Bargain alert! 32" HD Ready LCD TV for £399...can you get one?

libertino wrote:

I want to buy a top TV when I move house in the summer. Is it worth getting this one now and keeping it til then, or wait until the summer when prices might have dropped further?

Wait.. definitely

Re this latest AV bargain offer.

Although LCD screen technology seems to have been around for many decades, fact is, it hasn't.

So buying a cheapo brand (like, for example, Ferguson) can prove seriously expensive. Whilst buying a non-existent brand (like, for example, Technikaduiosonicboomwhizzbang: go on, dream up your own name, the marketing departments of major retailers do it all the time whilst figuring how to shift stock they've negotiated at a massively discounted price from a Chinese techno sweat-shop) can be terminally so.

Then again, because of the relative immaturity of the technology, buying a major, household brand can also prove expensive: the Internet forums dedicated to consumer / user reviews of equipment in their own possession (i.e., NOT based on some magazine's 1 hour bench test) are pretty much replete with horror stories about "safe" brands and the hassles encountered -- both in terms of getting the damn things fixed, and in terms of the constant shuttling of responsibility between retailer and manufacturer.

An earlier poster on this thread asked if it was worth hanging on for a bit. Another poster said yes, definitely. I agree -- but not because prices are dropping, but because the technology is being improved, week by week, month by month (sadly, on the Microsoft principle: pump a product out to the public, let them buy it, then wait for the customer feedback to flag up all the problems which weren't spotted during R&D or in a faulty Quality Control process).

'Course, no-one can wait indefinitely, so if your telly's on its last legs then delayed purchase is not an option. Our 11 year old Mitsubishi CRT did just that, expired, so we had to buy. But we're very happy with our new £150 JVC. . . CRT. We have the room for it and we don't mind it not being a fashion accessory but we know, we know, the picture we're getting on our screen is currently the equal of the picture on the screen of a £500 (and more) LCD.

This is not a plea on behalf of skinny flint Luddites. Rather a plea for commonsense -- and especially, commonsense amongst a vast section of the buying public which hasn't the foggiest idea of what this new technology actually does, or what an AV spec sheet actually means.

Instead, there's a naive trust in the absolutism of technology: does it have a digital tuner? Yes. So it can take Freeview? Yes. Yippee!

The question, how good is that tuner and how lousy might its sensitivity be never gets asked because the assumption is made is that if it's offered, then it must be good.

And if it's offered by a completely unknown brand (probably a rebadged thing from an established manufacturer's end-of-line product run) then it must be a bargain.

Or. . . if it's a household name brand, then it must be 100% reliable.

What nonsense.

Yet perhaps the biggest problem with buyers in this sector is the way they undervalue their own intelligence.

They're aware -- if perhaps only vaguely -- of forums and websites "out there" which specialise in audio visual but they won't visit these sites, or ask questions on those forums, because they're convinced of their own ignorance. Why?????

They might, at best, seek out some reviews on the Internet. But web reviews are notoriously -- repeat: notoriously -- unreliable (go check the cnet site: it consistently publishes Editor's Top Pick reviews together with owners' reviews underneath and times without number, the latter run in flat contradiction to the former).

And reviews even from specialist major magazines can be suspect: I've seen glowing write-ups for AV equipment which on a cursory examination of the specs alone point to the fact that the product is already way past its sell by date. But then, that product is being launched with a megabucks advertising spend, so a magazine about to run an £8,000 double page spread for it is hardly going to say the thing is obsolescent crap.

For those who don't think they're stupid, then, here's a link to be going on with. It might lead into topics so arcane that only Richard Dawkins can understand them, but that kind of stuff only represents a tiny fraction of the input:

http://www.avforums.com/index.php

In the old days, a good rule of thumb for wise buyers was to buy something endorsed by someone you knew who already owned it.

In today's fast moving times, that's not always possible. But there are people "out there" who are owners, and there are owner forums for entire products.

Checking out what they have to say first, rather than rushing off to Woollies or Argos or anywhere else for that matter, is actually the most sensible "money saving" advice of all. . .

Perhaps watching an LCD too closely damages the eyesight.

Nowhere in my post does it say this is an expert opinion.

On the contrary, what it says is, go and talk to someone who has the product you're thinking of buying. And if you can't do that, use the Internet instead. It'll be for your own benefit rather than listening to "experts" on review websites and magazines.

Perhaps you hadn't noticed that?

Duh.

Hi Guys, I have been so desperate to buy the next bit of kit that I bought the Argos 32" , in fact I had two of them as the first was poor. I kept it a week, tried every setting possible and found that everytime I set down to watch it I was playign with the settigns to get it 'right'. The picture on RGB through el cheapo DVD player was magnficnat, the sound was great but when I watch TV it was awful. I literally could not watch terrestial TV , even digital was poor. I made the decision to bring it back and wait for technology to sort out this issue. I cannot see how anyone can justify £400++++ to watch something tat my 18 year old Mitsibushi CRT knocks the socks off.

I do fancy the Toshiba '66' and its droping in price, probably will take the plunge soon (again) and hope its better than the other TV. BTW I must be getign old as I really like black TV's I detest silver ones, perhaps its the cheap spray paint they use? Maybe thats why I didn't like the argos one.

My advice....wait and buy a branded one.....or keep the old CRT , I think you will be disappointed if you make the jump now for the sake of it.