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Panasonic Plasma Pricing Preserved
Electronics | Nov 30, 05
Last weekend's press coverage of Black Friday was chock full of crazed shoppers storming big-box retailers, driven to a slobbering frenzy reminiscent of the zombie film "24 Days Later" by the deep discounting of retailers desperate to avoid a holiday bust. A similar story was reported on "Cyber Monday", as online shoppers scoured the web for even deeper discounts, particularly in electronics. And indeed, regular readers of this blog are familiar with the steep declines we've seen over the last year in the prices of digital cameras, flat screen televisions and other chip-and-pixel goodies. So it may come as some surprise that the plasma televisions of one leading producer have actually seen a firming in price over the weeks prior to the biggest shopping day of the year.
Consider the Panasonic TH-50PX50OU and TH-42PX50U, currently the third and fourth most popular television sets on this site, respectively. As you can see from the graphs below, in recent weeks each of these units has seen a price increase in the lowest price offered by vendors on PriceSCAN.com of between ten and twenty percent. To be sure, both televisions are still down twenty to thirty percent since their introductions earlier this year. Yet to see a price rise in the lead-up to the holiday shopping period is intriguing. Perhaps, for some products, the demand is a bit stronger, and/or the supply a drab tighter, than the "you have to cut prices to the bone to drive sales" school of thought would suggest.
Time Period: 6/20/2005 through 11/14/2005
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price
Time Period: 4/18/2005 through 11/14/2005
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price
Posted by jeffrey.trester at 4:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Sony Decides It Needs More Fiber
Computers | Nov 17, 05
The laptop business has become exceedingly competitive, with the machines themselves becoming increasingly commoditized. In such an environment, if a manufacturer wishes to have any more than a razor-thin profit margin it has to find some way to distinguish its products from its rivals. With the various computer makers using nearly identical microprocessors and memory, style and design become make or break factors. For some manufacturers this has meant the packaging of their laptops in sleek, lightweight cases, which is where Sony's new VAIO TX series comes in.
The TXs are Sony's line of light, multiple wireless-mode machines. The lack of heft comes from a carbon fiber and carbon composite case, allowing Sony to pack a remarkable number of powerful features into a less than three-pound machine. For example, the top of the line Sony VAIO TX670P/B has a 1.2 GHz Pentium M processor, 1024 MB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive, DVD-RW, modem, 10/100, bluetooth and 802.11 b/g wireless connectivity, and an 11.1 inch XBRITE display. Its also offers WAN via the Cingular EDGE network. Yet it's only 2.8 lbs in a 10.7"x 8.83"-1.12"x 7.7" case, thanks in part to that high fiber content. Equally remarkable is the fact that while the TX670P/B is quoted at $2,599.99 on the Sony site, there are currently vendors on PriceSCAN advertising this machine at less than $2,390. Only time will tell if this increase in fiber content can make Sony's earnings more, er, regular, but given their sleek, lightweight design, the VAIO TX series might convince you that fiber does in fact belong in more than your bran muffin.
Posted by jeffrey.trester at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
iPods: Less Video, Less Money
Electronics | Nov 8, 05
You can say one thing for the new iPods with Video: they've precipitated a huge drop in the price of non-video iPods. Many vendors still have significant inventory of discontinued models, and are now slashing the prices of iPods that only a couple of months ago seemed to be the “must-have” items of the year.
Consider the Apple iPod 60 GB with Color Display. As shown by the graph below, at the beginning of the year this item went for at least $550, while today it may be purchased for less than $330.
Time Period: 12/20/2004 through 10/31/2005
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price
That's also more than $50 less than the lowest price on a 60 GB iPod with Video (notice that even the video iPods were released far cheaper than comparable-memory non-video iPods were at the end of last year). Now this is only a good deal if you're not into paying for otherwise free network television so you can watch it on a one-inch screen. But if what you're really looking for in an iPod are features like music, picture display functionality and the kind of memory you can't get with a Nano, you might consider picking up one of these "obsolete" models before supplies run out.
Posted by jeffrey.trester at 5:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bradbury's Big Screen Nightmares Now Available - Cheap!
Electronics | Nov 2, 05
In his classic novel Fahrenheit 451, the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury imagined a future in which books were banned and burned. The principal weapons of mass distraction in this dystopia were wall-mounted, large-screen televisions displaying a constant stream of mindless entertainment, including "Cops"-like programs in which society's dissidents were hunted down and eliminated. Of course, Bradbury penned this tale in the 1950's, and back then the technology necessary to place these giant glowing monsters in every American home simply did not exist. But what a difference a half-century makes! Now you can cover the walls of your house with all the media oligopoly product your cerebrum can handle, and at prices that are dropping by the day.
For example, back on 8/15/2005 I told you about LG Electronics' MW-71PY10, a 72-inch plasma with 1080p resolution. Back then it was going for $50K, and its available now for under $28,600. Quite a drop in two and a half months, but perhaps you'd still rather take that money and buy a car. Have no fear; you can paint the room with HDTV for only a fraction of the LG's price. The 46-inch Samsung LT-P468W, currently the largest LCD set on PriceSCAN, would have run you about nine grand at this time last year, and today will cost you only $3,500.
After the Watergate scandal, Bradbury remarked that he'd now realized television could be used as a mechanism for the governed to keep tabs on the government, and not simply as a method of mass control. With this in mind, why not take advantage of plummeting prices and observe the new holiday season of fiascos, indictments and filibusters in room-filling high def?
Posted by jeffrey.trester at 4:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
