Best Television for $400

Buying a new television to me is like shopping for a car. There are so many brands and types out there that it can seem very over whelming. The fact is you can make shopping for a TV a very easy and enjoyable experience if you do it right. For starters I would never ever recommend going to somewhere like best buy and buying the first TV that you see is on sale. If something is on sale it is usually not a good thing because more than likely the television is crap and is not selling well so they are forced to cut prices in order to increase demand. So remember when looking for a TV always start with the internet and not with Best Buy or Walmart.

Well now that we have that cleared up lets get back to what this article is about. Buying a budget television, in this cause a $400 Television. Why $400 well that is the budget that I now have to buy my moms next new TV. We thought it was finally time to upgrade from our 5 year old Panasonic TV in the living room and try to upgrade to something a little bigger and better. I first started looking for my new television at the website amazon.com. Now on Amazon there is a lot of TV’s, 1,995 to be exact, but you can reduce the amount of choices pretty quickly by putting in your price and display size. After going through a few televisions I could quickly saw that my budget was going to turn into a big problem. For $400 there is literally no flat panels or HD TV’s over the size of 22” that are any good. So after looking a while I found the Samsung LN22A650. This new Samsung is most likely the best 22” Flat Panel with 720p that I can get right now. The price is exactly $400 with free shipping, how perfect is that? The only problem is of course it is only 22 inches big, which is a really big problem because our current television is 30 inches. Also the seating distance from our television is approximately 6 feet and the recommended size is at a minimum of 26 inches for 6 feet.






So now I had to look in the complete opposite direction for my television. Instead of going to for high quality 720P HD Flat Panel TV’s I decided to look for a dying type of television the CRT/Tube TV’s. I really did not want to settle with old technology, but my budget left me no choice, there is simply no way you can buy a big flat panel TV for $400 in today’s market. So now I decided to look for some CRT/Tube televisions. There was one big problem though, CRT/Tube televisions are almost impossible to find today. On Amazon.com there is 1,046 Flat-Panel TV’s, but only 48 CRT/Tube TV’s, seriously only 48! Same thing if you check any stores websites. BestBuy has 4, Circuit City has 1, and Walmart has 7 CRT/Tube televisions. I seriously felt like I was shopping for an antique, I really believe no company makes CRT/Tube televisions anymore. I finally decided to try the only place I knew would be filled with old CRT/Tube televisions and that was Ebay. I am not a big fan of Ebay because I like to know I am buying my product from a reliable source, but I knew this would be the only place where I could find the best deals on old CRT/Tube televisions. Going to Ebay was definitely the best choice because it brought up more than enough results to satisfy me. There was a total of 298 Standard CRT’s listed and also 1,734 Not Specified TV’s. Currently I am still looking on Ebay for the right television, but if you are in the market for a big TV for around $400 it looks like Ebay CRT/Tube televisions are the way to go. Just make sure to do your research first and you should be fine. If you are looking for a $400 television for your bedroom though I would have to recommend the Samsung LN22A650 Flat Panel HD 720P television. A 22 inch screen will be more than big enough for a small viewing distance in a place like the bedroom.

As always there is never the perfect television for everybody. The right TV for me might not be the right TV for you. Just remember always shop around and make sure to keep in mind a few key things, your budget, viewing distance, and trusted name brands.

Using a Plasma Display for a Computer Monitor

Plasma television has always been the best TV to go with when wanting to watch a movie or that big football game in HD, but what about using a Plasma TV as a monitor for your computer. Does it have what it takes to beat out an LCD computer monitor?

Well the fact is no a Plasma TV used as a monitor will not have a better resolution than an LCD Monitor. Do not get your hopes down though because even though an LCD screen supports higher resolutions than your Plasma TV you will be hard-pressed to see more detail on an LCD Monitor over a Plasma Screen. One reason you might opt to use your Plasma Screen is the fact that Plasma Screens average around the size of 40 inches compared to an LCD screen that averages around 20 inches. A Plasma TV is a great alternative to watching movies on a laptop screen. There has been many times where I have gone over to a friends house with my laptop and my friend has wanted to watch a movie that I had on my laptop. The problem was that no one in there right mind would want to watch a movie with more than one person on a laptop screen. So a quick fix for the problem was i hooked up my laptop to his Plasma TV he owns. A simple way to connect your laptop to your Plasma Screen is an HDMI Cable because most laptops have an HDMI output and if that does not work you can buy an HDMI to VGA Cable. An HDMI output can also carry audio along with the video signal so instead of listening to a movie on your crappy laptop or computer speakers you can experience the movie in surround sound or through your Plasma TV’s speakers.

Of course everything great does come with a couple drawbacks. In return for getting a brighter and richer screen with your Plasma TV is that you have to sit a little bit farther away from it than you would normally have to sit on a normal computer monitor. In return for getting a bigger screen is that the screen will be stretched in order to convert the screen over from the computers resolution to the Plasma TV’s resolution.

So the benefits are there for getting a Plasma Screen as a computer monitor, but so are the drawbacks. I personally love the site of a computer hooked up to a plasma television for a movie and such, but for everyday computing nothing is better than a 20” LCD monitor.

World's Thinnest LCD TV is only 9.9mm thick

Sony has announced a new world record thin LCD TV that is only 9.9mm thick! The new TV is called Sony KDL-40ZX1. The specs for this TV are just as impressive as its size. The KDL-40ZX1 comes with a 40 inch screen, a weight of 26 pounds, 3000:1 contrast ratio, 1080p cability, 120hz MotionFlow, and it also comes with a Wireless HD base station. A wireless Plasma Screen opens up the opportunity for you to mount it on a wall.

Heres the spec list for the wireless HD base station:
"The ZX1’s wireless base station supports 3 HDMI, 2 component, a S-Video, and a VGA input. An AV mouse, USB, LAN and even standard phone port is also supported! The USB port will allow you to hook up your Sony camera and display your photos in full HD." source: SonyInsider

If wireless is not for their is also a wired version of the TV, but on you only get 1 HDMI port. Also worth noting is that with the wireless version only 1080i is available compared to the 1080p version with the wired set-up.

Now how high does the world's thinnest TV with Wireless HD base cost, a grand total of $4,500. Pretty hefty price if you ask me, expected release date for the new Sony KDL-40ZX1 is November 10th.