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HDTV again a Black Friday treat

by on20 November 2012

y money

Pricing so low that it is worth buying

So we told you about the prices of HDTVs this holiday season being the best ever; and honestly, we have to admit that the sheer number of offers and the numbers of sets to compare took us some time. We evaluated the sets based on brand quality, features, size, and (of course) their bang for the buck. Keeping this in mind, you might decide that some of our picks could differ from yours. We prefer a good price on a name brand that we can find feedback on.

That said, we wanted to again remind you of our 50” to 55” size range picks for the Black Friday deals this year. We liked some Samsung and Proscan models that were a bit more expensive, but our choice would be the Toshiba 50L2200U at Sears. The 50L2200U is a nice 1080p LED (yes, that’s right LED… not LCD) set that offers a number of inputs; and while it only has 2 HDMI inputs and a 60Hz refresh rate, we can overlook that when you see the $299 price tag. By way of comparison, Best Buy is selling the same set in its Black Friday offerings for $100 more.

If the 50” to 55” sets are too big for you, you are not going to be happy with our choice in something smaller. While we looked at a number of sets in the 40” to 47” range, we only came up with two sets we could settle on. The first is the Toshiba 40E220U LCD 1080p set at Best Buy for $179. However, we have to mention that we did really like the RCA 46LA45RQ 46” set at K-Mart for $299. If you need something smaller than 50”, but don’t want the 40”, this $299 set will get the job done; but we have to say that normally at this price we would move up to the 50” Toshiba 50L2200U at Sears for the same money.

If bigger is better and you have the room for a 60”+ set, we had a number of sets to choose from that were good performers and offered a lot more bang for the performance buck because of the simple fact they cost more. Our pick, hands down, is the Sharp Aquos 60” 1080p, or the LC-60LE600U LED set at Best Buy. Despite the fact that everyone else seems to be picking the Vizio E601i-A3 60” 1080p LED set at Walmart for $688 as their top pick at this size, we think the Sharp LC-60LE600U over the long haul is worth the extra scratch, making it a top deal at this size. In our mind, the Vizio finishes a close second, but if price is what matters the E601i-A3 at Walmart offers a dizzying array of features and a solid 1080p LED picture. But if you have the extra money to spend, you just might prefer the picture on the Sharp over the Vizio.


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