50" TV under £450 suggestions

nicksource

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Could anyone please recommend a good smart TV for £450 or less? Just for our living room we use it only for evening Netflix/Prime/Catch up TV.

I read this great guide:

And wondered if there is a big difference between the £350 Hisense like this:

Compared to the Samsung UE50RU7400:

Are these good TVs? Suggestions and advice appreciated. :)
 
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LG 50UM7450, VA 60Hz with Magic remote, cca 400nits, cca 5800:1 contrast.
 
The LG is the same again but lacks a wide colour gamut to showcase HDR with more colours. With LGs you need to step up to the SM range to get a wide colour gamut. Don't be fooled on LGs website where it will say the TV has a wide colour gamut, it does not.

My personal choice would be the Hisense, cheaper and also comes with better support for dolby vision HDR on Netflix.

If I was more of a prime viewer though, the Samsung is better suited.
 
Well, RU7400 is not for any kind of HDR with its low peak brightness, so WCG is not really a concern, these are not TVs for enthusiasts. And Hisense I don't touch under U8, especiall since older U7A does not take 120Hz input but uses it for interpolation only.

And the smart OS part is not comparable really between Hisense and WebOS.
 
Well, RU7400 is not for any kind of HDR with its low peak brightness, so WCG is not really a concern, these are not TVs for enthusiasts. And Hisense I don't touch under U8, especiall since older U7A does not take 120Hz input but uses it for interpolation only.

And the smart OS part is not comparable really between Hisense and WebOS.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion and you make good points, its one of the reasons why the LG 50UM7450 is listed in my best buy guide. However I don't think the LG rivals the fact the Hisense models are cheaper and offer a wide colour gamut and dolby vision HDR support which the LGs lack. Dolby Vision HDR support can be quite important on TVs with less capable HDR hardware as it lets people at least enjoy better colours in Dolby Vision HDR with less adverse effects compared to HDR10.

Its important that the user buying understands that the LG will be just as good if you don't use Dolby Vision HDR content and has better smart TV though. The icing on the cake in the UK is that the LG has to be purchased from Currys instead of stores like John Lewis or Richer Sounds that in my opinion have much better after sales and service.

Not sure why you mention the U7A..and TVs with 120hz panels didn't take a 120hz input for a long time. It was only in the past few years they have been able to without any problems.
 
You have a weird situation in UK then :)

For 120Hz I didn't mean 4K@120 but 1080@120.

But anyway, people looking for the bestest bang for buck often cry aftereards that something is missing, like good HDR, and TVs that do it properly are in a different segment altogether.
 
You have a weird situation in UK then :)

For 120Hz I didn't mean 4K@120 but 1080@120.

But anyway, people looking for the bestest bang for buck often cry aftereards that something is missing, like good HDR, and TVs that do it properly are in a different segment altogether.
Its the same in Europe, the Hisense model numbers may be a little different though. Pricing is also different, if I remember right LGs are cheaper in mainland Europe for some reason. They still lack wide colour gamuts and HDR format support though.

Yeah I meant 120hz at 1080p. When the Hisense U7A was released it may have not supported a 120hz input, but its not that unusual, the year before that Sony TVs could support it but not without artefacts and its only Samsung that supported it in 2016. The primary reason TVs have 120hz panels is not traditionally because of being able to accept a 120hz input. For video content that's useless.
 
Its the same in Europe, the Hisense model numbers may be a little different though. Pricing is also different, if I remember right LGs are cheaper in mainland Europe for some reason. They still lack wide colour gamuts and HDR format support though.

Yeah I meant 120hz at 1080p. When the Hisense U7A was released it may have not supported a 120hz input, but its not that unusual, the year before that Sony TVs could support it but not without artefacts and its only Samsung that supported it in 2016. The primary reason TVs have 120hz panels is not traditionally because of being able to accept a 120hz input. For video content that's useless.

UM series are relatively cheap in EU, the ones without WCG.

The problem with Hisense is that people buy these TVs today and the year before, not a lot of these sold it would seem, and questions arise immediately since the fresh competition has more features. In one example a guy bought U7A this year and was unpleasantly surprised it wouldn't receive 120Hz from the PC (any resolution); in other example there was bewilderment how U7B successor has only 60Hz etc.

Yes, they should have spent time researching, but usually there was a strong recommendation "Yes, just go with Hisense, 120Hz, cheaper that all the big boys, etc. etc.", that lure of the higher segment for cheap.
 
UM series are relatively cheap in EU, the ones without WCG.

The problem with Hisense is that people buy these TVs today and the year before, not a lot of these sold it would seem, and questions arise immediately since the fresh competition has more features. In one example a guy bought U7A this year and was unpleasantly surprised it wouldn't receive 120Hz from the PC (any resolution); in other example there was bewilderment how U7B successor has only 60Hz etc.

Yes, they should have spent time researching, but usually there was a strong recommendation "Yes, just go with Hisense, 120Hz, cheaper that all the big boys, etc. etc.", that lure of the higher segment for cheap.
I don't think any of those points are really exclusive to Hisense. The reason they sell their TVs with more specs, cheaper usually than the competition is because they operate a much lower profit margin than other manufacturers. Its the same with Chinese phones. Its not a quality issue or anything like that. The U7B having a 120hz panel is not really any different to what LG do, their new SM8200 only has a 60hz panel and before that they were also guilty of placing only 60hz panels on smaller TVs, much the same as Samsung. Turns out this year the U8B is almost as cheap as the U7A was, and seems an even better TV. Build quality of Hisense models is also a lot better.

As for accepting 120hz at 1080p its really not a big deal to most people. You can bet most gamers will even prefer to game at 60hz UHD, most console gamers anyway. As I said before, the reason TVs have 120hz panels is not for gaming, but for video. Its not the same reason as computer monitors. Its only a recent thing that people have discovered it can be beneficial for gaming, and even LG who have the biggest set of HDMI 2.1 features on their higher end TVs don't accept 120hz at 2160p which is part of the HDMI 2.1 spec. But its normal to a transition of a new HDMI standard to have these problems.

Any support or warranty when you buy a TV should go with the shop you bought it from, not the manufacturer. LG much the same as Hisense, or any manufacturer have poor support, poor warranty but returns on Hisense TVs or customer service experience is no better or worse than other manufacturers.
 
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I don't think any of those points are really exclusive to Hisense. The reason they sell their TVs with more specs, cheaper usually than the competition is because they operate a much lower profit margin than other manufacturers. Its the same with Chinese phones. Its not a quality issue or anything like that. The U7B having a 120hz panel is not really any different to what LG do, their new SM8200 only has a 60hz panel and before that they were also guilty of placing only 60hz panels on smaller TVs, much the same as Samsung. Turns out this year the U8B is almost as cheap as the U7A was, and seems an even better TV. Build quality of Hisense models is also a lot better.

As for accepting 120hz at 1080p its really not a big deal to most people. You can bet most gamers will even prefer to game at 60hz UHD, most console gamers anyway. As I said before, the reason TVs have 120hz panels is not for gaming, but for video. Its not the same reason as computer monitors. Its only a recent thing that people have discovered it can be beneficial for gaming, and even LG who have the biggest set of HDMI 2.1 features on their higher end TVs don't accept 120hz at 2160p which is part of the HDMI 2.1 spec. But its normal to a transition of a new HDMI standard to have these problems.

Any support or warranty when you buy a TV should go with the shop you bought it from, not the manufacturer. LG much the same as Hisense, or any manufacturer have poor support, poor warranty but returns on Hisense TVs or customer service experience is no better or worse than other manufacturers.
I don't know about you, but I'm in PC gaming for cca 20 years, also been a journo, and we tried TVs a long time ago for gaming, but they were bad for it. People are always trying to connect them to tjw PC. I would dare to say that actually today the people are less concerned with PC connection because of all the streaming services.

I guess it is very different in UK with Hisense and TCL like brands. Where I'm from Hisense goes so-so and TCL is rubbish and returned frequently. Also support is... Well...
 
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