{"id":579846,"date":"2010-05-26T10:01:06","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T14:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerist.com,2010:\/\/1.10007009"},"modified":"2010-05-26T11:06:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T15:06:19","slug":"should-i-assume-all-hdtvs-self-destruct-and-just-buy-something-crappy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/579846","title":{"rendered":"Should I Assume All HDTVs Self-Destruct And Just Buy Something Crappy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brendan has a question for the Consumerist hive mind. He wants to buy a large-ish HDTV, but isn’t sure that his usual method of buying technology–buy the cheapest thing he can get his hands on, and count on it not to break for a year or two–will work at these price points. <\/p>\n

I’m currently in the market for a cheap HDTV. Honestly, the real appeal to me is the space-saving feature of the flat screen. My usual practice with electronics is to buy the cheapest thing I can find and hope it lasts for a year or two. In the past, I’ve purchased the cheapest DVD player walmart offered and it turned out to be pretty good. I once bought a $35 Craig DVD player from the grocery store and I had to pause the movies halfway through to let the sound catch up to the video. More recently, I bought a KWorld media player which stopped working via coax output and is prone to overheating. I’m not too upset by pissing away less than $100 on something kind of crappy as long as it lasts for a while – even if that means some modifications or maintenance on my part. However, I’m not prepared to drop $800 on a 50″ plasma that won’t last until Christmas. <\/p>\n

My question to you is this: Should I just go to Walmart or Best Buy or Stop and Shop and pick up the cheapest thing over 32″ that they have or should I spend the extra $100 on something that will outlast the technology with which it was built?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I did exactly the thing Brendan describes–I bought a Vizio on clearance at Walmart, of all places. I’m happy with my decision, but it’s only been a few weeks. Most of you have probably owned large, flat televisions for much longer, though, so share your wisdom with Brendan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brendan has a question for the Consumerist hive mind. He wants to buy a large-ish HDTV, but isn’t sure that his usual method of buying technology–buy the cheapest thing he can get his hands on, and count on it not to break for a year or two–will work at these price points. I’m currently in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4307,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}