Engadget, which if you didn't know, is just about the quintessential new tech toys site, had this article posted today. It's great to know, now, that prices have been, and are continuing to fall on TVs... This information would have been good a little bit sooner. I guess it's only been 9 months or less with my 51" Toshiba Rear Projection TV, and I don't think waiting any longer would have been a good idea, but it's a tad disappointing to see this chart.


It's not that I'm not happy with my TV. It's great, it really is. It's that to get an even better one would have made me even happier... If the price was right.

When I was looking at the selection available to me, I noticed that the 'economy' TVs for ~1500 - 2000 dollars were fairly good. But, the next step up was even better. At that time, the LCD Rear Projections were more like $3000 for a 42", just a bit too much for me to dish out. So, I was stuck with the bottom of the barrel for $1550.

According to Displaysearch, the price of a 32-inch LCD TV will hit almost $1500 this quarter, down from $3000 a year ago, with the price of a 42-inch plasma sliding from just north of $4000 down to about $2500 over the same time period.

So how much further will prices drop in the next 12 months? Or is it going to be like computer parts? Prices stay the same, but you get more / better things for that amount.

I do have to say, though, that the Toshiba is by far superior to my other choices, A Sony, and a Panasonic. Both of the pictures on those were more pixelated than a SMR movie from a few years back.

With HDTV (which I haven't bothered with yet), and a HD upconverting DVD player to 1080i, it's not so bad to have a regular rear projection TV. But, man, would it have been nice to get a plasma. It still would. Maybe next year, hey?