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

mat01

codger wrote:

But the points raised in your reply are excellent because they high-light the difficulty MSE is always going to have if Martin's price-based advisories (hey gang, this LCD TV is a bargain price!) get mistaken for product endorsements (hey gang, this LCD TV is the best-built best-performing TV in the world).

Thanks.

I don't think I'm misunderstanding the difference between price-based advisories and product endorsements.

My main problem as you'll see from earlier posts than this one, is with the concept of how this will save us all money.

Former_MSE_Dan

PPS - The idea about donations is a very good one. It might iron out doubts like the ones I've expressed here.

Just to add to what Martin said above, here's a link to the site's charity donations over the last few years.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/aboout.phtml#fund

jonnydoe

mirandamayhem wrote:

:rolleyes: yes, a total waste of money. Everyone stop buying any upgrade of any sort because it's a matter of time before your upgrade is outdated, and you'll really wish you'd waited 1, 5, 10, 15 years before buying something

Read the post, I'm saying short term.. It's like buying a brand new graphics card for £500 where no games support it.. (sighs)

stunno

mat01 wrote:

Gosh - let me try and explain this :

If a Skoda car is reduced in price from £10,000 to £1,000 you save £9,000!!! Fantastic - what a bargain. Or is it?

You have just paid £1,000 for a rubbish car (my apologies to Skoda, it's just an example).

So at the end of the day you are WORSE off, not better off. Plus, you have £1,000 LESS to buy the car you always really really wanted.

No, you are better off than if you bought the Skoda at full price! Which is the point of this site. If bargains were only allowed to be posted for top of the range items then nobody would look at the site!

Irrespective of whether this is a good/bad/indifferent tv it is £200 cheaper than it was before.

Perhaps all postings should carry a warning that the item on sale 'might' not be the creme de la creme to avoid people being sued by disappointed purchasers.

codger

mirandamayhem wrote:

No I think you're missing the point. If you are moving from a fifteen year old CRT with fading picture, and like many of the advantages to an LCD, but cannot afford £800+, then a £400 LCD from woolies or Argos or wherever IS an upgrade. Whether you think it's inferior or not is neither here or there to the person who cannot afford much more.
What I'm getting at is to all the people saying "wait", how long are you meant to wait? We could always be waiting for the next best thing. And what I don't understand is that everytime there's a discussion on cheaper LCD's there's a squad of MSE'ers who come along and comment about what poor quality the lower price LCD's are and how we should all wait, or fork out more, or save up and fork out more.

Hi Miranda. 'S only my opinion, but the squad you refer to seem to be acting with the best intentions, and the remarks made here and elsewhere on the 'Net about problems with cheaper LCD TVs actually add up to a persuasive body of user opinion. Also, I don't think anyone is saying LCD TVs are not the next best thing. Because they are. The question is, has this Next Best Thing now arrived???

You're right about the situation faced by anyone with a geriatric CRT. Buy a hugely expensive brand name TV which will be out-performed by something half the price in two years' time; or buy a cheap non brand name TV which won't match the performance of the expensive ones and may cease to work after two or three years' use.

I guess some people have the budget to be able to afford a long-term buy (expensive) and aren't going to be so geeky that they worry in the future that their 2006 LCDTV doesn't have the gizmos or quality of a 2008 LCDTV.

Others don't have that budget so need to -- have to -- buy cheap.

I'm in the latter category. But if our current CRT died on us, then to avoid the dilemma above, I'd be off in search of a good secondhand (three year old) Toshiba. . . CRT. A cop-out, yup; but in our family's case, better the old technology you know than the new one you don't (to, er, misquote somebody!)

sabbykins

mat01 wrote:

I'll spell out my point again for the hard of hearing.

Is this a 'money saving' deal. I think maybe not. Then one must ask why it's so prominent on this site...

I have read your posts and really do have to disagree.
If anyone is looking for an LCD tv NOW then this is a good deal. If anyone isn't looking for one NOW then of course its sensible to wait.
The same goes for any item that will improve technologically over time. This doesn't mean that its a waste of time posting these deals simply because quality is going to improve over time, or the site would be bare! There would be no point posting anything, we might as well wait until prices come down or until quality improves. (remember VCR's cost £1000's in the 70's? should no one have bought one because they weren't as good as they are now and you can now get one for £20?)

As has already been pointed out, no one is pushing anyone to buy it. I'm not going to buy it because i don't want one at the moment, nor do i need one. But i can still see that right now its a good deal.

p.dw

I think that a few post on here are missing the point completely they seem to be implying that because something is cheaper then it must be rubbish well I have brought the TV mentioned so I would say that im in a bit better position to comment on whether it serves its purpose or not well indeed it does the picture is great the sound is great and for under £400 im delighted before I brought it I looked at other options and wouldn’t get much change from £600 now to me the picture looks the same if not better than all the others so in my opinion ive SAVED £200

Back to the price v quality issue I work for a large manufacturing company and I can confirm that the same item selling for £89.99 in large dept stores is EXACTLY the same product selling for £24.99 in a so called discount chain I know this because I sold it so that blows away the cheap is rubbish argument and im sure there are loads of examples of this across all products there is no way every TV manufacture has its own screen manufacturing facility its obvious that the same thing is being rebranded the only difference to the end user is the cost

RedOnRed

codger wrote:

I'm in the latter category. But if our current CRT died on us, then to avoid the dilemma above, I'd be off in search of a good secondhand (three year old) Toshiba. . . CRT. A cop-out, yup; but in our family's case, better the old technology you know than the new one you don't (to, er, misquote somebody!)

Surely you could suffer the hardship and indignity of going to a Sally Army soup kitchen this christmas like all the other people that can't really afford a new LCD TV this year but just have to have one...lol.

Stick with you old CRT like me mate and at the end of the day it's got a better picture and same footprint (unless LCD TV is wall mounted).

codger

Mat -- nothing sinister about the prominence given to the cheap LCD TV deal; in relative terms, it's a cracker -- i.e., price now compared to price previously. So it does represent a saving.

Widening out from that point though surely isn't Martin's function but, um, ours?? The forums, I mean.

It's here that posters go deeper into something to debate if the penny saved today won't wind up costing the pound tomorrow.

FleetFanatic

mat01, it's time to give it a rest mate. Some people have a poor or small tv and the £399 one is a serious upgrade for them. Some prefer a higher spec.

Saving money works two ways - a cheap product that people can afford, or a saving on a more expensive one - both are money saving!