Lazy Man and Money

Bought a New Television Today… Finally

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If you’ve been following the blog the last couple of days you’ll notice that I have been a little preoccupied with my search for a new television. I thought I had a nice Samsung 3D, almost every bell and whistle for $2000 when I wrote: Buying an Expensive Television and Dealing with a Moral Dilemma. However, it wasn’t to be. On big purchases, and $2000 qualifies for me, I like to take a little extra time to make sure that I’m comfortable with the value that I’m getting. On this purchase I waited too long and Amazon raised the price to around $2500. It was time to move on and look elsewhere for the right TV at the right price. My search took me to a number of places including Fry’s where I found that they hate customers.

My search ended this morning. Last night while I was looking in the FatWallet forums, I came across a deal on a 55″ inch LCD TV at Walmart for $749. It clearly isn’t going to compete with the Samsung that I had in mind. It isn’t 240hz. It isn’t 3D. It isn’t LED LCD. It is an Element, which sounds more like an ugly, boxy Honda than a reputable television brand. At least the ratings weren’t bad. I still wanted to sleep on it. I woke up this morning and found that the television had been lowered to $699. (If you are one of those people who use cash back and have the right credit card, you can save even more money.) That clinched it for me. I got the feeling that it might sell out sooner rather than later.

Why go for a television on the opposite end of the spectrum? I was talking to a friend and I believe that you can go two ways with technology. You can go biggest and best and try to stave off obsolescence as long as possible. Or you can live a little behind the curve and save some bucks. With the $2000 Samsung, I was planning on getting at least 10 years from that television. That might have been more than a little optimistic. However, even at that rate it would have been $200 a year (probably $260 if you get into warranties, tax, environmental fees, 3D glasses) and I’m not sure what kind of resale value it would have.

By going with the cheaper solution, I walked typed out of Walmart’s online store for $876… which includes CA state tax (a killer that’s just a shade under 10%), CA waste tax (I don’t mind paying to keeping our environment clean), and an a 3-year extended warranty that starts a year after the manufacturer’s warranty. Having the problems that I have with my current set, I’m okay with paying $88 to guarantee me four years of peace of mind. That’s a little less than $220 for those four years, and I have a feeling that it will still have resale value if I want to upgrade at that point.

Am I going to be happy with the LCD instead of the LED LCD that looked better in the stores? That seems to be the biggest open question. My feeling is that I’ll be happy with it since the 1080p is going to be an upgrade over my current 1080i television. It’s been rare that I’ve upgraded and thought, “Man, this product isn’t good at all, I should have upgraded even more.” I also remembered a conversation I had with my friend when he told me a tale of two televisions… I told him to go with the cheaper one and put the money aside for the next television (or something else) in the future. So how could I not take my own advice. My budget for a television in more than four years from now, already has over $1200 in it. Come to think of it, that’s almost a mortgage payment right there. Maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t earmark the money towards a television in the future after all.

Buying an Expensive Television – and Dealing with a Moral Dilemma

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A few weeks ago, our television started to fail on us. The bottom half of the screen went completely black. In doing a little research it seems that the Philips plasma television we have has a known issue where one of the video cards can get overheated an fail. The fix is to turn off the television for a few minutes and let it cool down. If you are watching a show on DVR, that’s no big deal. In fact, a lot of shows can be watched quite well even if you just have the top half the screen. What isn’t watchable though? Sports. You are getting literally only half the action.

It was time to look into fixing what we have or gettings something new. However, this presented a bit of a dilemma.

The Dilemma

When I bought the Philips, I purposely bought from Costco. Usually with big purchases, I do a lot of shopping around and comparing. That time, I didn’t. At the time, Costco had one of the best return policies in the business. If the television broke the company would refund your money in full. It didn’t matter when either. You don’t get better peace of mind than that.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. I now have a failed television. It is a known defect. Though the television is four years old, I can bring it back to Costco and get a full refund. Plasma’s were expensive back then, so it isn’t exactly chump change. However, returning the television feels wrong. With that cash back, I could simply walk back in the store and buy a much, much better television set as the technology has advanced. Costco could send it back to Philips, fix the card, and then try to resell it, but refurbished it is probably only worth a $300-$400 or so in today’s market.

On the other hand, I feel that when you spend more than $2500, you should get more than 4-5 years out of the television. My mother has a 40″ tube television (Fisher brand, if they still exist) in her bedroom that we bought for around $750 in around 1985. It still works fine. She says the remote control has an issue with one of the buttons, but that is it. It would be crazy for me to expect all televisions to last for 25 years. There’s got to be some middle ground between getting a year of television for $500-$600 (the Philips) and the $30 a year (the Fisher).

Furthermore, if I return the television how much am I taking advantage of Costco. They were the ones that had a lot of smart people decide on a return policy… and it was that return policy that got them the sale in the first place.

The Decision

I’ve decided that I will return my faulty television for a refund and buy a new one. It wasn’t an easy decision. I will admit that the decision got a little easier when I looked at a Samsung UN55C7000, 55-Inch 1080p, 240Hz 3D LED HDTV. It is an improvement over my current television in terms of screen size, resolution (1080p vs. 1080i), and refresh rate.

While I wasn’t initially looking for 3D capability, I decided to look at it in person. I have to admit that it is a game changer. I’m not going to put it with the advances of color or HDTV, but it is a noticeable improvement. It seems like every movie now has a 3-D version. Select sports are being broadcast in 3-D. I don’t see it going away any time soon. It doesn’t seem smart to lock myself into a television for the next 10 years that doesn’t have 3-D capability… and it doesn’t hurt that the Samsung has a great television that works well for 2-D. I also like the idea of energy saving televisions, and had been browsing OLED TVs for sale online, but decided that this Samsung option was the best for me.

Update: I had this post scheduled a couple of days ago, but I decided to wait to get reader reaction before pulling the trigger on the television (maybe someone had a better deal). Amazon is no longer selling it themselves… and the supplier is now charging $500 than it was just a couple of days ago. Maybe I’m stuck with my current television a little longer. Or maybe I scratch the wonders of 3-D and save myself some money.

A Tale of Two Televisions

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It was the best of televisions, it was the 2nd best of televisions.

A friend called me up this past weekend with a dilemma. He was looking to buy a new television. It was Massachusetts’ tax-free weekend and he was looking to take advantage and save a few percent. He said to me, (paraphrased)

Lazy Man, I have narrowed the choices down to two televisions both 46 inch LED TVs. One is a Samsung at $1500 and the other is a Sharp at $1000. The Samsung looks better…

I asked him about the Sharp television and he said it was the Sharp Aquos. You might have seen the commercials for the Aquos… they are the ones with the added yellow color. My friend and I joked for a minute or two about how yellow is a great color and it’s an awesome step forward by Sharp to bring it into our living rooms. I could have sworn I had seen yellow on my television in the past, but I guess not.

After the joking, I told that I see buying televisions a little like buying a diamond. You put an D color diamond next to a G color diamond and the G will appear very yellow. However, if someone were to just hand you a G diamond you’d say, “That’s a nice white diamond.” I don’t know anyone who comments on the whiteness of a diamond when it’s on a lady’s finger.

With televisions, you are going to bring it home and watch it without the point of comparison. I don’t know about you, but as long as I have good size and high definition, I’m all set. I don’t watch a Patriots’ game and think, “You know this game would be better if I went with the other brand in the store.”

With this in mind, I gave the following advice. Buy the Sharp Aquos (enjoying the world of yellow), and save yourself $500. Put that $500 in your television budget (yes this friend has budgeting down to a science) for when 3D televisions hit an attractive price point (and when there is enough 3D content to make it worthwhile). He agreed that I was probably the voice on reason on this one… especially since the Samsung was only about 10% better and not worth 50% more money.

I’m sure this isn’t exactly an unbiased audience, but which television would you have gone with? Let me know in the comments.

I Saved $150 on a Samsung 32″ Television by Accident

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Last week, my wife said, “I think it’s about time that we got a second television in the apartment.” From time to time, I’ve been known to tune out what she’s saying, but this time my ears perked up. Hmm, I think I can sanction the purchase of a television.

Here are the problems the I had looking for television on short notice:

  • I couldn’t use Craigslist to save half the money. This is my typical plan, but I had to strike while the iron was hot (i.e. my wife agreed to the television thing).
  • I thought that Costco would have the best deal. It’s impossible to know what they have until you get there. Once there, I don’t have my computer to look up reviews online to see if it’s a good set.

I was going to make a somewhat major purchase a little blind. This always gives me an uneasy feeling. Our first stop was Costco. Oddly, they didn’t have many 32″ televisions in stock and not one of them was 1080P (1080 lines of progressive scan resolution – the best there is). If we were able to go larger we might have gotten a good deal, but our bedroom simply doesn’t have the room for anything bigger.

The next step was to go to Circuit City. Normally, I’d go to Best Buy, but there isn’t one close to my home. Happily, Circuit City had about 5 or 6 televisions that were 32″ and 1080P. The problem was that the 37″ Samsung was their special of the week and was actually cheaper than this 32" one.
. When the salesman came over I asked what was up with that? He said it was just the way it is.

Once again, I felt uneasy about the purchase. It kills me to pay more money and get less product., just because our apartment has a weird layout. I hemmed and hawed for at least 20 minutes over it. Finally, the salesman comes over and says that he can chop off $100 on the Sony XBR one. It would still be $100 more than the Samsung that I was looking at, but Sony XBRs are nice. A difficult decision just got worse.

I hem and haw for another 15 minutes. At this point, my wife is wandering the store and probably plotting my death. The salesman can’t even deal with me any more and went to help others. A new salesman sees me and asks if he can help. I tell him that the other salesman said he’d knock off $100 from the Sony XBR. This salesman then said something magical, “He must have been giving you the online price. Let me look that up.” I was quick to ask if he’d give me the online price on the Samsung 32″ as well. The other salesman didn’t offer that. This salesman said that he’d be happy to give us that price.

It turns out that the online price was $150 cheaper. That sealed the deal for me. I was comfortable with the purchase. Of course, it made me mad that they didn’t start with the online price. Oddly, just a couple of days later Circuit City would be running commercials saying that you’ll find the same price in the store as will online. Odd that this is considered a selling point – it should be automatic. When you think about it, it simply makes sense. Many stores have a buy online and pick up in the store… That’s essentially what this was.

The moral of the story here is to look out for weird pricing from the big chain stores. Perhaps print off a copy of the website and bring it with you to the store so that you can get that price.