I bought a 26" Samsung 3 years ago for £215 so yes you can get cheap LCDs. Regardless if you look at UK retailers you won't get much change from £300 for a new Sony 22". Similar Sony models are the same price without the added PS2. Therefore it isn't a bad deal - if you want a Sony. Can't comment on their quality as I've never bought a Sony TV (or looked at comments on them) but the point remains they are a comparably expensive brand here. Whether that is down to brand prestige or quality I don't know.
I agree with the others. Look for deals rather than buying this crap. Both my TVs were brand new models. The Sharp hadn't even been released! I had to wait a month for that to be available. I paid 70'000 yen for the 37" Toshiba and a very cheap deal of 78'000 yen on the 50" Sharp. Use www.xe.com to convert yen to whatever. Look around, tell stores you can find a product cheaper else where and see if they'll match it. Also think about ex-display models. Most are in fantastic as new condition and still carry the same warranty as the unboxed model. Yakumo
Samsung are horrible.. Panasonic only for me - TV wise. I use PC monitors for gaming though, a Mitsubishi Diamondtron 19" CRT for retro and a 24" Asus AK246H for modern.
I just recently got a new sony tv and personally I think it's ****ing great. I'd say my only issue with it is speaker placement & the built in tv stuff is pretty stupid (if you have a Ps3/360 to use). Are sony TVs overly priced? Yep but if you wait for the right time you can get a pretty nice deal. I waited till boxing day and got $500 off my 40" HX701. The TV also handles my Sys 256 stuff pretty damn well. *Note, it sounds like i'm going spastic on the joystick but part of that is because the HAPP stick & buttons I use are pretty noisy (but have a nice springy feeling) GvG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZrImGFpp1g Tekken 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc8mi5Yx09c Drum Master 11: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jv117dEn4w Oh man I can't wait to play GvG Next this weekend on the tv. *drool* --edit-- I should note that this tv wasn't even the one I originally wanted. I wanted a Sharp Aquos 40" but that was over the budget my wife limited me to ($1000 including tax, shipping & fees).
Subbie does your TV have a Cell CPU and if so can it communicate with the PS3's? Sony used to big up this feature for parallel processing or whatever they made of it =/ I tend to avoid Sony stuff with a bargepole as you can get better for less. The Sony stuff usually falls apart of bursts into flames anyway too I'm a big Philips fan myself. My current TV though is a shitty generic 26" flatscreen I got off my cousin for £50 inc. delivery and a HDMI cable. I had no TV for about 4-5 years and the only reason I got this is because I suddently desired a PS3 to play Lost Planet 2 with my cousin and without RROD (sank 400 or so hours of love into that game but no platinum trophy grr...). He didn't steal it though - he buys damaged units, repairs them and then resells for a small profit. I got a special backdoor bandit family deal though My only real gripe with it is due to it's overall crapness it cna get screenburn off a static menu when I'm afk for a while or off the game HUD, but it is only noticeable when start doing something different and it is gone by the next day. For the price though I can't grumble.
I briefly worked for Philips in London, specifically their pcb factory which was, essentially, just one long automated production line. I didn't last long (packing boxes is rarely fun) but I lasted long enough to learn that pretty much all electrical goods like televisions and dvd players are in fact a mixture of different components from different manufacturers. In short, if you open up a Sony TV and study the pcb's you'll find pcbs from Philips and many other brands... not just Sony. For the record, I've had my ex-display model Samsung 40" tv for over two years and it's on all day when we're home. It's had what I would describe as 'heavy use' and still works great.
