What pisses me off the most when looking for TVs at stores is they got rid of almost all the dumb TVs. I don't want a smart TV because I can easily hook a blu ray player or any other streaming device to make a dumb TV smart. Plus there was the whole ad pushing thing that they can do which you'd think spark public outcry. I haven't heard anything about it since the first articles talking about it.

"And around the same time, numerous complaints surfaced that Samsung televisions were inserting mysterious Pepsi ads into the middle of movies that customers owned. The solution in that case was to dive deep into the television's settings and reject both a Yahoo privacy policy and disable a feature called "SyncPlus" that enabled the ads in the first place — something that it seems Samsung customers in Europe will now have to deal with as well."

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/30/11814706/samsung-smart-televisions-new-menu-bar-ads-european-expansion

"Samsung says users can opt-out of these “interest-based ads” through the settings menu, but many Reddit posters say they’re continuing to see them even after making their preferences clear."

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/ads-invade-samsung-s-smart-tvs-and-people-aren-t-happy

A little off topic but something I wanted to vent.  Anyways, 4K is still out of my price range.  I'll look into them when they have a good brand 40" for under 300.

Budget 4k TV's are not the same as high end models. They suck, they really do. I tried one out before I bought a $2,700 dollar 4k tv. The biggest difference is when watching movies, so much blur in the picture it's ridiculous.

Though, that was back in 2014, I haven't tried recent budget models. They may have improved a bit since.

Last year I went straight for the high end model, didn't bother with the budgets.

perhaps 500 dollars is expensive to some people?

Which tv did you buy and which did you compare it with? Not that I disagree in principle just curious. You can't job lot all budget tv's or all expensive tv's as many sets at many price levels have failings, yes they are much more likely with budget sets but many mid range sets can comfortably outperform poor higher end sets. I've been to a house where they had an expensive tv with a VA panel but the room was organised so many people were left of the screen and at that angle the colour was distorted. An IPS screen would have been fine in the same situation or at least improved. I've seen mid-high end sets that either give a wonderful picture with judder or motion blur without judder and to be honest the blur was better and less distracting and so many people turn off that image processing anyway which they have paid good money for. Personally I'm of the opinion that expensive set should equal OLED. It's got amazing colours, smooth motion and just seems a class above LCD sets and that justifies its premium.

I actually  bought 2 tv's this year. sony x930d and Samsung KS9000 both 65". I mentioned in my post I didn't go for budget this time around. But budget tv's will not give you the picture quality of a high end model. I tried a samsung budget tv, I think it was the ks6000 back in 2014. Was very disappointed with it. 

I don't turn off image processing on these sets and they give me the best picture I have ever seen on tv's so far. NO blur, amazing contrast with HDR. I almost bought an oled, but I don't like LG. I like the Samsung better, video games run smoother on it. 

It really is amazing how far picture quality has come along in 2 years. I buy tv's every 2 years ever since 2008. This is only the second time I buy a Samsung. I buy Sony mostly.

I was against OLED but LG are starting to take gaming seriously and have reduced input lag considerably to low levels on the latest firmwares so what were once best avoided purely because  of being poor for gaming has now changed. You may find your next tv will be an LG or at least have an LG OLED panel. I wouldn't consider spending serious money on a LCD myself. It's flawed technology. I also have an old plasma tv and still gives amazing motion with fantastic colours and OLED really replaces plasma as the premium TV technology.

Nope, will never buy lg. I will wait another year or two for QLED from Samsung.

If you're in the US/UK, just wait for Black Friday.

Upgrading to a 4k TV when you just recently purchase a 1080P doesn't make much sense. Actual cost of of a 4k is much more then $500, the $500 model could suffer from motion blur and bad input lag. Now if you had to the cost the price of Scorpio or PS4 Pro that makes the 4K TV upgrade that much more expensive. 4K TV are now has affordable as 1080P TV, but is it the right time to upgrade in your household?