How to choose a TV?

September 24, 2019

A television is one of the most important electrical appliances in a household. The characteristics of televisions vary greatly from one another.

When choosing one, the first thing to pay attention to is the screen type. The following classifications are distinguished by screen type.

LCD - The most common type of screen in televisions today. It is analogous to modern computer monitors. An LCD TV is equipped with a liquid crystal matrix.
LED - TVs are equipped with a liquid crystal display that uses LED lighting. This type of TV is much thinner and consumes less electricity.
Plasma - TVs in which the image is obtained by discharging gases. Compared to liquid crystal (LCD) TVs, plasma provides more saturated colors, a wider viewing angle, and deeper blacks, but consumes more electricity, the pixel size is also relatively large, and screen flicker is noticeable from a close distance.

Screen diagonal

It is important to choose the right screen diagonal and resolution. Today, the most common resolution formats are HD (1360x768) and Full HD (1920x1080) which allow us to get the highest quality image on the screen.

The Full HD format makes it comfortable to watch movies, Blu-Ray discs, and media files, and if you are buying a TV only to watch over-the-air TV programs and DVDs, the HD (1366x768) format is the best way to save money.

When choosing a TV size, we should pay attention to the distance from the viewing area to the TV. If the diagonal of the TV is 40 inches, then the recommended distance to the viewing area is 3 meters.

On average, we should multiply the screen diagonal by 3-4 and watch TV from this distance.

TV capabilities and additional features

When choosing a TV, you may often notice that the price of TVs of the same size, resolution, and screen type varies significantly.

This is due to the additional capabilities and functions of the product, and not just the manufacturer's pricing policy.

For example, smart TVs are typically more expensive than larger standard models, etc.

Media player - There are some models of modern TVs that are equipped with a built-in media player. They allow TVs to independently play not only photo and music formats, but also such widely used video files as AVI and MKV.

In addition, video files can be played via USB FLASH memory cards (via USB connector) and via local internet (via RJ45 connector Wi-Fi).

In addition to media players, you already know that smart TVs can run a wide variety of applications.

On this subject, check out our article on the top 15 apps for Android TVs .

Ports - As a rule, modern TVs are used not only for watching broadcasts, but also for connecting a computer to it via DVI, HDMI, and SCART ports.

Frequency - is determined by the frequency of frame changes. In the case of a low frequency, flickering of the screen is noticeable with peripheral vision, therefore, a high frequency indicator is a good parameter, which is why premium TVs have a high frequency.

Contrast - represents the ratio of sharpness between completely black and completely white screens on the next two frames, in black and white. There is also dynamic contrast, with which the TV can automatically change the sharpness on the screen depending on the color of the image, that is, increase it in bright areas and decrease it in dark areas.

The higher the contrast, the sharper the image color on the screen. Picture in Picture - allows two channels to be displayed on the screen at the same time, one of which is full screen, and the other is smaller and placed in the corner of the screen.

3D support - viewing a three-dimensional volumetric image on the screen. There is stereoscopic, which requires special 3D glasses, and autostereoscopic, which does not require any additional accessories.

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