I got a question about quality on TV's??

Question

Does the quality really change if you buy a Samsung TV in Best Buy or Walmart. If you buy it at walmart is it made with less quality or is that a lie??

Answer 1

This is a somewhat complex answer. I suspect what you believe is a twist on some truth. Discount stores like walmart need to sell things cheap. There is no such thing as a lower quality samsung going there and a better quality panel going to bestbuy. HOWEVER, a better tv can usually be found at bestbuy.

The lowdown: Walmart needs to be cheap so they will usually carry the entry level Sony, Samsung, or Philips LCD or plasma. Why should they carry the latest generation with the newest frills? Their customer base doesn't have the scratch for those sets.

So the newest Samsung with the wide color gamut, LCD back lighting and HDMI 1.3 deep color support can be found at bestbuy, and crutchfield dot com and Circuit city. Even so, bestbuy will carry the lower end models. Walmart is more limited in this regard. They might have an eariler generation panel or even a lower res panel (like a 720p instead of the 1080p etc) I hope this answers your question.

So your question is kinda true but it isn't, make sense now?

Answer 2

I have a VIZIO set bought last winter  at sprawlmart. I didn't

like the problem of the color rendering going way off when viewed

from beyond a certain critical angle, so I started shopping for

regular CRT based HDTV/DTVs with the intention of simply

taking the LCD set back.  I found one at Sears. It was too

wide for my installation (unfortunately) and it seems as if nobody

is going to be marketing  CRT-based HDTVs anymore.  The

salesman asked me what television I was so upset  about

and when I  told him  what it was and where I got it he insisted

the same model  they sell  at Sears  is better than  that same

model sold at sprawlmart.   I don't know if it was just c**p,

but that's what he said.

I've bought a lot of things from sprawlmart and have long suspected

that some manufacturers do not like how sprawlmart uses  the amount of product they expect to move to strong-arm  them into wholesale

prices  they don't want to provide products at. I've long suspected

many of these manufacturers provide  sprawlmart with inferior

products.  There was a brand of mini-twist fluorescents I was

buying there (they no longer handle that brand) and I decided to

try measuring their light output with a light meter compared to the

supposed equivalent incandescents. None of that brand's

fluorescents measured up.  Ones  from  other "box store" retailers

at very low prices did pass that test.

When I called that company up and complained the person I talked to started screaming into the phone "don't you know anything about mercury vapor leakage????"  That brand is still sold in some places--I don't buy it.

I  bought my first DVD recorder at sprawlmart. The first box I got

home had someone's old burnt-out one that wasn't even the same

model in it--someone had  got a new one and returned their

old one and got a free unit, and  sprawlmart had evidently just

decided to put that return back out on the floor.  The one I got

in exchange for it didn't keep functioning through warranty. When

I tried to contact that company for service,  they  were not-to-be-

found. Sprawlmart told me it was a compay that had been set up

to buy units at the price they wanted to pay from the factory--evidently they'll sell units branded with someone else's

brand name to that straw-buyer cheaper than to  a

discount retailer with the actual manufacturer name.

That straw company had evaporated so sprawlmart exchanged

that unit for one in-stock of the same value/features.

That one didn't last out the warranty period of the first one

either--that time they just gave me my money back and I

bought one at a discount retailer which handles "refurbished"

electronics, and it's worked longer than any of the others.

It was  the only one which actually had a cooling fan in the hole in the

chassis for a cooling fan.

I think sprawlmart's intentions are good--they're trying to use

their power in the market to bring you bargains. In many cases

they do--their Sam-club sodas are extremely good cheap

off-brand sodas at a great saving--also their sandwich buns.

I think some of the manufacturers they deal with do meet the

price their dictated by intentionally siphoning off their less-than

-perfect units--a production run where some supplier of parts

to them supplied some sub-par part and they made a run

before the fraud was discovered.  They're left with a lot of units

and it's my suspicion that despite the best efforts of sprawlmart,

a lot of this stuff makes it to the consumers through them.

To be fair I thought I was noticing much the same thing  with

the other discount mass marketers years ago, before sprawlmart

even started putting stores in non-rural areas.

My advice--buy it there if you want to but if there seems to

be ANYTHING you don't like about  it at all, take it back

during the period where you can take it back to the point-of-sales.

If you're new to DTV/HDTV OTA reception, my advice is

to just  go into the changeover with the converter boxes

using your existing sets if they work well. If they don't, go

buy  some 480i  sets at a thrift store  or off  the various

internet used-sales  things or a garage sale and learn the

ropes that way, and let this DTV/HDTV  frenzy get settled down

a bit before you invest in it--let someone else stick their neck

out and get screwed  on  something that's been rushed to market

before it's fully-functional.  

Everyone has been influenced by the  Microcephalisoft

business model.  

I personally have been having better luck with refurbished

products  than "new" for decades.  They're not perfect

but tend to be noticeably better.

Good luck.  You're probably going to need it.