The TV quest has ended. I will summary my weeks of watching TV reviews and going through the AVS and other boards so you don't have to.
You're welccome
Pulled the trigger on the LG 55C8.
It was pretty much down to:
- Panasonic FZ800/FZ900 (OLED)
- LG55C8 (or an older B7 or C7 model) (OLED)
- One of the Sony OLED's or LCD's
- Samsung Q9FN (LED/LCD)
LED/LCD:
- Bad viewing angles
- Higher brightness
- No risk of burn-in
OLED:
- Best black levels
- Great viewing angles
- Risk of burn in (although all sorts of measures has been taken since OLED was first introduced to 'fix' this)
SonyThe Sony OLED dropped out of consideration first due to variable input lag (between 30 and 50ms, vs. 21 ms for the LG and Panasonic and 15ms for the Samsung).
Most reviews highly recommended it for movies but not for gaming. The Android TV platform is also the black sheep of the Android family.
It does handle motion the best out of all of the OLED TV's. So no 'judder' when the Star Wars credit scroll appears.
SamsungMoving on the Samsung dropped second because it was only available for the standard price of 2500 - 3000 euro or so due to the limited availability.
The model in a lower price range (Q7) is also a nice screen but only edge-lit and lacks a bunch of features. The somewhat cheaper Q8FN is not available in Europe (at least, not at the same quality as in the US and Asia).
It's a more 'premium' build of the Q7 vs. a less expensive Q9 as in other markets. Samsung is planning to release a better model in Europe too but the price will likely be close to the Q9FN at launch and not come down for a while.
Still if you can get a nice deal and you plan to watch a lot of daytime TV the Q9/Q8 or Q7 are great choices. If you have other Samsung appliances the integration is also nice and in terms of design it's probably the most striking.
Out of this list the Q9FN is probably the best all-round choice and the black levels are crazy for an LCD(almost OLED level) and no risk of burn in. What I also liked about the Samsungs is the One Connect box, which means one cable goes to a separate cable box for your HDMI ports and such. Very sleek.
PanasonicThat left the Panasonic and LG. The Panasonic is a great panel. Pretty much reference level but had a few caveats. Only 2 HDMI ports offer full bandwith. Also the European version is remarkably worse in terms of build quality.
First there's the remote. Instead of the premium remote, you get a plastic-y thing. Lastly their software is a dead end. It hasn't changed much in years and a whole bunch of apps are missing.
I'm not particularly worried about the apps but do feel that if it's outdated now, it'll be ancient in 3 or 4 years time. Furthermore the price was still 2500 with a deal it could go down to 2200 but not much cheaper than that.
Still, like the LG the Panasonic is a 'reference' level TV and some reviewers liked it better. A shame the European version isn't as good but Panasonic is losing steam here.
LGPricing on the LG is very aggressive. First I was considering the B7 or C7 because they were in the 1400 - 1800 range. While the C8 was in the 2500 - 3000 range and overall there wasn't a very big difference in picture quality.
However I learned that HDR in gaming is rather dark on the B7/C7 and it doesn't handle motion as well as the newer models. Also it couldn't do all bells and whistles in gaming mode.
Still the 2017 models are very nice TVs. One of if not the best of 2017 easily. We're really splitting hairs here.
However, LG fixed the faults of the C7 with the C8. Like other OLED's perfect black levels and the brightest OLED so far, which if you want to do a lot of daytime viewing might be important to consider.
All features for the gaming mode can be used on the C8 was well not to mention the latest WebOs platform with a Wii mote like pointer which is apart from Tizen the best smart TV platform.
In terms of picture the Panasonic and Sony are a bit more natural while the LG has more 'impact'. It kinda depends on what you prefer but with some tuning you can get quite close to a natural Sony look but the Sony's can't be configured to
have more impact like the LG's have. Overall better than last year's C7, which was the best OLED yet.
LG is now offering a nice cashback offer of 300 on these panels in Europe. Furthermore the 'official' price had already dropped to 2400.
When there's abundance of stock the prices tend to go down fast. So today I called a store that is known for offering good prices on TV's they stock in large quantity's.
They offered me 1949 - 300 in cashback through LG. Bringing the grand total to 1649 euro for a 2018 OLED(!). That's 1100 euro's in savings.
Should be here next week
