Well, without going into a super long technical post on why it was picked, we decided the Samsung UN55B8000 was the hands down winner beating the second place Sony LED TV by a significant margin.
I mean, we can talk about features all day long but at the end of the day, you have to trust your eyes, right?
So here’s video I put together on the Samsung.
As far as where to get it, it’s up to you, but Amazon has free shipping, competitive prices, and a 30 day no questions asked return policy.
So you’re getting an LED TV and you want to show it off?
Great!
You did get a home theater system with your purchase, right? If not, read this post for some recommendations.
Okay, so now that you’ve got your TV, how do you really see what it’s capable of. Let’s be honest, watching reruns of Friends or Seinfeld really isn’t going to cut it.
So I put to together this list of 10 movies you should get on Blu-ray to see why that LED TV was worth it.
Dark Knight (the action scenes were shot for IMAX – they’re amazing and this movie will really let you see how good the blacks are on your TV)
Fifth Element (a cult classic and a fun movie you can watch over and over again)
Finding Nemo (and every Pixar movie made after it)
The Matrix Trilogy
Iron Man
Space Odyssey 2001
Baraka
Planet Earth
Pirates Of The Caribbean
Transformers (the original is a better movie) or Transformers 2 (not as good, but the eye candy is even better on this one)
To get them, just click on the movie’s image below:
If you’re buying an HDTV, you’re doing yourself a great disservice if you don’t get a home theater system to go with it.
The sound on pretty much every HDTV on the market, no matter how high end, is average at best. They’re designed to work with home theater systems – get one.
I’ll make two recommendations here, and let you decide which one best fits your budget.
The first one, and I’ll call this my editor’s choice, is the Onyko HT-S7200.
For most people, Onyko isn’t the first name you think of when it comes to sound or home theaters. However, over the years, they’ve built a reputation for making great systems at great prices.
The HT-S7200 is a 7.1 channel home theater system with plenty of ports and inputs and will serve you well and comes with a reasonable $800 price tag considering everything you get.
One thing you’ll notice about the Onyko system is it probably isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as the TV you’re looking at buying. So if you really want the cream of the crop when it comes to style and quality, go with a Bose Lifestyle V30 system.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that Bose isn’t known for making cheap products. They’re generally at the high end of the price range for anything not targeted towards audiophiles. This system tips the scale at $3,000 but it’s an amazing system if you have the cash for it.
In many cases, as long as you get something, you’re going to get a much more enjoyable experience from your TV if you get a home theater so budget the cash for it, get something cheap if you have to, but make sure you get something more than the built in speakers for your HDTV.
One question I get all the time is how does an LED TV compare to an LCD TV.
I put together a little LED vs LCD TV video for you to cover just that to clear up any confusion, but, basically, the difference is in backlighting -- an LED TV is still an LCD TV (just better).
I’ve seen some people asking if it’s a good idea to buy something as expensive as a LED TV online so I decided to put together this little post for you.
Basically, you have three choices when buying an HDTV. You can go to one of the big box stores like Best Buy, you can go to a local electronics store or you can go online.
Personally, I’d avoid the big box stores since they intentionally calibrate some TVs to look bad to sell more of certain models – that and the fact that the sales people tend to have very little knowledge on what they’re selling doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
So that leaves your local store or online. With the local electronics store, you are almost certainly going to pay more, but the trade off is that you’ll get to talk to knowledgeable sales people and the customer service is frequently top notch.
If you go online, you’ll have access to plenty of reviews from other people who have already purchased the product. And when shopping online, you’re likely to get the best deal possible, but one word of caution – don’t go with the absolute cheapest option. Make sure you’re dealing with a reliable store. Personally, I recommend Amazon or B&H Photo for plasma TVs since they both sell so many of them and know how to ship them safely.
I’m not sure about B&H Photo but I know that dealing with Amazon customer service should you ever have a question or need to return a product is absolutely top notch. So yes, it is safe to purchase a LED TV online. You’ll notice that most of the links to TVs on this site point to Amazon and that’s because they really have a stellar reputation for taking care of their customers in this department.
I decided to put up this site because I was finding it difficult to get independent information on which LED TV is the best.
Sure, there are already plenty of reviews out there and if you’re willing to spend the next few days of your life reading all of them, you can probably reach a conclusion.
My intention here is to save you the time – I’ve gone through the info and while I expect the my recommendations to change from time to time as new models are released, I’ll put up the best LED TVs I’ve found as well as best values I’ve seen.
