26 inch LCD screens

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Topic # 60717 30-Apr-2010 23:32

i'm looking at grabbing a 26" LCD for the bedroom. There are a couple of "HD Ready" models that I reckon might do the job - i'm not so worried about having full hd res there.

anyone got any opinions on either of the following models?
Samsung LA26B450
Panasonic TH-L26X10Z

Both of them are 1366x768, have freeview tuners and 3x HDMI. The Panny has an SD card slot which would be quite useful seeing as I have a panny HD video camera.

The 32" screen was just little too big for the bedroom for my liking.. shame as there is a lot more choice and a larger feature set.

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Reply # 325464 30-Apr-2010 23:43

I have the LA26B450, very good model :) and replaced my 32" Sammy in the bedroom too

My bedroom playstation and upscaling DVD player look good on them. No problems at all all :)

Mines wall mounted too, highly recommended. my old 32 felt out of place, even though I have a larger than average bedroom, it stuck out like a sore thumb, the 26" looks a lot better

I paid $549 for mine about 6 months ago at JBhifi price matching when the sales were on :)

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

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Reply # 325506 1-May-2010 09:06

The Pana's are a lot thicker... I don't know the reason, but they aren't what I'd call a slim line LCD.
The picture on both sets is about the same, but I do prefer the menu system on the Samsung.
The Samsung is over driven compared to the Pana, but after tweaking it looks far more natural than the stock settings.
I bought my parents a set that would fit inside their bespoke TV cabinet, and after much looking went with the 4 series Samsung.

...also, it was about $30 cheaper at the time.
Not that I'm cheap or anything.

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Reply # 325527 1-May-2010 10:35

yeah the sammy is definately thinner and nicer looking than the panny. it sounds like the only big difference is going to be the SD slot.... but it might be enough to sing my vote :)

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Reply # 325616 1-May-2010 18:50

well i ended up grabbing the newer samsung screen from noel leeming for $650. it has the UDB media player built in which might be useful, and the picture looked pretty damn good - better than the sony or panny ones next to it.

model is LA26C450

even getting a great picture on some old bunny ears i had lying around (havent gotten round to mounting a UHF aerial yet, only have dish)

i'm going to test the media player compatibility, but it looks like it wont play my panasonic AVCHD files - i might have to transcode them all to a friendlier h.264 codec in MKV container and see how i go

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