Add one more big item to the list of things that need to be replaced: in addition to the refrigerator and computer monitor replaced last year, the dishwasher still waiting to be replaced, and the heat pump and car due to be replaced in the next few weeks, my 40" Toshiba widescreen television has been showing signs of failure. The money I took out of the refinance practically is spent already, and I only just deposited it today.
So I've been salivating over potential new televisions. CircuitCity.com this week is offering to give a gift card worth 10% of one's purchases, and many of the large projection and flat-screen televisions there already are on sale and offer additional rebates; shipping and setup also is quite low. The Sony KP51WS510 51" widescreen HDTV monitor there, for example, has been reduced from $2000 to $1800, with an additional $100 mail-in rebate and just $40 for delivery and in-home setup; that would also give me a $180 gift card to use at Circuit City--not enough for that iPod I want, but it would make a start.
Over at Synaptic Discharge last week, Kevin wrote about his brand-new Sony KF-50WE610 50" Grand Wega™ HDTV-ready rear-projection LCD TV, which looks really pretty sweet, but I just can't justify to myself spending over $3K for a television, another $300-$600 for a stand and an additional several hundred for an HD tuner (though, granted, the KP51WS510 I'm looking at doesn't include an integrated HD tuner either).
Sigh. Nine months ago I didn't watch even ten hours of television a week; now I'm a couch potato actually thinking about spending a couple thousand dollars for a new television. I blame it all on TiVo.
How long have you had the Toshiba? My Toshiba widescreen HD is probably the most gorgeous TV I've ever had - I hope it's not headed for failure any time soon!
I'll confess to being enough of a gadget freak that I also have an HD widescreen set in my bedroom of all places, albeit a rather cheap $900 Samsung which is just OK. If only I could justify buying that sweet Sony plasma that seems to float in a pane of glass... yum. But those plasma sets still can't hold a candle (that's a pretty lame joke there) to a CRT set... yet.
Gene: I'm trying to remember exactly how old the Toshiba is, but I'm sure only that it's either five or six years old this month (I bought it around Thanksgiving, but I don't recall if it was the year I actually moved into the condo or the following.
I love it, but it's never been perfect (I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting it repaired or replaced). The convergence has always been a little screwy, and I was never able to get one side of the screen to converge correctly, so that everything on that side ended up with a reddish hue. The problem was most clearly visible when there was no video source playing, but it did have a noticeable (if not dramatically so) effect on content.
Lately, however, the screen is going through a variety of trapezoiding and pincushioning behaviors, and the other night I walked out of the room to fix dinner and came back a half-hour later to find the screen had blanked out completely and the power had to be recycled in order to get a picture again.
Hmm... is it a projection TV?
Ugh. I hate those - there are so many issues with convergence and now matter what brand, you can never get a perfectly crisp picture. Despite all the various choices out there these days - projection, plasma, lcd - I still opt for the old fashioned tube. Nothing beats the electron gun.