Korean Job Discussion Forums

[piotrus]

Hi guys,

I've been in Korea for half a year, and will be here for 2+ more at least. I decided to celebrate and get myself some nice screen. But as you well know, doing anything here is a bit of a challenge. So I read a number of guides, both generic and Korea-specific, including several threads here, and of course I still have a few questions.

First, Korea-specific questions:
a) will the tv have English menus?
b) are the English user guides for local "cheap brand" models like xpeer?
c) "Samsung is premium in Korea and thus almost always overpriced" - yes or no?
d) "you can almost always get better deals online, which in Korea means gmarket" - yes or no? I live in area where there is a number of stores - I have a Samsung one, LG one, HomePlus, LotteMart, eMarket - should I bother visiting them or focus online?
e) I don't speak Korean (still learning basics). How necessary is it for me to get a Korean speaking friend to help me make a purchase if I chose to do it in person?
f) it seems the prices of TV in Korea have fallen over the last year or so; is buying a ~40-42 inch here a decent deal now? If so, what is the reasonable price range here so as to avoid any "newly wed" or "dumb foreigner" prices?
g) home delivery and installation - is it always included in the price?

Now for more generic techy stuff. As I don't care for TV, I intend to use my TV screen as a computer monitor. So:
a) is it possible to buy a dumb TV here? It seems that all that SmartTV and other features just inflate the cost adding crapware I won't need...
b) anybody here has experience with HD over wifi? If so, what is your set up for it, particularly considering local gadget availability (most solutions I google for describe gadgets available in US...)?
c) sound quality and TV: should I be looking into buying some speakers as well, or is the audio quality going to be tolerable? Mind you, I am now watching stuff on my laptop, so I am not a very demanding consumer here

[wishfullthinkng]

korea-specific answers
a. it depends. most first party tv's will. some third party super cheap tv's forgo OSD for their menus altogether. it's hit or miss with no-name brands.

b. most likely not. even most first party tv's don't have their printed user guides in english.

c. yes it's premium but "overpriced" isn't the best word. high end samsung and lg sets are technically superior to their peers, sometimes many leagues apart.

d. yes. especially if you have a credit card that the online retailer gives bonuses for and combine it with gmarket/auction.co.kr coupons, etc.

e. probably pretty necessary, especially if you plan on doing installment payments.

f. yes it's a decent deal but still not america. i'd expect to pay south of 1.5million for a good set that size.

g. most likely only for a larger set that won't fit into a taxi.




tech stuff
a. sure

b. why would you want to do hd over wifi? it's lossy and expensive.

c. depends on your ears. if laptop speakers are good enough for you then tv speakers will be good enough for you. i'd personally recommend a nice 2.1 speaker setup with an amp if you are going to do any serious movie watching, but that's just me.

[piotrus]

[Swampfox10mm]

I have bought 2 new TVs and several used.

Buy used. And get Samsung or Sony. Not LG. Get something on Craigslist that is within 3 or 4 years old.

There are many reasons. New TVs are too expensive and drop 50% in value in a very short time. Smart TVs are overpriced in Korea and too restricted in what they can access on the web. Better to hook up a computer or other similar device. Surfing on a Smart TV is too limited. Better to save money on an older TV.

And the new LED technology? You can have it. My 4 year old LCD was near top-of-the-line before Smart TVs and LED and has a picture that rivals them all in a home. LEDs are brighter for store sales,but in a home, those levels are way overdone.

My used Samsung cost 300,000.

[Beeyee]

I agree that smart TVs are a waste of money.

If you care about having the best picture quality and want to game, plasma is the way to go. Screen burn issues are a thing of the past.

The following is a 3D LG 42" plasma for less than 600,000. It will also let you play files from the built-in USB media player.

http://itempage3.auction.co.kr/DetailView.aspx?ItemNo=A555022203&frm3=V2

[Swampfox10mm]

That TV linked to above is only 1024x768 resolution. That sucks. A full HD television is the standard, and is 1920x1080 resolution.

I had an LG plasma for 6 years. I will never buy a plasma again... not because of picture quality..... because of heat generation and electrical costs.

In summer, my aircon and TV had to fight it out. They run very hot in summer.

The plasma sets no longer enjoy a worthwhile difference in quality. In 2006 they did. Since the tech has been dropped by most major builders, there has been little in terms of improvement of plasma tech, for a while now.

[piotrus]

So for now I am discounting gmart and the rest of the Korean internet, sadly I don't have any Korean speaking friend I feel I can ask for help with that.

So far the best physical offer I am seeing is an 46 LED Xpeer tv for 800k I see in my local Homeplus.

[wishfullthinkng]

you can use gmarket in english. it's quite easy actually. if push comes to shove buy me a beer and i'll help you.

[Swampfox10mm]

Here are some options. They may not show up on the English side:

http://item2.gmarket.co.kr/Item/detailview/Item.aspx?goodscode=265827353&GoodsSale=Y&jaehuid=200002673


Newer version with a pretty cool remote:

http://item2.gmarket.co.kr/Item/detailview/Item.aspx?goodscode=372133136&GoodsSale=Y&jaehuid=200002673


Both of those are 40" Samsung LED Smart TV's with 3D. I won't buy LG anymore, unless it's for a cheap bedroom set I don't care about. For more serious viewing, go Samsung. They look better. Get someone to help you buy one of those.. prefer the 2nd link, myself.

[fezmond]

Good thread. I'm thinking the same things about buying a TV.

What does all this 'smart' stuff actually mean? I just want something small so I can hook up my XBOX or stream nfl through it.


On an unrelated note, my friend had a great big Sharp but it it made everything look like TV shows. We were watching some shitty film with Nick Cage and it just didn't look like a film. Same with X-men 3. Why would that be?

[piotrus]

So in the end I got a 40'' Samsung from Yongsan area (the ground floor of the "tower" like building - ETLAND) for 890k, which seems decent and on the level of the gmarket posts above.

While the prices on display were about fake throughout all shops in the area (WTF, honestly, my Korean speaking friend couldn't get a good answer for that neither), they were underestimated only by about 30-40%, so in the end they seemed simply average.

No brands were of course cheaper, but in the end my choice was Samsung 40'' for ~900k, or nobrands 42'' for 700k or 46'' for 800k. I went with Samsung because it also has English menu, and the nobrands (at my local stores) were not turned on so I couldn't compare their screen quality (and online reviews suggest they often end up with inferior quality screens).

As a "service" the seller threw in a 3m HDMI cable and some cookery plastiware :>

Thoughts:
*having a Korean speaking friend definitely proved helpful
*perhaps Yongsan is not to be avoided, as some guides suggest

[fezmond]

About the film and tv series thing. They're both filmed with different speed cameras or something like that (I think).

He has all those settings on his TV it was just weird watching a Hollywood film on this nice big, new TV and having the film look like an episode of British TV.

[Swampfox10mm]

Actually, SMART tv's allow you to surf the web and run mostly pre-installed apps. In the USA, apps like Netflix, Pandora, Amazon, and Hulu. I imagine Korea would have Daum pot and 11st shopping for example.

The SMART settings mentioned above are just a name for menu and screen color settings.

If you do not have apps, then what you got is not a SMART TV , and you paid the same as the links I gave above but got less.


Assuming this is the case, then it is a perfect illustration of why the shops cannot be trusted and should be avoided.

[wishfullthinkng]

[Beeyee]