Tuesday, February 7, 2012

HDTV Almanac - How Low Can They Go?

Sorry, folks, but I cannot resist this one. I really struggle to refrain from the breathless “Wow! Look at how low this price is!” type of story because it gets old and it’s inevitable that someone can come up with a deal that tops whatever you’ve found. But I have to give in to this one.

Why? It’s a set from a top tier brand. It’s a deal from a major retailer. It’s nothing fancy but it should get the job done, and it has four HDMI inputs.

This Sharp 42

It’s the 42″ Sharp LC42SV49U and it is on sale at Best Buy for $329.99. That’s well under the benchmark $10 per diagonal inch, and a rather attractive deal.

How is it priced so low? Sharp is having trouble selling all the televisions it makes. The new (and rather expensive) Gen10 LCD fab is designed to make larger size panels, but word is that they have cut production back to just 50% of capacity. That has to hurt. So I expect that Sharp is looking to make cash any way it can, just to feed the capital costs of that monster factory. And Sharp is not alone. The television market has gone soft just when the companies have ramped up their production. So I expect to have my breath taken away soon and often by even better deals.

Oh, and before you lunge for the keyboard to write to me (at alfred@hdtvprofessor.com), I do realize that this same set was available from Best Buy on Black Friday for just $200. What makes this deal so remarkable is that you don’t need to spend the night in a sleeping back to get one.

Posted by Alfred Poor, February 3, 2012 5:00 AM

No comments: