Lately, when it comes to screens, 4K resolutions emerge, capable of raising the video image to a new quality standard for home entertainment. 4K monitors and TVs, however, really cost an eye but this new technology is constantly being updated, so prices are likely to drop in a couple of years.
Moreover, the 1080p resolution still manages to give great satisfaction for both television and video games, so why not opt for a good Full HD TV?
If you don’t know how to choose a good 32-inch smart tv, we suggest you read our buying tips below to find out what are the main differences to look for in a model.
What to Look for Before Buying 32-Inch Smart Tv?
Of course, 32 inches are not very many and with this type of TV you cannot reach the highest resolutions offered by the top of the range, but this is not a choice to be discarded.
This type of TV is very versatile: if you own a bigger TV that you use as the main TV and you intend to buy another one to put in another room, a 32-inch is probably the right purchase for your needs.
If, on the other hand, you are looking for a TV for your living room, the market can probably offer better solutions, but be careful, do not exclude this type of TV regardless.
For example, you do not have a very large living room with a narrow TV – sofa distance or you do not have a large budget, coming down to some compromise, this type of TV can be suitable for your needs.
LCD or LED: What’s the Difference?
One of the fundamental questions is which of the many technologies available on the market today. Let’s take it one step at a time and start analyzing LCD and LED televisions. Some fundamentalists may take it, but, said between us, the visual difference between these two technologies is almost minimal.
LCD refers to liquid crystal display. The most common LCDs are backlit televisions with fluorescent lamps; the LEDs, on the other hand, are backlit, precisely, with LEDs, ensuring lower energy consumption, but still have liquid crystal displays.
There are two types of LED televisions, which always differ in the backlight: Full LED, with “truer” blacks and more dynamic contrast, and Edge-LEDs, cheaper, with a more uniform color distribution and, usually, with thinner screens; in the former, the LEDs are directly arranged behind the panel, in the latter, along with the frame.
Compared to traditional LCD televisions, LED ones, in addition to the aforementioned lower energy consumption, offer some slight improvements: they are more sustainable and have higher contrast.
So we will have a “blacker” black and a wider range of colors, moreover, these televisions, being generally more recent, also have thinner screens.
On the other hand, as we said, the difference is minimal, but the costs are different anyway. The choice that a well-informed user can make is precisely on this discriminant: a visual and consumption improvement or save a few euros?
Plasma Screen: What You Need to Know?
Until a few years ago, all fans talked about plasma, dividing between supporters and detractors. Today, in part, things are still like that, but the market has changed. In addition to personal judgments, we can certainly outline the pros and cons of this kind of screens.
It has often been heard that plasma televisions are capable of offering the best image quality, and certainly still today their performances are very good.
I would say excellent: high contrast ratio, a wide range of colors, wide viewing angle, and time better response than LED and LCD. This last feature allows them to guarantee a better visual experience with fast-moving images, such as, for example, those of a football game.
But they also have defects that the other screens have long since overcome: first of all they consume much more energy than other technologies, secondly they are not very sustainable.
Having inside them chemicals that are difficult to dispose of, making this more complex and decidedly more expensive. This problem is amplified by the fact that their life is, on average, shorter than that of LCD and LED screens.
Finally, being a technology that is a bit dated, the plasma models on the market are less and less, even if their price is lower than a few years ago.
Difference Between Hd Ready and Full Hd?
Now let’s get into the technician a little more. Regardless of which TV you choose, a 32-inch TV won’t be able to support 4K resolution, but practically everyone now supports HD images.
However, not all HD is the same, there are basically two types, HD Ready and Full HD: the former transmits images in 720p with 1280 × 720 pixels, the latter support images up to 1080p with 1920 × 1080 pixels.
The HD Ready still manage to support images in 1080, but this does not mean Full HD, in fact, they use an image display mode called “interlaced” (essentially when you see the word 1080i): the aspect ratio of the image they will not be different, but their quality will.
Consequently, we can say that, although HD Ready can reproduce even higher resolutions slightly deteriorating the image, the quality offered by a Full HD TV is certainly better.
The cons are always the same: a Full HD TV costs more, instead, an HD Ready is more suitable for those with a lower budget.
Difference Between Smart Tv and Non-Smart Tv?
We come now to the smart aspect. What can a smart TV do that a non-smart TV cannot do? The main difference is that a smart TV can connect to the internet and a non-smart TV cannot.
Attention, it is no small difference! Having access to the internet, both via cable and via WiFi, the way you can use TV changes completely.
Just think of all the streaming services on the market today, Netflix, Infinity, and many others, you can access these without needing an additional device, but simply through your TV.
Each TV can access a large number of applications, making it possible to reach many services and platforms in comfort: from YouTube videos to listening to music with Spotify and truly an unlimited number of other services.
If you often use this type of service, buying a smart TV can certainly be what is right for you, if instead, you are not interested in this kind of content, a non-smart TV is also fine, allowing you to save a few euros.
Only note: if the place where you are going to place the smart TV is not close to your modem, make sure that your new TV can connect to the internet wirelessly, on the market today there are many smart TVs that have this function.
Refresh Rate
We come to the Refresh Rate. In a nutshell, the Refresh Rate is the refresh rate of the images on your TV. The measurements in Hz that the manufacturer’s report (which can sometimes even exceed 1000Hz) are often not the real frequency with which the TV updates the images, but are the result of technologies used by the televisions to process the image.
The real Refresh Rate usually hovers between 50Hz and 240Hz. Without going too much into specific details, this data is particularly important as the human eye cannot perfectly “focus” the details on a fast-moving object.
Thus decreasing the time in which an image is shown (and consequently by increasing the Refresh Rate), this problem becomes significantly less important.
The processing of the frames mentioned above, add frames to the original sequence, but these operations also have negative sides: first of all, as is logical to guess, the addition of frames causes a change in the fluidity of the images.
But here are different currents of thought, there are those who love the greater fluidity given by this type of systems and those who prefer a more mechanical video, but more similar to the original.
Furthermore, when exceeding these elaborations, it can happen that the single frames are distorted and there are halos or edges not well defined. It is therefore essential, in choosing a TV, to find one with an excellent Refresh Rate that has a good frame processing capacity.
