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Advice: 55 inch 4K TV ~£500 from Currys with Freesat

I do like the look of the FireTV TVs as FireOS is the best TV OS going IMO
I bought one of the QLED Omni Fire TVs... picture is great when sat directly in front. But the TV software is dreadful - so slow and buggy - keeps losing connection to the soundbar and no sound at all either from the soundbar or the built in speakers... there have been lots of software updates but it doesn't seem to get any better.
I have had a couple of their Fire Sticks and they were fine and worked fine on my dumb panasonic tv.... but the Fire TV was a bad purchase on my part. We have to turn it on and let it settle down for 10 mins before we want to watch it to make sure it's all working properly... it's like going back to a valve based set - it takes the software so long to boot up and stabilize.
 
I bought one of the QLED Omni Fire TVs... picture is great when sat directly in front. But the TV software is dreadful - so slow and buggy - keeps losing connection to the soundbar and no sound at all either from the soundbar or the built in speakers... there have been lots of software updates but it doesn't seem to get any better.
I have had a couple of their Fire Sticks and they were fine and worked fine on my dumb panasonic tv.... but the Fire TV was a bad purchase on my part. We have to turn it on and let it settle down for 10 mins before we want to watch it to make sure it's all working properly... it's like going back to a valve based set - it takes the software so long to boot up and stabilize.
Ah that’s a shame. Fire sticks have always been great so wonder what they did wrong.
 
I realise the OP is trying not to spend money but will add, as people are now mentioning Fire, that the NVIDIA Shield works brilliantly for me.

And add that the software in our LG OLED is trouble free.

OK we have rather more remotes than one. But surely that is a small price to pay for a good setup?
 
have had a couple of their Fire Sticks and they were fine and worked fine on my dumb panasonic tv....
Used to have a 43in 1080p Panasonic plasma TV in the living room and the fire sticks just get really slow after a while (dread to think how slow my Fire TV stick is if I was to find where it was (don't have it plugged in since my 43in 4K 2022 Toshiba QLED Android TV is good enough and I have all 3 HDMI ports filled with my Switch, Wii U and PS4).
 
Here is some crucial advice which is surprisingly missing when people recommend TVs. Since you are buying new and you have a reasonable budget it's a given that you will be buying a 4K TV. Therefore by far the most important factor comes to the HDR standards the TV supports. There are a number of different HDR formats, including HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, and HLG. HDR10 and it's newer version HDR10+ are the most common ones which most TVs support since they are royalty free. HLG is less taxing in the encoding hence why it's used by Sky and the BBC for live 4K HDR transmissions (usually sports). However Dolby Vision (DV) is a more advanced format that offers some additional features, such as scene-by-scene mastering. Most premium content uses DV. Since DV is not royalty free is usually missing on cheap TVs. But crucially Samsung has no TVs that supports DV. So to me anyone buying a Samsung 4K HDR TV without DV is making a huge mistake.

So get your hands dirty and research the models you want to make sure they support the 4 HDR standards since you can't really predict what HDR standard your content will use so it's best to have them all 4 specially since a lot of people say they grade HDR more visually impacting than 4K. In terms of streaming boxes I totally agree is best to leave the TV unplugged and use a 4K streamer (ie Chromecast/Fire TV/Apple TV). Personally I think the Apple TV 4K is well above the rest.

The two LG models you linked only support HDR10 and HLG so I would NOT recommend them. The LG 55QNED756RA £549 is cheaper on AO.com at £397 and the LG 55NANO766QA £449.99 is cheaper on lg.com at £399 so I while I got nothing against Currys I find that they tend to sell outdated stuff at inflated prices.

Personally I would highly recommend the LG OLEDs as the image is stunning and most if not all support the 4 HDR standards. You don't have to go for the latest models and while 2022 models are now usually not available the 2023 still are. I did a filter for the cheapest LG 55" OLED and the LG OLED55B36LA came first. Cheapest price I found is £850 in Amazon UK sold by Hughes Electrical, which is a proper retailer (ignore the 4/5 reviews on Amazon as this isn't the original TV page, seems like a new separate product page added by Hughes). Or if you prefer to buy direct from Hughes you can get for £899 (see extra 10% code on product page) with 5 years warranty. Now it's a great time to buy as the 2024 models are introduced the 2023 models are discounted and still with good stock. Also there are offers for the EUROs like Hughes 20% of all LG TVs.

I know £850 is £300 more than you were going to buy but trust me you will not be dissapointed with the LG OLED TVs. Once you see the blacks in OLEDs (you actually CAN'T see them as they are actually 100% black) you will not want to go back. And the added stunning colours by DV makes it a total winner.
 
"trust me you will not be disapointed with the LG OLED TVs. "

Agreed.

Especially running 4k HDR movies, but even normal tv.

In stores like Peter Jones it is worth noting how they display the OLED and non OLED so that the nons don't look too inferior - they want to sell them. Put them alongside each other and nobody would buy non if they had could find the bit of extra cash.

If you can buy one for £850 feel relaxed that I bought ours from Selfridges for almost double three years ago!
 
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"trust me you will not be disapointed with the LG OLED TVs. "

Agreed.

Especially running 4k HDR movies, but even normal tv.

In stores like Peter Jones it is worth noting how they display the OLED and non OLED so that the nons don't look too inferior - they want to sell them. Put them alongside each other and nobody would buy non if they had could find the bit of extra cash.

If you can buy one for £850 feel relaxed that I bought ours from Selfridges for almost double three years ago!
Indeed LG OLEDs have come down massively in price as the technology matured. I bought a 65” OLED 2017 edition in April 2018 for £2.5k so 3x times £850 of the suggested model. And mine it’s still running strong with very little image degradation.

And now LG has the OLED evo which is basically an improved OLED version so that pushes down the prices further down as they want the OLED evo to be at the top.
 
Here is a great article about Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HDR10+. It also gives samples of what content is available in each standard and covers other enhancements like Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Vision Filmmaker Mode:

https://www.whathifi.com/advice/dolby-vision-hdr-everything-you-need-to-know

From looking at LG OLEDs it seems that all LG OLEDs, regardless of model/year, support Dolby Vision and models since 2022 support Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Vision Filmmaker Mode.
 
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