Television Shopping

Tonight's review is somewhat unique and calls for a different sort of tone.  This, as you may recognize, is one of my daily reviews, which I write for myself and for you.  I invite you, if you dare, to come with me, because in tonight's review, Mark is the star.  And this review travels directly to...the Twilight Zone.  Actually, it travels to Sam's Club.  See, before I can get into this review, I owe you a bit of an explanation.  Mark's birthday is coming up, and I gave him the ability to choose his gift from a few I had pre-selected.  

Mark's Options:

     Puppy/Rescue Dog

     Kindle Fire

     iPad

     Television

Thus far, the puppy had been winning out.  All of a sudden, Mark had a moment where he realized dogs are a lot of work.  Guess what isn't a lot of work?  A television.  Thus began our Sam's Club adventure.  

Buying a tv at Sam's Club is not a pleasant experience.  First of all, the tvs are organized by size.  This makes it convenient when you know what size tv you want, but do you know how hard it is to get a good idea how big they are when they are set up like that?  You have a long row of tvs, one behind the other.  It doesn't help that they have such high ceilings in there, as it makes the tvs seem smaller.  You can't get a good idea of how it will measure up in your home because there is no reference point.  

We had thought we had decided what we wanted.  Mark had a few specs he was sure of.  He didn't want a plasma television because they're not as bright.  He demanded it be 120 Hz; anything less was unacceptable.  Of course, 1080 p was also a must.  He requested it be larger than our current tv, which is a proud 42" monster that has a power button that only works half the time.   I didn't have too many demands.  I knew what I was comfortable spending, but that was really my only input.

The problem with Sam's Club having so many tvs is that you are constantly finding one you like a little bit more that is a little bit more expensive.  When you're already spending so much, what's another hundred dollars?  I mean, how often do you buy a television?  It's thoughts like that which caused us to walk out spending twice what I had budgeted.  

See, Mark and I had decided on a 47" LED television to replace our living room tv.  Unfortunately, Mark found a 55" that was technically in our price range.  It came with wireless connectivity; that means I wouldn't need the cord running across my living room to the XBox and PS3 to run my Netflix.  That, combined with the larger size, seemed like a good idea.  Then, I realized it was an LCD, rather than and LED.  What does that mean, you ask?  It has to do with how the tv is lit and how the picture appears.  It wasn't apparent what the actual difference was until I saw an LCD tv and an LED tv, sitting about eight inches apart, front to back.  See, one of the young men Mark works with had compiled awesome trailers and plays them on the clearance tvs.  I was treated to a trailer that featured a lot of black.  You could see a marked difference between the two tvs, with the LED looking 100% better.  This is bad.

How can richer colors be bad you ask?  It's bad when it makes me demand an LED television.  To get the LED version of the 55" tv, we would have to double our budget.  Was that possible?  Yeah, but I didn't want to do it.  Suddenly, I had a slew of demands.  I was less concerned with the size of the tv.  I wanted an LED tv with wireless connectivity.  To make us both happy, since Mark was concerned with size (tee hee), we went with the bigger, double budget tv.  

In summation, buying a television is a horrible experience.  You think you can just go and buy whichever one is the right size and looks good.  Unfortunately, there are so many stats for tvs that buying one becomes difficult, especially when Sam's is kind enough to have such a vast assortment.  If you decide to buy a tv, feel free to call Mark, as he can explain all of it to you.  He can explain what each stat means and how it will impact your television viewing experience.  Heck, after going through all this, I can explain it too.

(Moved from FB - February 1, 2012)