New TV purchase and the amazing price wars

[Hammer67]

So, I have been looking at upgrading my original HDTV purchase (a 9 year old RPTV from Toshiba) to something more modern and slimmer. I have been researching Plasma's/LCD's over the past year and have finally settled on a set. It came down to the two highest rated Plasma sets of 2009 according to Cnet and AVSforum.com. The Panasonic V10 series and the Samsung PN58B860, finally settling on the Samsung:

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-t...-33573756.html

So...I began price comparisons. I have to say, the first place I checked was Best Buy to get an idea of what a large "brick & mortar" store would charge. I have to say, they have been the highest so far at $3200 + tax/shipping.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....2&type=product

I then checked online via Google's shopping search:

http://www.google.com/products/catal...ring=tp|cond=1


The first thing I noticed was the price difference from online retailers and "Brick & Mortar" stores like Best Buy. I understand they have more overhead but WOW!!!
I ordered my set for $2200 shipped, no tax. I saved $1200 from buying it at Best Buy.

I can't see the retail market surviving with it's current business model for many more years. Happy shopping!

[GBMelBlount]

Jeez. Took you long enough.

I tend to agree though.

Best Buy does have competitive prices on some things, not most.

My mother in law picked up a nice acer wireless laptop at Best Buy for $350. Has a nice processor, 3 Meg's of ram and a 15" screen...

[MACH1]

We have a Samy PN63B850. You wont be disappointed.

[MasterOfPuppets]

the problem i have with shopping and ordering online is returning defective items. i recently ordered 2 gigs of ram from new egg. the price was much better than say staples or walmart, but after receiving the items ( took 4 days) , the first thing i did was test them with memtest...failed... then i tested them with windows memory test....failed... i went ahead and installed anyway thinking maybe it was just an anomally...nope...they were bad. .. so i get online with support to get an RMA for return ( no phone # to call ), i get all the info emailed to me which you have to print out and attach to the package ( ups code, shipping info, etc ), which by the way, ups is the ONLY , ACCEPTABLE SHIPPING METHOD FOR NEWEGG, because if tts not scanned in 7 days of receiving the RMA they won't accept it. so after paying $9.49 to ship thier defective item back to them at MY cost, and waiting about 7 days plus the original 4 it took to get here to begin with, i would have been better off just buying from staples and avoiding the entire headache. had i bought faulty ram from staples i'd have had maybe half an hour and a dollars worth of gas involved in getting it replaced.
actually today is the day i'm supposed to receive the replacement ram..if its bad i'm totally gonna freak out...

[Hammer67]

Originally Posted by GBMelBlount

Jeez. Took you long enough.

I tend to agree though.

Best Buy does have competitive prices on some things, not most.

My mother in law picked up a nice acer wireless laptop at Best Buy for $350. Has a nice processor, 3 Meg's of ram and a 15" screen...

Right...certain things are marked up way more then others. Computers are sold at roughly cost because they want you to buy software, cables and laptop accessories which are marked up, sometimes 1000%. Things that have a larger margin (TV's, car audio, cabling) will reap much better results when online comparison shopping.

Originally Posted by MACH1

We have a Samy PN63B850. You wont be disappointed.

Did you get it calibrated, by chance? Part of the reason I chose it was for the picture controls to allow proper greyscale and color temp tweaking without accessing service menus. Also, what's the black levels like? I heard mixed reviews for this lineup in that regards.

Originally Posted by MasterOfPuppets

the problem i have with shopping and ordering online is returning defective items. i recently ordered 2 gigs of ram from new egg. the price was much better than say staples or walmart, but after receiving the items ( took 4 days) , the first thing i did was test them with memtest...failed... then i tested them with windows memory test....failed... i went ahead and installed anyway thinking maybe it was just an anomally...nope...they were bad. .. so i get online with support to get an RMA for return ( no phone # to call ), i get all the info emailed to me which you have to print out and attach to the package ( ups code, shipping info, etc ), which by the way, ups is the ONLY , ACCEPTABLE SHIPPING METHOD FOR NEWEGG, because if tts not scanned in 7 days of receiving the RMA they won't accept it. so after paying $9.49 to ship thier defective item back to them at MY cost, and waiting about 7 days plus the original 4 it took to get here to begin with, i would have been better off just buying from staples and avoiding the entire headache. had i bought faulty ram from staples i'd have had maybe half an hour and a dollars worth of gas involved in getting it replaced.
actually today is the day i'm supposed to receive the replacement ram..if its bad i'm totally gonna freak out...

In all fairness, that happens very rarely. I have ordered literally hundreds of items from Newegg over the years and rarely had a return issue. Although, they have tightened up their return policy in recent years...it used to be much more user friendly. But, when all is said and done. I am willing to gamble on the return policy thing for $1200 savings!!!

[Killer]

I've had my new Sammy plasma for 2 months now - the picture just keeps getting better.

I learned tons of stuff about picture settings and break-in here....a must read

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=167

[MasterOfPuppets]

Originally Posted by Hammer67

In all fairness, that happens very rarely. I have ordered literally hundreds of items from Newegg over the years and rarely had a return issue. Although, they have tightened up their return policy in recent years...it used to be much more user friendly. But, when all is said and done. I am willing to gamble on the return policy thing for $1200 savings!!!

i've always heard good things about newegg, a friend purchases from them frequently. it was my first time dealing with them, thats the kinda luck i have... but anyway the thing that pissed me off is they force you to use ups for the returns. $ 9 for to little sticks of ram ? the package was less than 1 lb....thats freakin ridiculious.... probably woulda cost less than 3 bucks to send with the post office... incidently it originally only cost me 2.99 for them to ship to me the first time around.

i can only image what it would cost to ship a TV back...

[Hammer67]

Originally Posted by MasterOfPuppets

i've always heard good things about newegg, a friend purchases from them frequently. it was my first time dealing with them, thats the kinda luck i have... but anyway the thing that pissed me off is they force you to use ups for the returns. $ 9 for to little sticks of ram ? the package was less than 1 lb....thats freakin ridiculious.... probably woulda cost less than 3 bucks to send with the post office... incidently it originally only cost me 2.99 for them to ship to me the first time around.

i can only image what it would cost to ship a TV back...

Yeah, I don't like that policy. It must be relatively new as I recall returning things via USPS to Newegg at one time. Good thing I had no problems with my 37" Sharp LCD I bought from them last year!

[MACH1]

Did you get it calibrated, by chance? Part of the reason I chose it was for the picture controls to allow proper greyscale and color temp tweaking without accessing service menus. Also, what's the black levels like? I heard mixed reviews for this lineup in that regards.

No, no calibration here. The nearest 'professional' calibrator is in Oregon and I don't feel like spending for his mileage and motel room. And there's no way I'm letting the crack heads at Bestbuy touch it. The black levels are pretty good, almost as good as our 50" panny.

[MasterOfPuppets]

Originally Posted by Hammer67

Yeah, I don't like that policy. It must be relatively new as I recall returning things via USPS to Newegg at one time. Good thing I had no problems with my 37" Sharp LCD I bought from them last year!

unfreakin believable !!! ...right out of the package the "new" ram i received today failed on both memtest and windows memory test !!!... i think the bastards just sent me the same ram back because it fails the same part of the test the other memory failed (stride test ).... the pc keeps going to the blue screen with stop message and dumping physical memory to disk....