TV Buying Guide - Choosing the right size
Buying a television is an important decision for two main reasons - first, you probably plan to spend significant amount of money to buy your first or the next/bigger TV and second, you plan to keep it/use for at least five years or may be longer. It therefore becomes important that you make the right buying choice on your TV. We have already discussed in other blog posts on general buying guidelines for TVs. This post is focussed on helping you choose the right size for your television. Often we evaluate multiple things before making a decision on which TV to buy.
To begin with, our budget sets the boundaries on how far we can go. But you also need to know that the size is one important parameter to finalize before you head out for shopping. What is the big deal with size of the television we buy?
A too big sized TV in a small room may create problems to your experience (it can even give you headache after prolong watching), and a smaller TV in a bigger room will definitely make you feel dissatisfied with the quality. Most of the TV sellers will usually not help you decide the right size of the TV to buy. They anyway would like you to spend as much as you can and buy as big as you can!So let's discuss here how to choose the right size of the TV. As we hinted earlier, the size of the room is the single most important factor to determine the size of the TV you buy.
The second important factor is the type of the TV you plan to buy, i.e. a standard definition or HDTV. Since standard definition televisions are now becoming less popular we would not discuss the same in detail. But the rule of thumb for buying a standard definition television is that you should be watching your TV from a distance of about 4 times the size of the television. For example, if your TV is of 32 inch then you should be watching it from about 100-120 inches (approx 8-10 feet range). However, if your TV is in a bigger room with a viewing distance of in the range of 120-140 inches, a TV with size of 42 inch or 50 inch will work fine. However, one problem with the standard definition television is that they don't give you a better experience in big size range TVs because of their not so great resolution.
Let's talk about the more popular categories of TV - Flat-panel LCD and Plasma TVs, as probably you are likely to buy one of those. Since these TVs come with a better resolution it provides you excellent experience even if you watch them from a shorter distance (as compared to the standard resolution televisions). So you don't need watching distance of 4 times the TV size but even 2 times will provide you a great watching experience without putting much strain to your eyes. One more factor that you should consider is the height of the room. If you have high ceiling room then you got some extra advantage with the size of the television. That means you can add another few extra inches to your TV for the same size of the room. Let's say you can afford to buy a 42 inch or 50 inch TV, all you need is a viewing distance of about 90-110 inches (8-9 feet). That means without need to have a bigger size room you can enjoy the high quality of HDTV. Another advantage of HDTV TVs (Flat-panel LCD or Plasma TV) is their smaller thickness that can save you extra 5-10 inches when compared to standard definition televisions or rear projector TVs.
So before you head out to the store or buy online your next favourite TV, just measure the distance between your seat and the place where you plan to keep your television set. Make sure you measure it in inches. Divide the distance by 2, then you can plan your television size in that range, with taking a plus or minus 10-20% margin. This is just a thumb-rule and the measurement doesn't have to be exactly derived from a formula. For example if your distance comes out to be 95 inches (approx 8 ft) then divide it by 2 which is equal to about 47 inches. So you can easily buy a 42 inch or even 50 inch television for your room. You can also check on the LCD TVs Prices and Plasma TV Prices at other places on the site. There are number of choices in television brands and we all have our favourite TV brands. Happy TV buying!
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