Marketplace News

In an effort to provide more after-purchase support for its customers, especially those that are not technically inclined, Wal-Mart has made the decision to offer a new home installation service for HDTVs, home theater systems, and home office products. Of course, another motive for Wal-Mart is to provide a competitive alternative to Best Buy's Geek Squad. For all the details, check out the reports from Reuters and TV Predictions.Wal-Mart Jumps Into HDTV Home Installation originally appeared on About.com Home Theater on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 10:00:28.Permalink | Comment | Email this

A new study from SNL Kagan predicts that improved HDTV sales in the second half of 2009 will...

Samsung says it will outperform the LED HDTV market in 2010

The NPD Group, famed tabulator of video game hardware and software sales, says it sees the new $299 price point of PlayStation 3 contributing to a significant sales boost for the system. "We would expect to see in the range of a 40% to 60% unit sales increase when September sales are reported," NPD analyst Anita Frazier told InformationWeek. We'll see how accurate of an estimate that was when the September NPD data hits mid-October.Frazier added, "The $299 price point is important to getting to a point where the next segment of price-conscious consumers can jump into the market and it most certainly will re-energize sales of the platform." So, basically, a cheaper PS3 will sell better because people are more likely to take the plunge at a cheaper price. We know that analysts get paid to offer their opinions, but this just ... gave us an idea! "It's our opinion that a $99 price point for PS3 would increase sales by 90 to 100 percent." -- JoystiqSmall, unmarked bills only, please. [Vi ...

Bargain-hunting consumers have put the discount television manufacturer at the top of the sales charts for another quarter.

HDGuru has some notes from the now-concluded second quarter HDTV sales, and they show some interesting movement: With dirt-cheap prices, high end plasmas (42"-50") surged almost 40%, though LCD sales...

In case you hadn't already learned your lesson and started checking behind the displays while HDTV shopping, the HD Guru points out another element of the in-store experience that throws off buyers (and likely contributes to the LCD vs. plasma choices we find so infuriating): lighting. In case you don't recall from your last trek to a big box superstore, the lighting is quite often stuck on blinding making it nearly impossible to discern any difference in picture quality between televisions, specifically in terms of contrast and black levels (the pictures above are of the same value priced display, at left, under normal home lighting, at right, how it looks under some store lighting setups.) Tested with an illuminance meter, all the stores (except Best Buy's Magnolia showrooms) averaged well above home ambient lighting levels, with Wal-Mart and Costco measuring the highest at 411.66 and 742.77 lux. Still, there's tips on how to get a good idea of a TV's black levels even under those c ...

Along with selling unknowing consumers $80 HDMI cables that they could buy online for a few bucks, HDTV retailers other longtime scam is to boost the brightness in their stores (including on the sets themselves) to entice buyers. Why? In part because bright screens can mask poor black-level performance on cheaper sets. But then [...]