & really should have been even cheaper in light of stuff like the $598 Sam's Club Vizio deal, although having the Roku built into the TV has been a lifesaver for me (Chromebooks + Roku TV's for my family = no more tech support lol).
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,705
5,462
136
On a tangent, Uscenes has an amazing 4k aquarium MP4 video (also available as a screensaver for Mac or Windows) for sale. It looks really, really good on a 4K TV:

http://www.uscenes.com/video/4k-aquarium/


iirc Netflix has a 4K fireplace video, which is pretty cool (Uscenes has one as well)...if I didn't use my fireplace for logs, I'd probably just get one of the $249 Sceptres, tuck it in there, and use that as a fireplace display lol...nice pretty picture with no soot!
 
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Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
101
91
Fwiw as a general comment, I was looking through more rtings.com reviews just to get a sense of how the reviews of the above sets compare to "the field" and it seems their ratings of screens for off-angle viewing aren't relative - they don't take the inherent issues with LED tech into account, so the numerical scores are all pretty poor in general. They do, however, have short videos illustrating the effect for each set, which helps put a given set's bottom-line rating into perspective. Personally, I can live with skewing of colors off-angle a lot better than when they go "dark" a lot better than when they rapidly wash out to "white", for example...
 

ericlp

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,134
223
106
TCL 55" 4k Ultra HD 2160p 120Hz Roku Smart LED TV - Black (55US5800)
TCL
OR---- This one?

LG 49" 2160p 4K LED Smart TV (49UH6090)

Both at 399 at target... Hmmmmm, bigger no name or smaller name brand ... can't decide Rocus or TV software is not a consideration since I'm plugging it into a HT / Gaming PC.

Most likely will just dial it down to 1080P. But should look better for text than a 1080P panel.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,705
5,462
136
ericlp said:
TCL 55" 4k Ultra HD 2160p 120Hz Roku Smart LED TV - Black (55US5800)
TCL
OR---- This one?

LG 49" 2160p 4K LED Smart TV (49UH6090)

Both at 399 at target... Hmmmmm, bigger no name or smaller name brand ... can't decide Rocus or TV software is not a consideration since I'm plugging it into a HT / Gaming PC.

Most likely will just dial it down to 1080P. But should look better for text than a 1080P panel.
Click to expand...

Hmm, tough one. 55" is visibly bigger than a 49". LG is a better brand...although I'm pretty happy with the 4K picture on my 65" TCL.
 
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