Any videophiles around?
Here is my thing... I really don't have the money right now, and realistically unless some magical school financial aid comes (which I currently don't expect any) this likely won't happen for about 6 months (if funding does happen it could happen very soon, like in the next couple of months.)
I
need to move within the next 5 months, this is basically by force not by choice (roomies want me out ASAP

), and I currently have this 1st gen old school tube style HDTV. It's a decent screen and all, but being ~250 lbs, there is no way I could move it by myself. More than likely when I move I will be doing it all myself, so taking it with me might not be an option at all.
So... I've been hoping the school gods drop some unexpected monies my way and allow me to upgrade to a new LCD screen when I need to move. This would, of course, save space and be light enough that I could move it myself next time I need to move it.
I have been keeping my eye on the Sony Bravias. However, Amazon, my new very good friend, has shown me a Samsung screen which has nearly the exact same features as the screen I was watching. So here is the breakdown...
Samsung LNT4665F $1600, 46" - currently the #2 best seller, 213 reviews, 4.5 stars
vs.
Sony Bravia KDL-40W3000 $1775, 40" - currently the #52 best seller, 16 reviews, 4.9 stars
So here is the thing... looking at the Crutchfield site for the
Sony KDL-40W3000 vs. the
Samsung LN-T4665F they look pretty much identical
but the Samsung is 6" bigger and ~$175 cheaper. (At least today. Amazon seems to have some odd fluxuations in prices over time. I've seen that Bravia shift by a couple hundred over the past few months.)
Is this correct? Is the Samsung basically identical, just cheaper and slightly bigger? Or is there something I'm missing? I've seen a few posts about clouding in reviews, so I'm not sure which screens are affected by this.
I also noticed that the
Sony Bravia XBR KDL-40XBR4 40" is ~$2150. Does anyone know if this model would be quite a bit better? The stats only look a hair better outside of the 120 MHz refresh rate. Granted this might be a bigger difference when I'm watching my Blu-Ray, I don't know.
Also, the first of the LED backlit screen types are out. One is the
Samsung LNT4081F 40" at ~$2600, only a bit more again over the Sony XBR, but considerably more expensive than the two I'm looking at.
So um... yeah... fair bit of rambling with teh rabb1t brain, and again, without magical unexpected funding showing up I likely can't afford anything for quite a while (like 7-9 months at the soonest), but... if anyone has any thoughts / knowledge on any of these, replies would be great.
PS – I’ve held sort of a Sony bias with my equipment because of the PS3. I recently picked up a receiver that was also Sony which was good, so I thought a Bravia would be good because they have special tuning between all the parts to work together. However, I would not at all be against something like the Samsung if it were truly a superior product, even more so if it is superior at a lower cost.