Looking to buy first flat screen TV, but....

[Aldebaran]

Better off with Best Buy or even Sears or Walmart.
MB

Yeah, I'm thinking about going with Walmart right now, although their selection isn't as big. I was at the store a few days ago and thought I'd found the one for me, and then looked up reviews and specs about it online and found that it doesn't even have a built-in tuner. Glad to find that out in advance!

Taking a guess is fine for some people. But, my wife and I consult Consumer Report for any major purchase.

I had been doing that for awhile, but it seems like they don't do much rating of lower priced things. The TV I'd like to get would be either a 1080 or 4K in about a 43" screen of the brands of Sony, Samsung, or LG since those seem to be the top 3 for reliability.

 

[Neostarwcc]

My TV signal would come from antenna. As for my source of 4K, it would be my computer. Youtube has an increasing number of vids that can be viewed in 4K. Some can even be seen in 8K, although that seems a bit overkill.

I've never bought anything from Amazon before. I don't understand them. I've looked at their ads and it looks like Amazon is just a grouping of a bunch of different companies. Not sure how that works if you have a problem with something.

I would get a 1080p tv then if antenna is going to be your tv input. There are 4k tv's though that have YouTube on them like mine. I don't know if they make 1080p smart tv's that have the internet on them. That would be something to look into. When I had a 1080p tv before it was just a regular 32 inch tv. It didn't get the internet or anything. I think I paid $100 for it.

 

[Waterwerx]

I know this. I was just surprised that the 4K had a worse image than the 1080 sets had. If both sets are receiving the same 1080 signal, wouldn't the images on both sets be at least the same rather than the 4K actually looking worse?

No, because when you use a non-native resolution, in this case 1080 instead of the native 4k, the image being displayed will not evenly correspond to the LCD's number of pixels. If you want a general idea of this, its comparable to zooming in on a smaller image to make it fit your screen, which equates to using more pixels in the display to render a single pixel of the image, which is why the image will tend to appear less clear & crisp compared to the native resolution.
This is why 1080 scaled up to 4k will always look worse than 1080 or 4k in their respective native res.

 

[akaDaScribe]

We bought a 4k LG around the time of the Superbowl. We didn't like it, took it back, and they said there was a crack on it. Anyway, we swapped it out for one of the better Sony 4ks and the wife loves it. It was a much better product. tv is somewhere between 45-50 inches