Flat Panel TVs: The Waiting Game
By Jonathan Berohn
Being a man, I’m biologically driven to want to latest and greatest electronics…all the time…now. Having a wife, I’m required not to buy the latest and greatest electronics when they cost several thousand dollars. In a nutshell, that’s basically why I don’t have a plasma TV (that and I can’t get my traditional picture tube Sony to give up the ghost). But my patience has rewarded me as plasma and LCD TV’s have fallen in price just like all electronics generally do.
Blind Buying
It finally seemed like it was getting close to time to buy when I stumbled across this New York Times article. Now, I know the first rule of buying anything is that as soon as you buy it the price goes down, but a 30% drop over the next year? That’s a substantial savings when you think of $1000 and up flat panel TVs. The best part of the whole article though is the quote from Lee Simonson of Best Buy: "We do not want to talk about predictions of price drops. We want people to buy now." As much as I like dropping money at Best Buy, I think I may have to disappoint Mr. Simonson here.
The Options
If you must buy a flat panel TV now, there are plenty to choose from. You can get small models (15”) for $600 or so, and the price and size rise dramatically from there until you are spending over $5,000 for some of the larger models. If you think about that in terms of 30% discount, though, that translates into $180 to $1,500 off! As much as I’d love to hang a flat panel TV on my wall this Christmas, for that kind of price difference I’m content to suffer through another year with my picture tube TV.
For More Information:
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