New TV

CB

My Christmas present to myself this year is going to be a new TV.

I want Hi-Def and at least 27 inches, although more inches will not be frowned upon, as long as I'm not sacrificing too much quality, I want a good balance between picture quality and screen size.

I want to spend $400-500.

I've never made a TV purchase in this price range before, and I don't even know where to begin. Costco has some nice models, and I'm sure that the prices are good (it is Costco, after all) but they only have two models that fit what I'm looking for, and I'd like to take a look at some other option before I resign myself to coosing between the models at Costco.

Any ideas?

Kwitko

Unfortunately, you're really not going to find many 27" HDTVs in the $400-500 range, at least not ones that have a tuner built in. Prices are closer to the $1000 range.

I've also decided to gift myself a new TV this year. Either a Toshiba or Sony 34" widescreen HDTV. If you do happen to find any in the $500 range by all means please let me know! The less I have to spend, the better.

CB

Hmm... Well maybe Costco is the place to go then, they had 30 inch HDTVs for $499. I don't need a tuner built in, if that's all I have to sacrifice for a good price.


/me checks the Costco website.

They don't have them on their website, but they seem to have very few TVs on the website compared to the store, perhaps I should check the store again, and make sure that those TVs weren't just Standef TVs sitting in the HD isle.

GHoosdum

Last I checked, their lowest-priced HDTV was the 30" for $599. If it dropped, then I'm interested. It was a tube TV, and when I saw it it was the only HD in an isle among standard-def TVs. The cheapest non-tube HDTV I recall seeing there was a DLP that ran around $900 or so. Then again, last time I looked was about a month ago, and things change there often.

A seperate HDTV tuner will run you on the low end from $80 (for a low-end PCI HDTV tuner for your HTPC) to $150 for a cheap standalone HDTV tuner box.

CB

HD tuner? Can't I just hook my cable box directly to the TV input?

GHoosdum

Yes, but unless you're subscribed to the HD cable package and your cable box is capable of outputting it, you'll still be only looking at a standard-def picture on your HDTV. Some of them are selective per channel. For example, my father has the ESPN HD package through his satellite service, so while all of other channels come in standard-def, he gets ESPN in HD.

CB

Hmm... Well... While I really hate to buy something obsolete, it just might not be worth it to invest in an HDTV right now. Since I could get a very nice, very large Standef TV for much cheaper.

Frankly, I don't care about HD. I only want one so that I don't have to buy another TV when they finish the HD regulations in 2007. Now, however, it looks like it might get pushed back again... I wonder if HD will go down in price after it becomes mandatory.

GHoosdum

It probably will. If you don't really have need for high-def itself, you can pick up a decent standard def 27" - 30" for under $200 pretty easily these days.

profdlp

CBDroege wrote:

...I wonder if HD will go down in price after it becomes mandatory.

It may, but I'd guess that it won't.

Manufacturers are going to be dumping their stock of non-HDTV sets at rock-bottom prices up until the point that they can no longer legally sell them. HDTV will suddenly be touted as a "new" technology ("new" = been out for years, but the slow adopters will have to take notice of it now). They will likely milk that for all it's worth.

I did say "guess", btw.

CB

Well... Since I was already planning on spending about $400. What's a good Standef in that price range? How big can I go in that range without sacrificing quality?