TV Shopping — what should I buy?

I am in the market for a new TV and have been doing some homework. I have decided on 2 things already:

  • It will be a Samsung – have looked at both the Sony and Samsung and although I believe the Sony’s engine is a bit better, the Samsung TV just look so much nicer.
  • It will be 32 inch – the room where I will put the TV is fairly small and anything bigger will just not work.

Basically this left me with the following sets:


LA32A330J1N

LA32B450C4


LA32B550K1R

LA32B650T1R

The top 2 are 720p and the bottom 2 are 1080p.  If I was just looking at resolution then I would have taken the A330 since when I compared the 720p against 1080p on 32″, watching Blu-Ray, there was no noticeable difference.  However I still have to answer the following to make up my mind:

  • What difference does refresh rate of 50Mhz vs 100Mhz make?  Initial investigation by watching a soccer game on both the B550 (50Mhz) and the B650 (100Mhz) did not show much difference.  I am not a game player that play these fast games that need fast refesh rates.
  • What difference does response times make?  Have not looked at these at all.
  • Then there is the question about contrast ratios? Not looked at this at all. 
  • And then with SA moving to Digital TV broadcasting.  Does is help in getting a TV with a Digital receiver in it.  The B650 above has a iDTV (Integrated DVB-T Tuner) — the question still remains whether this will work with SA’s Digital Spec.

More questions than answers.  Your comments more than welcome.

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