October 7, 2007

HDTV's Having More Features, Becoming Easier To Use

(Credit: BusinessWeek)

If you plan to purchase an HDTV in the next few months, the market is on your side. Prices are expected to be at least 33% cheaper than they were last Christmas. Also expect more added features to upcoming models.

Due to the saturation of the HDTV market, prices are rapidly dropping and that means profit margins are thinning for manufacturers. In order to tack on a few hundred bucks to the retail price of an HDTV, the manufacturer has to add extra features and that has what has been happening so rapidly in the last few months. OLED technology, LED backlighting, and 120-hz refresh rates all come to mind.

The downside of this is that home theatre is becoming a more daunting prospect for potential buyers every time a new technology hits the market. A full 89% of HDTV buyers do not have a full understanding of their TVs and that's understandable. So it would be reasonable to think that a differentiating factor we should see between TVs in the near future will be ease of use.

We hope this means that HDTV will not become a commodity just yet. We at TVSnob don't think so; we think HDTV is just getting started.

Via BusinessWeek