On Fri, 25 Nov 2016 12:34:51 +0000, tim... wrote:
"Jim GM4DHJ ..." wrote in message
news
any bargains to be had?
Tesco/Sainsbury's/Asda 40-43in TVs @149 50in @ 199. Mid range Brands
Had to read the box very carefully to find out if it had internet "catch
up" capability. Both had WiFi ticked but only the smaller one said that
it came with an internet browser. The larger one majored on using the
WiFi to "pair" with your PC, but as my PC isn't capable of pairing in
that way such a feature is useless to me. If it did have catch up via
an internal browser, the info on the box didn't say so.
I wouldn't normally be tempted to buy stuff just for the sake of taking
advantage of the "Black Friday Specials" but we (me and the missus) had
been looking at the HD and UHD TV sets in our local Tesco superstore a
couple of weeks ago. We got as far as picking up three of their "Buy
Tickets" just as an aide-memoire, writing the prices down on each card so
we could do an on line search at our leisure in the comfort of our own
home.
Yesterday (Friday afternoon), my missus reminded me that I *still*
hadn't gotten around to pursuing the "promised research" into buying a
'modern telly' to replace the Panasonic widescreen CRT telly (bought 2nd
hand by my son a few years before and which he had donated to his mum as
an upgrade to replace a smaller 28(?)inch Panasonic set (still working
but then begining to show symptoms of its 20 odd years of faithful
service) that we'd bought off the rental company (a legacy from before we
were married) a couple of decades earlier for the princely sum of, afaicr,
fifty quid.
I had just observed the service engineer repair "The Stock Fault" - a
high wattage resistor that had unsoldered itself from the board and
figured that the next time it did this would be another two decades later
and a simple enough repair that I could apply if the set were to last
that long, so it seemed a good deal at the time. :-)
Anyhow, that sets the scene for our trawling through "Black Friday
Deals" on t'internet (just a convenient coincidence afaiwc but maybe not
so much for the missus). At least we were armed with three pre-Black
Friday price benchmarks from our earlier visit to the Tesco superstore to
verify whether or not any of these Black Friday pricing deals were as
good as all the expected hype would be trying to make us all believe.
Our three "Tesco Contenders" had been a Sharp LC-43CFF5111K (43" 1080p
HD) at £219, another 43" 1080 HD, the LG 43LH5100 at £299 and an LG
43UH61V 4K Smart TV for a mere £436. By then, we'd decided to include an
element of "Future Proofing" so were only looking at 4K UHD TV sets.
Since we like J Lewis's 5 year warranties and exemplary customer
service, we found the LG43UH610V priced at a mere £370 but spotted the
better specced version of this model, the LG43UH620V also at £370 in
Currys PC World but only 1 year warranty and *exclusive to them* so a bit
more research uncovered the LG43UH661V an even better specced set at £449
from Richer Sounds who were out of stock locally and suggested another
43"UHD LG TV set which seemingly didn't deserve to be blessed with an
actual model number when we checked out the Richer Sounds site.
In the end, we had another look at J Lewis's site and discovered they
were selling the LG43UH661V with a 5 year warranty for just £399 a whole
50 quid cheaper than Richer Sounds' 300 quid saving on the RRP of £749.
Since that seemed to include all the basic functions I'd expect plus a
few more, we decided to place our order with J Lewis and take advantage
of their 5 year warranty and free delivery service.
I know that despite all my searching for the hidden caveats and my best
efforts at *not* reading more into the implied promises of the marketing
blurb, I'll find something that'll prove to be an annoyance. To be fair,
I suspect this would be the case no matter what make or model of
reasonably priced 43 inch 4K Smart (assed) TV I choose to buy. It seems a
case of "Damned whatever you choose" to paraphrase Bart Simpson's,
"Damned if you do, and damned if you don't" summation of his philosophy
of life which speaks to us all.
It seems to me that all the TV manufacturers are determined to overwhelm
their customer base with a needlessly vast repertoire of model variants
designed with the sole purpose of confusing the **** out of their
customers so as to disguise the one decent VFM (value for money) example
[1] that may or may not be hidden in each model class in order to force
their customers into buying something they'll become dissatisfied with
sooner, rather than later so as to create a 'need to upgrade' just a
short year or two later in order to bolster demand for 'newer and better'
product.
Anyway, I should know about "The Disappointments" hidden in the spec of
that LG43UH661V by late Wednesday evening according to the delivery
schedule confirmation call. As far as the missus goes, this is going to
one hell of a giant leap out of the late 20th century into the second
decade of the 21st! Whether it's a leap for the better is another
question but I guess I'll have an answer to that one soon enough.
[1] You might wonder why the manufacturers would even bother with such a
VFM option at all. The answer I think is so the customer can take all the
blame for not taking sufficient care when selecting from the more than
generous range of options so kindly provided by the manufacturer. After
all, the manufacturer can defend their position by pointing out that such
a VFM model was actually available if only the customer had been
sufficiently circumspect in their choice (and prepared to pay a modest
premium both in research time and price).
The manufacturing company protects itself from accusations of providing
every possible model variation *except* the one desirable variant that
would have met the customers' reasonable expectations for just a tiny
price premium by actually making such a variant (and cunningly hiding it
amongst all the other model variants on offer). A marketing technique
that's probably best described by the phrase, "Having your cake *and*
eating it." :-(
--
Johnny B Good