My parents just bought a new house and are replacing their old SD tube TV with a flat screen finally! I've been out of the loop on TV info for a while as I haven't been in the market.

I think they are looking in the 42-50" range. Any thoughts on LCD vs. LED vs. Plasma? I think they have a lot of windows on a nearby wall in the sun room so was thinking plasma might not be the best bet but not sure.

If anyone has any suggestions on particular models (or brands) in that size category it would be helpful in their initial search.

They don't care for 3D and all the the online bells and whistles. I would suspect they want a TV that is reasonably priced and has good picture quality.

If they decide they want streaming netflix or something I think they would get a bluray player that has this ability.
Thanks.

David, do they have a particular budget in mind?

I've got a 2 yr old 6 series Sammy LCD(120 hz) that has had no issues since new and people who've seen it comment on the good picture quality. I haven't really looked at any of the new offerings but I'd certainly consider another Samsung in the future.

I've been happy with my 1080p 46" Panny Plasma, seems it has great side viewing angle, and decent antiglare that helps with windows. Not really sure any TV is great with lots of glare, but it does seem to work better than my friends Vizio LCD. We got ours at Costco.

Speaking of Costco, my sister and her husband are also looking to buy a new TV, and they would like to buy from Costco. I told them to go for 50" if they can, and that I would put a couple hundred dollars toward it for them, since I really don't want them to short themselves on screen size. I do visit them on occasion after all. Ha ha. If anyone has any recommendations on the models Costco carries, I'd love to hear them. My brother-in-law wants an LCD set. He's biased against plasmas for some reason.

Oh, and good luck with your search, too, David.

As far as budget I'm not 100% certain. I suspect they would prefer to save some cash over getting the newest, top of the line tv as they just bought a new house, had hardwood floors, new carpet, trim, etc. Installed and their old house hasn't sold yet.

As I have said before you can find fault with virtually every TV out there, I would suggest they go the simple route and buy the one they like the look of and can afford.

Right now I am thinking the Vizio at Costco is the best bang for the buck. They use near top end panels and lesser quality electronics to drive them with some very good savings and the quality appears to still be very good judging by reports on AVS etc.

Wow it has been a long minute since I have had input on this forum!

I saw this thread and had to comment. When going for a TV, the brand you spend your money on is the quality you'll get. With that being said, Samsung/Panasonic/Sony are the big 3 here and I would suggest sticking with those brands.

Now as for LCD/Plasma, everyone has their own opinion, I prefer LCD for no particular reason other than price. LCD is cheaper, and I can see no reason not to take the cheaper LCD offering over the plasma.

Thirdly, goto bestbuy or whatever and find the TV your parents like (I personally think Samsung is the bomb), and then order that model from Amazon.com (or find out what older model corresponds with that current model and order that from amazon instead). They generally have the best prices on electronics and will deliver the TV to their doorstep (no hastle). Amazon.com also has older models that the big stores will no longer carry, which is actually what I did when I bought.

Amazon has an LCD section that ranks the top bought TVs at the moment, check it out here (http://goo.gl/rWhtd). Based on this, I would recommend the Samsung LN46C630 (currently at #3)

There you have it!!

ROBB!

Is this even true anymore?

I'm waiting for LED to drop in price or with luck, maybe OLED will make a huge leap in the next year (but probably not).
On the upside, plasma tvs have gotten better for power consumption, but still don't hold a candle to the LCD and LED panels.
Actually they hold about 100+ more candles...

Other than when calibrated equally(LCD vs plasma) the Plasmas still look better to my eyes.