Which TV?

[Tefler]

My mother's thinking of buying a new TV and there are so many different types around, we're getting really confused about what to go for. She needs soemthing about 23" wide, wants black and it needs to get Freeview, etc.

Does anybody have any recommendations or know where we can get (free) information about such matters? LCD, plasma, flat screen, wide screen ... how do you make sense of all of this?

[Mattk]

what is her main criteria ?

you will struggle to get a black tv i wouldve thought - silver is the new black !

what i normally do is visit sites like comet where you can search all tv's based on size,freewiew etc etc find one i think i will like then search the net for reviews of that product.lastly,once settled on a product,type its make and model number into www.froogle.co.uk and search for best prices - you will be amazed how big the savings are over high street prices.

hope this helps.

[gary baldy]

I can tell you know it is very difficult to find a black telly nowadays. I wanted a black one and out of about 150 tellys we looked at only about 2 came in black!
I think the first thing you should find out is what budget you have and take it from there - you will probably rule out lcd and plasma if you are not spending a lot.

[Tefler]

Thanks for the hints.

What is the difference between plasma and LCD? What are there advantages over traditional ones? Unable to set a budget yet because we don't know what she should be looking for!

Main criteria:

not too big (23" screen)

colour: black (yes, a bit difficult to find!)

narrow surround

can attach a DVD (I would think most modern TVs do this? The old one doesn't have a scart socket)

[Mattk]

lcd's are a newer technology than plasma so you will most likely pay more but it is commonly accepted that traditional tv's still have a superior picture quality.if this is to be her main tv for many years to come then you may want to look at 'hd ready' tv's ie high definition pictures which will start to snowball from 2006 onwards.

this will again cost more as the tv's are capable of displaying up to twice as many lines as a normal tv picture.