Not for myself, but for my friend. He plays primarily console games and wanted to get a really high refresh rate TV with good colours. Of course, he's also a console plebe and doesn't realize anything about input latency, so I reminded him to check for that.
Well he found a good result, but the problem is that while all the results have the right specs they all have some sort of feature that just jacks up the price. Like it having "Smart" features or is 3D TV, or is a curved TV - regardless, he doesn't want any of this crap - and neither would I, to be honest.
So, any good TVs for gaming out there that have plenty of inputs but lack the smart/3d/curved features? 4k is fine, but primarily, he wants a high refresh rate and colours, since he doesn't know anything about input latency, I guess it doesn't matter to him that much.
I recommended maybe getting a computer monitor, but they are usually smaller in size (he's looking for roughly 42-48in) and lack the coax input - he does actually watch cable.
What do mean by high refresh rate? HDMI 1.x has max refresh rate of 60Hz. Also none of the consoles have Display Port so a 120Hz TV would pointless (and no HDMI to DP adapters won't make it run at 120Hz)
Alot of TV's That you see that Advertising 240hz are technically false advertising. what they REALLY mean is that two of the Ports you use have the ability to run at 120hz.
Either way If He's looking for an impeccable television i believe Vizio is planning to release a 4K 50 Inch Smart TV for $1000 Dollars.
Ugh, I think the site went down or something when I tried responding to this previously.
Let me just sum it up as:
I didn't think HDMI controlled refresh rate, as it would seem silly to have a high refresh rate panel if all the devices like cable boxes, Roku's, and game consoles connected via HDMI could only be displayed at 60Hz
There is a misconception on this thread plasma is superior to LCD/LED for just about everything except power efficiency and glare. The big problems are glare and the risk of image retention. I game on a pioneer elite panel rebranded panasonic and have had no retention issues but I also run anti image retention workouts regularly every time i see ghosting or 3 months. There is no blur it pops like cor n and has the better blacks than any lcd.
Ok back to the question at hand,
There is a reason why they are only a few 144hz pc panels all LCD TVs that I am aware of that are not brands like runco or fujitsu are 60hz or lower the 120 240 480hz stuff is misleading and not referring to the panel itself what its referring to is the backlighting. It flashes at these rates showing you the same image x2 x4 x8 to reduce motion blur its not expressing the true refresh rate of the panel. Also some people get headaches and feel sick from this tech similar to 3D. The most important thing you need to research is Response Time or ms this will reduce lag. Most TVs below $2000 start at about 16ms and go all the way up to 70-80ms as of 2014 though we are lucky to see some sub 12ms panels arriving. Most PC gamers won't buy units higher than 5ms so the lower the better and sony usually has low rates. For cheap go visio E500 series for premium go sony W95 55 for elite go planar or samsung 550exn. Also if you want barebones look at specs on commercial monitors from planar and lg. LG has a WS? series that is low lag 8ms? and an IPS panel they also usually have triple the warranty lifespan as well but can be more expensive.
Thank you for your detailed response! Very helpful!
I think the key thing though, is, first let me re-establish: this isn't for me. I have 2 27" AOC monitors with a 1ms response time: I'm not really in the market for a new panel (though some of those ultra wide monitors just make me drool)
The TV is for my friend, I was just trying to do him a solid because he isn't the most tech-savvy. He also doesn't make a lot and the idea behind finding barebones TVs was in hopes of reducing the cost because some of these smart TVs have like quad core processors and all sorts of bloat that he's never going to use. He watches Netflix on his console or otherwise is playing a game; having that crap in there just increases the cost on something he will never use. His current TV is around 40-50ish ms response time (I don't have exact specs, it's just roughly what I feel when I play on it. It's sluggish, for sure) And I think he would have a better time with a faster response time, but again, that's just me trying to be a good friend to help out his gaming experience, I honestly don't think he would care until he actually felt what low response time gaming is like.
Currently some of the smart TVs he's been looking at are around $1k-$1200, so I guess we are shooting under that.
(PS)
Having some internet issues here, sorry if I double post.
EDIT
fixed a word that I apparently farted out all over my keyboard.
If you want washed out colours then yeah sure, but the OP does NOT want that, and neither did I until i realised how washed out and loud (buzzing/humming noise) my one was even compared to my TN panel! And you can't use them properly in a light room.