panasonic plasma tv
Originally uploaded by bluepupae. i have never paid more than $50 for a tv, and that was for a tube tv in college i bought used from someone who picked it up cheap from a motel she worked at. my friend julie gave me my last tv, a used 27" tube that had a discoloration in one corner that was mostly unnoticeable. we had these great plans for a diy home theater with a used projector from ebay, a custom shelf with sliding door the turned the power to the projector on & off and blank wall space. it was great. all of a sudden, we had all this space on the media center, and a home theater that was virtually hidden until movie time.
it worked pretty well for a while. at least until this weekend, when our hopes went down with the projector, which was not properly displaying the color correctly. try as he might to fix it, alas the bulb, color wheel projector machinery was undecipherable for mike.
after some research on cnet, we opted to buy a new tv rather than a new projector to replace the old one. when it worked, it was great, but there were some annoyances which we couldn't really determine if they had to do with the projector being used or due to the nature of its projectorness. besides that, the bulbs cost upwards of $300 to replace.
it took some mental wrangling for us to get over the shock of sticker price. sadly, we had become accustomed to the large image projected on to our wall. a 30" tv seems so paltry after that. we're not big tv watchers. we don't even have cable, but we do love watching movies and having the cinema experience.
we couldn't wait or trust delivery, so went to a circuit city this sunday to pick out one of cnet's highly rated tvs within our budget (close enough). we happened to be helped by a newbie employee who did not let us know of the fragility of plasma tvs, so it wasn't until we tried to load it into our car, that the stock guy told us it wasn't advisable to turn the tv on its side. after some haggling, we were able to get a deal on shipping that day to our house for $30 (they wanted to make sure we were happy since they didn't tell us about the plasma issue).
it wasn't until the tv was unboxed and on our "entertainment center" that i realized just how big this monster was. sure, the box was ginormous and couldn't fit into the backseat of the car, but we thought that was mostly packaging. i have to say that the packaging was quite ingenious. there are these plastic handles inserted into either side of the box which can be used for lifting the box. after removing them, you can slide the top right off and pick the tv up.
the tv itself is a 42" panasonic 720p plasma. apparently, for screens 52" or smaller, most people can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p. the image quality, from what i can tell so far, is pretty darn good, even in the store next to the other tvs. i found the color to be much deeper than the samsung that was next to it. it's sick because i find myself having trouble knitting, as i often do while watching tv, now that we have such an engaging piece of electronics in the bedroom. it's hard to peel your eyes off the thing. though i really don't need to see that jay leno wears foundation.
p.s. i never thought i would find myself drooling over tvs, but when we were in circuit city, i felt like i was looking at the tvs for the first time. there was a huge 60" tv (i think it was a samsung) that had the crispest image, which made for a strange experience watching and seeing people's facial hair.
