Flat-Screen TV Prices Finally Come Down

AP ^ | 08/15/05 | GREG SANDOVAL

[Skooz]

Just in time to watch the Chiefs, huh? :0)

[goldstategop]

Oops. Point taken. One would be a fool to be an early adopter. No one would buy a TV priced almost as much as the least expensive car on the market.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[G32]

Stick with rear projection DLP or JVC's system when they get 1080p for under $3000, which will be probably early next year.

Awesome sets.

[YaYa123]

My husband has always been one of those, "wait awhile, the price will come down" shoppers. I'm of the "I don't go to shop, I go to buy" school of thought. Needless to say, we don't shop together very often, but last November we did, to Best Buy, he to "shop", me to "buy".

Thankfully, there was a huge Samsung flat tv sale going on, Honey could feel like he'd saved a ton of money, and I could "buy" what our son-in-law declared to be the best.
So..........since then, Honey and I have enjoyed the heck out of what we call, our best purchase ever. We even switched from DISH satellite to COMCAST Cable because cable offfered many more HD channels.

[janetgreen]

That TV looks like the one my folks had when I was a kid. When the "test pattern" wasn't on, there were kids' shows like Space Patrol and Time for Beany. :^)

[Clock King]

Plasmas only really last about 5 years before degradation of the picture starts. Eventually, you have to replace it, compared to LCDs that should last 10 years or more.

[gov_bean_ counter]

I have thought about a flat screen for the bedroom, but I'm not in any hurry

Right, why take the mirror off the ceiling before you have to? :)

[goldstategop]

Mine is about six years old. I'll keep it til it wears out before I upgrade.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[wallace144]

Panasonic boasts 60,000 hours or the equivalent of almost 7 years if it is on 24 hours a day. 8 hours a day would be about 20 years. So they say.

[null and void]

Yeah. Murphy's law would require a major price drop/better technology the day after I bought one....

[TommyDale]

Any number of places sell TVs for less than the examples given.

[A CA Guy]

I wouldn't ever pay much over $2k for anything like that.

I would also put your hand over the TV to find out if it vents lots of heat or not. If it does, don't buy it, I think the electonic parts will butn out n such a hot enviornment.

[goldstategop]

With improved manufacturing techniques, they'll find a way to solve the plasma degradation problem. In the end, I suspect one will be hard pressed to discover a quality difference between plasma and LCD TV sets.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Atlas Sneezed]

Whenever I check out the HDTVs at Circuit City or Best Buy, I am always stunned at how random the picture quality is from one model to the next. And there is little correlation between price/brand name and picture quality.

---

Calibration and settings can be very important, and even in the unlikely event the set was set up competently, shoppers like play with them.

You don't have the same problem in a high-end shop.

If I were a manufacturer, I would have a "sales" mode in which the set returned to established defaults automatically, until purchased and the setting changed. (I would also be tempted to make those defaults excessively bright and sharp, to help the side-by-side comparisons, even though home viewing would prefer more moderate settings.)

[Larry Lucido]

Murphy's Law dictates that the TV I spend $600.00 on will go on sale for $300.00 in exactly 31 days - one day after the low price guarantee expires.

[TommyDale]

I looked at a 62 inch DLP unit at Best Buy for $3499 and it had a better picture than those selling for much higher. Of course, I found it online for around $2500 shipped.

[RedwineisJesus]

"""Great news.
Now, if there were only something worth watching on TV!"""

You have to pay extra for that.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I had the old Norton and wanted to buy the new Norton. It was a nightmare to remove the first program.

[Rokke]

Would you mind pinging me about 30 days after your next TV purchase. I'm in the market for one now, but I can wait.

[TChris]

Wow, capitalism works. Who'da thunk it?