|
Prices of big screen television sets are coming
down to earth. So-called plasma or LCD tv sets of 32 inches or
larger are no longer as costly as the price of an entry-level Korean
car. These gargantuan furniture pieces used to be priced as much as
P500,000 per unit.
From my personal experience,
spending more than P100,000 for a large screen tv set is just not
worth the money. In six months, I bought a 32-inch Samsung, and two
sets with much larger screens, a Toshiba and a Vizio.
To me, there is very little
difference in quality between a Chinese-made Vizio and a Japanese
or a Korean brand. Vizio has a very good service; Samsung too; and
Sony is just plain arrogant.
After a while, you get confused
which set has better color, blacker black, and more stereophonic
sound. They all sound and look the same, especially since the big tv
stations, Channel 2, Channel 7 and ANC are still in low-definition
mode, 500 horizontal lines per inch or below. The high-def sets are
supposed to have more than 1,000 lines. Also, there are not that
many high-definition (HD) movies you can buy and those that you can
buy are titles you don’t want to see over and over again. Finally,
you have to have three meters at least between your big screen tv
and your bed headboard for proper viewing. But that means your
bedroom must measure at least 50 square meters—the average
footprint of a low-middle income house.
My personal experience is that
you were better off buying the old Sony 34-inch Trinitron tv sets
before the Japanese company introduced the Bravia series which cost
three to five times as much. Sony still offers the big picture tube
tv sets that have flat screens. Sure, they have only 480 lines of
resolution but they receive tv signals more sharply than either LCD
or plasma. Buy them while waiting for Christmas or even until June
next year when LCD and plasma tv prices become more realistic and
easier on the pocket. And if you ask which is better, LCD or plasma?
Buy whichever is the cheaper model, although technically plasma is
supposed to be superior and LCD is better only in brightly-lit
rooms.
LCD and plasma tv prices are
reduced by about 20 percent every six months. At this rate, in two
years, if not sooner, a 50-plus-inch tv will cost less than P50,000.
I also notice tv stores try to sell you a home theater, costing
anywhere from P5,000 to P40,000, if not higher. Don’t bite. The
stereo sound of either the LCD or plasma tv sets is just fine and
often better. Besides, just how many rolling, roaring rocks can you
afford to tolerate watching Raiders of the Lost Ark? And watching
Pirates of the Caribbean, one notices Johnny Depp somehow manages to
outsmart his enemies and snares Keira, sound or no sound. And if you
really are het up about sound and picture, just go to Greenhills for
the guaranteed seat showing of movies, at P160 per person. SM movies
go for P120 or less, with a modest discount for SM cardholders.
In the US, according to The New
York Times, tv prices have continued to drop substantially this
year. NYT quotes the research firm iSuppli, noting that the average
retail price of 42-inch HDTVs—one of the most popular sizes this
year—has declined to $1,522 from $1,844 last Christmas, an
18-percent drop.
The reasons for the drop include:
fierce competition, especially between the Japanese and the
Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers; fierce competition among retailers,
i.e. between Costco and Walmart and the specialized stores like Best
Buy and Circuit City; an overproduction in flat panels and,
surprisingly, lack of demand.
The Chinese tv maker Vizio has
zoomed from the No. 4 L.C.D. television maker in the American market
in the first quarter of 2007 to the best-selling maker in the second
quarter of 2007. “Half the reason that consumers buy our sets is
because of lower prices,” NYT quotes William Wang, Vizio’s chief
executive. “But our goal was never to compete on price only. We
have a great product.”
biznewsasia@gmail.com
|
