Help! Need opinions on which television to buy.

Our telly blew up a few minutes ago :mad: so I have to purchase a new one tomorrow. Am looking at the Hitachi L26H01 for €499.99. Does anyone have an opinion on that telly, or any other make/model? My budget is €500 and for ease and simplicity it has to be purchased from Argos (there is one 5 minutes down the road from me)

Any comments would be really appreciated, thanks.

There are not many reviews on this TV on the net, but I managed to find the which.co.uk review of the 32" bigger sister of the TV you are looking at. Afraid it gets a big slating:

Hitachi fail to hit the heights with this mediocre 32-inch HD ready LCD TV. It features an integrated digital (Freeview) tuner but the EPG is frustratingly slow to upload programme information. Sound quality is awful and picture quality nothing to get excited about.The standard definition picture is soft but this actually helps mask some digital artefacts (side-effects from all that digital picture processing). Our expert panel had mixed feelings about the high definition picture. Some felt it lacked some depth but others felt the level of detail made up for it. Sound-wise the bass is on the poor side and higher frequencies are somewhat unrefined for instance there was some distortion on some female vocals. The Hitachi also makes a slight buzz but it's barely audible.There are 2 awkwardly placed RGB Scart sockets and 2 HDMI sockets for connecting to high definition equipment. Neither Scart features Scart link (which can trigger a suitable VCR to record).There are sockets situated at the rear, but facing sideways, for connection to a camcorder or headphones. It can't be connected to a surround sound set-up but does have a stereo audio output for connection to a hi-fi system. A coordinating pedestal stand is supplied but the TV can be wall mounted. Unusually for a flat panel TV the wall mounting kit actually comes supplied.Pros: Wall mounting kit supplied, high definition picturesCons: Terrible EPG, bad sound

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If I were you, I would get perhaps one hundred euro more, and buy off a manufacturer who has a proven track record in LCD technology e.g. Panasonic (consistently the which.co.uk Best Buy winner in LCD TV 's), Sony, Toshiba or Samsung. As this will be a relatively long term investment, what is the point in skimping on quality over a hundred quid?

I agree with gebbel.

I was always a Sony fan but got converted to Panasonic last year. Either brand should give you excellent reliability so I reckon it's worth paying a bit extra. You can get pretty good deals if you're not buying the latest model from them.

Good luck with it.

Hmmm, we looked at Hitachi then decided not to bother. Our budget has now increased to €650 (after raiding all our money jars in the house lol ) We're going to look at the Sony centre tomorrow and I'll have a look at Panasonic as well.

Thanks a lot for your advice.

Richersounds has a Sony 32" LCD for £ 450. I think they deliver for €50, so it will be within your budget. I doubt you will find these prices anywhere in a shop in the Republic.

They also have all sorts of Panasonic, definitely worth a look. Also visit their own forum on boards.ie http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1105

No affilation, just a price conscious customer.

In the end we bought a Sony Bravia 32" KDL32T3000 for €649 and it is the business! The only thing is now, we have to get a Sky HD box...

Good for you!

Enjoy it - should be trouble-free

I've resisted HD so far as I'm happy with my SD pic - and I'm pretty fussy.

But it's only a matter of time before the bug bites. LOL. Already tempted by a Bluray player, except the disc prices are still a bit much.

Colblimp said:

The only thing is now, we have to get a Sky HD box...

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Not necessarily, in fact it might be prudent to hold off on that for a while yet. Sky HD broadcasts 19 channels in High Definition at the moment. Included in that group of 19 are channels such as Sky Sports HD and Sky Premier HD that you would have to pay a hefty extra subscription for, should you want them. The one-off cost for the box is now €149 with an extra €15 per month on top of the cost of your nominated mix of channels. If you have not Sky yet, you can now get a Sky+ box for free. Although it is not HD, the picture quality on a HDTV is really good. HD will be great in the future when all channels are broadcast this way, I just don't think the extra charge is justified while the HD channel list is so small.