Big Screens for Less, Though Not Little

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Big Screens for Less, Though Not Little

March 13, 2003
By DAVID POGUE 




 

CAUTION: The following column contains subject matter for
mature audiences with self-restraint. It includes
references to plasma television screens, which in
susceptible individuals may induce dizziness, palpitations
and shortness of breath. Do not attempt to drive or operate
heavy machinery after reading this column.

After all, plasma television sets are the ultimate status
symbol of the moment. They offer three features that drive
people crazy with desire. First, they're big, shiny, flat,
sleek, thin, futuristic and - to use the technical term -
wicked cool. Second, they are rectangular, like a movie
screen. When you watch a movie on DVD, you don't have to
endure the existential angst of knowing that you're missing
25 percent of the frame, as you do on a conventional square
television. Finally, plasma sets are generally insanely
expensive - $7,000 for a 42-incher, for example - which
only makes them more desirable.

So if somebody offered to sell you a brand-new 42-inch
plasma screen for $3,000, you'd probably assume that it
had, ahem, fallen off a truck. But Gateway has been
offering exactly that deal since November (in Gateway
stores or from www.gateway

.com), and now a new company called V Inc. offers a 46-inch
model called the Vizio P4 for $4,000 (www.vinc.us). The
price doesn't include shipping and in-home setup, which
costs another $300 or so. (If you're a home-entertainment
do-it-yourselfer, you can pay $160 for Gateway's
delivery-only plan.) Each price does, however, include a
table stand, which comes in handy - plasmas lose much of
their status-symbol status when they're just propped
against a wall. 

These sets are every bit as gorgeous as their pricier
predecessors. Each is less than four inches thick. Speakers
are built in but are feeble, evidently on the premise that
after dropping four grand on a screen, most people will
spend a few hundred more on a decent sound system.

<snip>

And besides, an EDTV plasma is still capable of sending you
to couch-potato nirvana when you play a DVD. By happy
coincidence, an enhanced-definition set precisely matches
the resolution of DVD movies: 480 lines of resolution.
(Superb though their picture quality may be, DVD's aren't
high-definition.) A wide-screen plasma and a wide-screen
DVD movie, especially when played on a so-called
progressive-scan player, are a match made in heaven, a real
movie theater in your home. High-definition material looks
great, too; despite the slightly inferior resolution, EDTV
plasmas reproduce the more brilliant color palette of
high-definition shows.

Gateway's sets have been a runaway success; at the moment,
there is a monthlong wait to get one. Furthermore, they
have spawned a brood of imitators: you will soon be able to
buy $3,000 42-inch, enhanced-definition plasmas from
Samsung, Apex and others. (V also sells a 32-inch model for
$3,000.) 

Clearly, Gateway and its imitators have stumbled onto a
brilliant revelation: for thousands of consumers, the
primary appeal of plasma screens isn't the picture, but the
bigness, flatness and coolness. Gateway has pioneered the
concept of selling you the part you care about at half the
price, positioning itself as the Southwest Airlines of the
home-entertainment industry.

As you contemplate the $4,000 you have saved, you may
momentarily rue the fact that you will never be able to see
the full, spectacular resolution of high definition when it
comes along. This moment of depression may return to you in
two years, when true HDTV plasmas will probably cost less
than $3,000. 

But even now, enhanced-definition plasmas offer a certain
economy. If you are having trouble justifying the purchase
to your spouse, pull out a calculator. Point out that if
the two of you start watching films at home instead of
going out to the movies once a month, your thin, sleek,
incredibly cool plasma screen will pay for itself - in only
14 years. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/13/technology/circuits/13stat.html?ex=1048763
408&ei=1&en=795dfc6f480eddba



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