Smart TV, Best choice for quality and price

[Arizona Kid]

8 hours ago, earthdome said:

Looking for a Smart TV for the inlaws for Christmas. I was wondering where you may have purchased your smart TV and your thoughts on the quality and price. What about lazada or its LAZMall? We are still in the states so we either need to buy online or in the NCR where family can pick it up.

 

Thanks!

Can someone in layman's terms please tell me what the difference between a regular tv and a so called smart tv is? I have no clue.  

[jimeve]

2 hours ago, Arizona Kid said:

Can someone in layman's terms please tell me what the difference between a regular tv and a so called smart tv is? I have no clue.  

Smart TV's are internet ready and usually have Youtube and netflix already installed on them.

[Gary D]

11 minutes ago, jimeve said:

Smart TV's are internet ready and usually have Youtube and netflix already installed on them.

You can connect a smart tv to your wifi and receive web content. Some will act as a clumsey brouser. Connecting something like a chromecast will allow you to use your phone as a keyboard and make control a bit easier.

[hk blues]

25 minutes ago, Gary D said:

You can connect a smart tv to your wifi and receive web content. Some will act as a clumsey brouser. Connecting something like a chromecast will allow you to use your phone as a keyboard and make control a bit easier.

One annoying thing is that Amazon Video is not inbuilt so it's clumsy to access - the only real way to do it is through chromecast on a smartphone but it would be great if it was as seamless as Netflix.  For this reason, I rarely use Amazon Video even though it's only 150php from Globe - much cheaper than Netflix.  

[earthdome]

14 hours ago, Huggybearman said:

 

I would be wary about buying a tv through Lazada just because of the ensuing headache and hassle if you needed warranty work doing on them, unless you could get that done at a local service centre. In your case I would probably get the family to buy it in person in NCR to avoid possible after sales issues.

Regarding warranty some of the TV's listed via LAZMall list the vendor so warranty work might be available from the vendor. Regardless, my inlaws live in the province over 12 hour bus ride from Manila so getting warranty work done would be a difficult process regardless of whether you had a good vendor or not.

[earthdome]

If it were up to me I would just get them a nice large Full HD TV. No need for 4K UHD or Smart TV. Where they live in the province they only have satellite TV and there is no internet available. But the choice is not up to me so we likely will be purchasing a much more expensive TV than they need.

[OnMyWay]

TCL is assembled in the Philippines, I believe, so they cost less.

Abenson has a decent website with the same prices as the stores, including specials.  I just looked there and they have a lot of good deals on tvs right now.  I don't think they deliver to all areas but you can have pickup at the nearest store.

LG and Samsung are both good choices, IMHO.

[earthdome]

3 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

TCL is assembled in the Philippines, I believe, so they cost less.

Abenson has a decent website with the same prices as the stores, including specials.  I just looked there and they have a lot of good deals on tvs right now.  I don't think they deliver to all areas but you can have pickup at the nearest store.

LG and Samsung are both good choices, IMHO.

Abenson looked like a good choice, especially since they have many stores all over Luzon. So we ordered a 50" TCL and it should get delivered by Christmas. I did it online and was able to use my VISA. Delivery was an extra 1200 peso's. They have a store close enough that my inlaws could have done a pick up but that store was out of stock of the TV we wanted to order. Still if there is a problem the store is close enough for warranty work.

My wife had wanted to buy a TV in the US because they cost so much less and ship it. Our normal balikbayan shipper wants $165 to ship a large TV and then it takes 2-3 months. So this was a great option for us. Plus they might get it by Christmas.

Thanks to all those who replied.

[RBM]

We bought a little 36 TCL from a local appliance center, its smart and we are very  very happy. Of course just 4 months ago so time will tell. One point is there was not a heap of price difference between smart and standard so glad we went smart. The you tube is great.

[Freebie]

18 hours ago, GeoffH said:

We've got a large LG smart TV in the sala and a smaller Samsung smart TV in the bedroom. 

Both have good pictures and the smart software in both is usable but limited compared to (for example) an Apple TV unit (or even the cheap Xiaomi Android TV box).

I didn't like the image quality on the couple of TCL TVs I looked at but that might have been just adjustment settings.

And dont forget, in every store selling TVs they ALWAYS turn up the colour settings to full... meaning sometimes the colours are unrealistically bright and not at the setting you might usually use. When buying always ask them to turn the settings from max to something approaching normal and you get a better idea of the real pic