Budget tv shopping. TC-P50X1?

[f3adventure]

I am looking to buy a new tv on a very tight budget. Sears is advertising this Panasonic TC-P50X1 for $799 which sounds good to me. Does anybody have any experience with this tv or recommendations for getting a great buy on a different model? I have a very large room so I don't really want to go any smaller. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[sodusme]

Check out slickdeals.net and search "black friday". Here's just one of the many tv deals they have posted: hxxp://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1661052

Mitsubishi 60" 120Hz DLP for $699.99 from HHGregg. With "black friday" coming up (the friday after thanksgiving is called black friday in the retail industry) there will be a TON of deals like this. I've also heard that most deals will extend into the weekend after and further....

[f3adventure]

Wow! Thanks for the reply, that is a sweet deal.

living in central Iowa, I have never heard of HHGregg. Hopefully I will see some similar specials in my area.

Post 'em if you see 'em.

Thanks!

[f3adventure]

I see Wal-mart has a Sharp 52" 120Hz 1080p LCD HDTV, LC52SB57UN for
$898.00

How would rate this deal compared to the Panasonic?

Thanks!

[jonathanm1978]

I would NOT EVER buy a TV or any other type of high-priced electronic equipment from a walmart. I'm friends with a computer technician locally, and his brother is an employee of Dell Computer. He told me that his brother has been in China/Japan for nearly 3 years now, and all he does there for Dell, Inc is scout out CHEAP processor/chip manufacturers solely for dell to put into the Wal-Mart line of laptops/desktops sold in their stores. He said his brother told him before Wal-Mart started selling Dell branded computers, they never used anything cheap like that in their systems, but Walmart's contract with them states they MUST stay below a certain pricetag on wholesale, or they won't allow them to be sold in-store. Same goes for most electronics sold at Walmart. You might get one that lasts a while..but most of their stuff is NOT new...and I mean new like what a customers considers new. They sell a lot of refurbished electronics, which are boxed as new, but they perform enough reconditioning on the stuff that they legally can say it's a new device, and not tell you it's been refurbed.

Also, if anyone can recall a line of TV's sold at Walmart called iLo..talk about your lawsuit pending...

Buddy brings me a TV thats an iLo he got from Walmart...tells me it just quit. I looked up part numbers, tested fuses..no luck with any of that. Finally, I called the 1-800 number ON THE TV..

It was a bogus 1-800 number, didn't go to the iLo customer service..went to some horny line. Also, the online portion of customer service cannot be contacted anymore either..like they just dropped off the face of the earth. Big lawsuit, class -action style, pending on these folks for doing this, since most all their TV's are faulty and no one can manage to find out where to get repair / warranty service.

I'd think twice about shopping Best Buy for electronics as well..they get a lot of closeout merchandise from stores that shut down..and also they get alot of large vendor discontinues to re-sell in their stores..you'll buy a TV that's new in box, but its been out for 3-4 years, or its a TV that the manufacturer bankrupted 6 months ago..
Electronic purchases are a tricky department when it comes to who you can trust...Best Buy sold me 2 Westinghouse TV's back in February of 2009...since I didn't opt for an extended warranty, when I thought I was having an issue with one of them, I called BBuy and asked for help..I was told I had 30 days after purchase to decide if I wanted it..after that, it was pretty much my problem if it broke. NOT EVEN A YEAR? They don't trust their own merchandise to last 1 year? Pitiful.

Luckily, it was that HD transition that was causing my issue...I had one channel that the volume would be about halfway up..and it would snap, crackle and pop..but all other channels were fine (and it was a local channel, on my DTV sub)..

Turns out it was the HD transition crap they were doing, not something with my TV..because I knew that there was something fishy about 1 channel being snap, crackle and pop, and the other 200 channels on the same volume being just fine.

[cruzat]

That's kind of hard to swallow jonathanm1978.

For example:
If Dell puts an Intel label on a computer then Dell has no control what so ever in the chip that goes into the computer except the model of the chip.

From what you are saying it sounds like Dell sends people over there to find some chep off brand chip then put's it in their walmart line computers then slaps an Intel label on it.
That would mean major false advertising charges against both Walmart and Dell.

I don't buy that at all.

Now I do know that Intel makes a cheap chip called celeron but it's not made just for walmart.
it was made to compete with cheap chips made by AMD.
I think most of the computers sold at walmart have the celeron or AMD chips but that's because some guy is scouting the orients for cheap chip for walmart.
It's because a court decided that Intel could not monopolise the chip industry and allowed AMD to start making cheaper chips than Intel was making so Intel in turn came up with their own cheap chip.

[jonathanm1978]

It's not the actual processor's like you're CPU that they are doing this with..you have those onboard GPU's with different types of processors in them, and the smaller chips that are a part of other components inside the PC..of course they aren't putting an off-brand CPU in the system and putting the Intel name on it. I know the Celeron too, and I wouldn't pay 2.00 for one..they are crappy and have no L2 cache..or used to they didn't. Been a while since I built one.

The stuff my friends brother is searching out is things like chips for the modem, ethernet, gpu components..As we all know, it might say Geforce..but have some of several different graphics engines..
I should've worded that different instead of leaving it just as "processors"..
Not CPU's..

When I worked in the technical field, repairing PC's, the main problems I encountered were burnt modems and burnt NIC's in desktops..laptops, it was a range of things, cheaply made for the most part.

Also, alot of the stuff this guy's brother searches out are your capacitors and such. They usually get a handful of the modem/ethernet/GPU contracts and stick with those for a while if they can..its the smaller components that they try to cheap-out on. I've opened WAY too many "wal-mart" computers..ranging from e-machines to HP, to dell..and couldn't believe the off-brand capacitors and poor engineering designs used.
That's actually how I found out about the Walmart - Dell line of computers being a cheaper product than Dell's actual LINE they sell. I was discussing with the computer-tech friend of mine how poorly they performed, and most E-machines I've encountered couldn't last over 1- 1 1/2 years..being left on all the time. That's when he told me what his brother did for a living, and how much Dell paid him to do it...it's a chunk.

Thank goodness I built my computer from scratch 3 years ago..and its (for the most part) been left powered on daily for 2 years of that 3 years..and ALL i've had go bad was the PSU. 1 PSU in 3 years. But, on the other hand, my inlaws keep investing in those cheap e-machines from wal-mart..and they've had to buy 3 desktops in 4 years..all emachines except the first (it was an HP..but they make the emachines line)
So while my one desktop has lasted this long..it's lasted thru 3 of their computers. All of theirs came from Walmart..mine came from parts that Newegg sold me...and I chose them. My ASRock board is not cheaply made..and withstands running 24-7 for the most part..but I'm falling behind in times when it comes to speed, but dang if it isn't reliable. I can depend on this thing..if it dies tomorrow, it was worth the $1000.00 I spent (and had to spend 4 years ago) on it..and I'd gladly spend that again if I could on a reliable machine. Mine tears up, I'll forfeit buying a cheap PC to wait it out until I can afford to buy and build one the right way.

Sorry for that insinuation..yes, that would be false advertising, but I didn't mean it as it sounded in the above post.

[f3adventure]

I ended up buying the Panasonic TC-P50X1 from from Sixth Avenue Electronics. I ordered it on line and got it for $699 with free UPS shipping. I am excited about my purchase. Wal-Mart stocks the TC-P50C1 series which i here is very similar. I will post back and let you know if i am still excited after I get the TV and set it up.