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LED TV Screen protectors

So you’ve invested in a great LED TV and now the kids want to watch it and you’re worried that they’ll damage the screen with their sticky fingers, crayons, toys or even throwing their Nintendo Wii controllers at it!

Sadly a cracked tv screen is not an easy fix and will need to be totally replaced, the cost of which can be almost as high as the tv itself. Retailer warranties generally don’t include accidental screen damage, so make sure you know the extent of the cover or your tv, and your wallet, may in danger.

So how do you prevent your display from being damaged? The answer is a screen protector, and there’s a great range now available.

Screen protectors are used to guard a wide range of displays from damage, from personal use to reinforced versions for public sector hospitals, corporations, and even the US military.

The protectors tend to be simple to use, light-weight pieces of high grade acrylic that hangs over the top of your display. They often require little to no assembly and are secured with straps around the back of your tv led. Many also include rubber grips to keep the screen in place and small felt spacers to absorb impacts and prevent the screen scratching the display.

Some protectors also come with more advanced features including non-glare optical grade plastic ensuring clarity and sharp, clear, and vivid high definition viewing. Others are even known to block very low levels of harmful UV light from plasma and LCD televisions, with one brand quoting their screens as blocking up to 92% of all Ultra Violet light in the UVA/UVB and some of the UVC spectrums (250nm to 400nm).

Of course, occasional cleaning of the screen protector will be necessary, but they’re much easier to clean than LED TV displays as they can be sprayed on and pressed down, and are likely to need cleaning less often that you do currently.

The only disadvantage to a screen protector may be that they do tend to reduce a tv screens brightness by about 5%, but that can be easily remedied by turning up the brightness up to accommodate.

For the personal consumer they’re available from around 19 inches to 55 inches diagonally and are available from a number of international retailers. Compared to the value of the tv the price of the screens is quite low at around £40 ($60) to almost £100 ($160) for the really big ones.

For the business consumer, complete screen enclosures are available for screens up to 65 inches, where the entire LCD TV is encased in strong aluminium extrusion and acrylic and hung using tv wall mounts. The enclosures are available in two colours; a black anodized frame with black matte acrylic, or a silver anodized frame with a frosted acrylic.

The enclosures also include air vents and guarded dual fans to keep the display cool, high quality sound option upgrades, and tamper proof screws.

As with any internet purchase, make sure you research your purchase beforehand and err on the side of quality rather than cost as the screen will be an investment for the future. Make the right choice and ensure you find a product that will protect your display for years to come.

Why you should choose an LED TV

LED TV is the latest thing to hit the consumer electronics market, offering real change to the nature of televisions and providing a range of great new features for consumers.

LED backlights are now used in a range of displays, including billboards, monitors, industrial equipment and portable devices. Their low power consumption is particularly suited to battery powered displays, allowing significantly longer usage from one charge.

The key difference between an LCD TV and an LED TV is the backlight structure. While an LCD TV uses a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) as a light source, an LED TV uses light emitting diodes (LED’s), which are more power efficient and more capable at delivering a realistic graphic display.

Despite their lower power consumption, LED TV’s also tend to be brighter than LCD TV’s and many have non-reflective screens, making them particularly good in rooms with plenty of direct sunlight as the image stands out better.

LED’s have many advantages over the LCD TV and plasma TV counterparts, the most apparent of which is their size. LED TV’s are among the thinnest displays ever made, and significantly lighter than a TV LCD, making them easier to mount and more attractive on walls as they don’t protrude so far into the room.

The thinness of LED TV’s is due to the way the LED light bulbs are placed around the LCD screen, either behind it, known as backlit LED, or around the edges, known as edge-lit LEDs. Edge-lit LED screens are the thinner of the two and as they contain fewer LEDs, they tend to be less expensive. However, backlit LEDs can create deeper blacks using a technique known as ‘local dimming’, where LEDs are shut off, preventing unwanted light shining through.

LED TV’s also tend to have a better range of colors as they use red, green and blue lights to produce more realistic color combinations and greater colour depth, as well as a better contrast ratio than LCD TV’s.

LED light bulbs also have a very long lifespan and are expected to last for more than 50,000 hours without degradation – that’s 5 years of constant tv watching. They’re also better for the environment as they don’t contain mercury, making them easier to dispose of and more recyclable.

However, LEDs can suffer in the viewing angle area, and often lose colour and black levels when viewing at acute angles over 30 degrees. However, this issue is being addressed by the manufacturers and many are using in-plane switching panels, so keep an eye out for those when choosing your display.

As with any consumer product, there are pros and cons that will need to be weighed up by you, the consumer. However, a TV LED does have some distinct advantages over LCD and plasma TVs and for those they should be seriously considered. Of course these advantages tend to come at a price, but as more consumers jump on the LED bandwagon prices will fall, and it will only be a matter of time before they drop into your price range.

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Samsung 8000 55 inch 3D LED TV review

There’s plenty of LED TV’s out there and I was fortunate enough to review the new Samsung 8000 55 inch 3D LED TV.

The first thing that you’ll notice about this TV LED is the sheer size. At 55 inches, it’s huge and definitely only suitable for a very large living room or office. That said, if you can fit a 55 inch tvs in your room and find tv wall mounts big enough to hold them, it will certainly make a huge impact!

The tv itself is supported on an attractive four-legged chrome stand and stands at 83cm high. The front colour is brushed titanium with a finish that will really bring a modern edge to your living room.

In terms of connectivity, the 3D LED TV features one component in, one a/v in, an optical audio out, a DVI audio in, four HDMI ports, two USB ports and two SCART ports. It also features Dolby Digital Plus sound and SRS TheaterSound for that true home cinema experience.

The next thing that hits you is the 3D. The Samsung offers an immersive viewing experience by moving away from the old two dimensional tv into the realms of 3D, providing fantastic picture quality via the 3D HyperReal engine at the full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080.

As far as performance goes, the Samsung was certainly one of the most convincing 3D tv’s I’ve seen so far, rivaling the Sony Bravia KDL-52HX903 or LG 55LX9900. While I did notice an occasional ghostly outline between the two layers of the 3D image, this was rare and overall the 3D looked great.

The tv also has a built in 3D converter, allowing you to convert your 2D movies into 3D. By in large it didn’t really affect most of the movies I tried on it, but it was much more noticeable when playing racing games on my Xbox 360.

The tv had to perform with 2D viewing too and it did a great job, with a fantastic image quality, rich colors, sharp details and deep black levels. I did find people to be a little off colour however, but this was quickly fixed with a colour correction through the on-screen menu.

The Samsung also comes packed with features including the Internet@TV platform, providing you with music, video and social networking including access to LoveFilm, iPlayer, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and other simple wireless content right through your tv. While I would have preferred to have a keyboard, it was great to be able to access all those sites from the comfort of my sofa with no need to boot up a pc.

Another feature is the built in freeview HD tuner, allowing you to enjoy hours of free HD tv. You can even plug your own USB or hard disk into it and use it as a personal video recorder, which was a feature I know I would get a lot of use out of.

The tv comes in just under £2700 or $3150 – a hefty price but for the size and feature set, its extremely competitive in today’s market. So get out there and give it a try.