TCL 55-Inch 1080p 240Hz LED HDTV $699 FS (Amazon and Costco)

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

What I love is the fact that you even think your 5 year old samsung lcd would even compare to this. I have seen some brand name tv's next to some no name tv's side by side. Are they as good? 99% of the time they are not however, some no name tv's do use 90+% of the hardware that Brand name tv's use. Some of these no name tv's have a picture that NON videophiles would not see a difference in. For the general population this is a pretty decent deal for a 55" LED considering if you purchase through costco your warranty is like GOLD.

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

Brand name sells. Just like name brand food compared to store brand. Most it made by the same companies of name brand item.

799 for the Samsung 6000 series LCD is a far better deal. Anyone with two eyeballs, and no macular degeneration can plainly see the difference if you simply point it out. His 5 year old samsung probably matches up pretty evenly TBH. It's true that LCD panels are distributed by only a few companies, they sell different grades of panels. There is a damned good reason an LCD that costs 3x as much costs 3x as much. LCD manufacturing still isn't perfect, and Top grade panels are still not a guarantee. If the certain tolerances aren't met, the manufacturer will sell those lower grade panels to other companies at a huge discount. True, it might be the same panel model, but it probably got rejected by QA because of a failed tolerance test.

Straight from wikipedia:
LCD panels also have defects known as clouding (or less commonly mura), which describes the uneven patches of changes in luminance. It is most visible in dark or black areas of displayed scenes.

These panels will get sold to mass chinese manufacturers.

Video processing is also extremely expensive, companies such as Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, etc etc guard those techniques very closely. It's very easy to save money in a tv's manufacturing cost by buying your tuners off the shelf in bulk from the lowest bidder. I guarantee you top teir companies arent selling their quality video hardware to TCL.

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

So you're saying your 5 year old TV has better picture quality than 2012 ones? Also any HDTV can last 4-5 years with normal use. Actually a lot of earlier samsung tv models had their capacitors blown within 3 years, they was sued with a class action suit just last year.

Quote from xbladr : What I love is the fact that you even think your 5 year old samsung lcd would even compare to this. I have seen some brand name tv's next to some no name tv's side by side. Are they as good? 99% of the time they are not however, some no name tv's do use 90+% of the hardware that Brand name tv's use. Some of these no name tv's have a picture that NON videophiles would not see a difference in. For the general population this is a pretty decent deal for a 55" LED considering if you purchase through costco your warranty is like GOLD.

My Samsung was among the top 5 LCD TVs with the best picture quality when I bought it, so yes, it looks better than this TV.

Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 100,000:1
Response Time: 12ms

Need I say more? LOL!

no way your 5 year old tv is better looking than this model lol

not a good price at all.

people must be thumbs upping just for trolls

if one is willing to pay $699 to buy this tv, then its better to add $200 to $300 and get a good brand tv..the product you get is what you payed.I always prefer to buy TCL when it is below $200, above that if one is willing to spend more , go for branded ones.I got 40" samsung and TCL led tv,but really i can see superiority and clarity in samsung compared to TCL, also TCL looks and Media player software is very much outdated,they wont play any video files through USB.

Quote from drsketch : 100,000:1l

Quote from mattzane227 : Isn't that the spec that means nothing and there's no standard or something to that effect?

Quote from charlie310 : LOL. The most important spec in regards to picture quality is Dynamic Contrast Ratio. I take that back. If you have a huge screen (like 50"+), then it's the resolution. The most useless spec is the 240Hz. Once you get to 120Hz, I feel the extra is BS, especially for POS brands.

mattzane is right about contrast ratios.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_1...s-to-you/#!

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

I am not comparing this brand with Samsung but claiming that your 5 year old TV has better quality than a 2012 TV is a bit too much bragging...
You kind of sound like an Apple fan-boy claiming iPhone3 is better than Galaxy S3...lol
You have an outdated TV (which can't be compared with ANY of today's TVs), accept this fact and move on mate. You should actually gift it to your grandparents or something like that .

Quote from pankajdarure : I am not comparing this brand with Samsung but claiming that your 5 year old TV has better quality than a 2012 TV is a bit too much bragging... You kind of sound like an Apple fan-boy claiming iPhone3 is better than Galaxy S3...lol You have an outdated TV (which can't be compared with ANY of today's TVs), accept this fact and move on mate. You should actually gift it to your grandparents or something like that .

LOL. You obviously missed in every single sentence. I'm not bragging, I'm belittling (I thought it was obvious).

I'm a 2007 LCD-TV fan-boy?

Obviously, my TV is outdated, which is why I'm on SD looking to buy a new one. Duh? Unlike you, I actually use SD to look for deals and buy stuff.

You are not Australian. Accept this fact, and move on.

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

Repped!! Same argument applies to my Sony XBR2. It has the better pic quality compared most of the 2million:1 contrast ratio TVs. Most of the guys here may be upgrading from tube TVs or from similar TV brands like TCL.

Quote from charlie310 : I love how there are so many people who believe or make-up these lies. Yes, there are suppliers of LCD/LCD-LED parts and many manufacturers will buy from the same supplier. Does that make all TVs the same? Why does Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic charge double, triple, or quadruple the price for the same size TV? I guess those people deserve a TCL TV. I have a 5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms, and I'd never replace it with a TCL even if I got it for free. For one, my TV will probably last longer than a brand new TCL. But the most important thing, my TV still has BETTER PICTURE QUALITY.

Sounds like bragging to me...

Quote from charlie310 : My Samsung was among the top 5 LCD TVs with the best picture quality when I bought it, so yes, it looks better than this TV. Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 100,000:1 Response Time: 12ms Need I say more? LOL!

Ignorance is bliss. I need not say more...

not that anyone is asking, but IMO if you keep any piece of electronics for 5 years you don't really belong on slickdeals because things become outdated so fast and once new things come out the value drops fast.
so the best thing to do is try to buy low and sell hi (duh) and just keep upgrading constantly. if you buy at a low price you can usually flip it in 1/2-1 year later for the same price on craigslist. and if you only own it for that period of time it doesnt need to be super long lasting.
if you still have a tv that is 5 years old you might as well sit on it until it does die because the resell value is too low now, kinda like an old car, just drive it into the ground now.
and as for the the "5-year old 40" Samsung 720P 60Hz 8ms", the stats on this are pretty good except 60Hz might be a little low for some movies and sports and 720P might start to be a little low when you get up to 40". but the real problem is the other things. wouldn't surprise me if that tv has as many component inputs as HDMI, and does it have wifi built in so i can relentlessly connect my laptop? then your tv is horribly out of date, and oh yea it weighs like a million pounds in comparison to this tv. picture quality isnt the only thing, and is becoming a stagnent things since 1080P is basically standard on all TVs now, the upgrades are in inputs and features and with LEDs the weight.