August TV sale
Discussion
normalbloke said:
Refurbed TVs? Is there such a thing?
You can buy just about any electrical product as refurbished. Regardless what it is they don’t throw away their returns.OP the biggest sellers of refurbed and graded TVs are Appliances Direct and Electronic World. Panasonic also dispose of a lot of theirs direct on their official eBay page
Saleen836 said:
normalbloke said:
Refurbed TVs? Is there such a thing?
Have you never seen the guys going arund in the van with refurbed tv's? all nice and shiney and wrapped in cling film that when you get them home you discover they are crap items that have most likely been taken from a tipSony's official partner
https://centresdirect.co.uk/c-46-refurbished_tv.as...
Various grade A1 to A3
https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/ct/refurbished/...
Laptops direct sell refurbs too
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/bct/tv-and-home-en...
https://centresdirect.co.uk/c-46-refurbished_tv.as...
Various grade A1 to A3
https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/ct/refurbished/...
Laptops direct sell refurbs too
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/bct/tv-and-home-en...
Ridealong said:
Sony's official partner
https://centresdirect.co.uk/c-46-refurbished_tv.as...
Various grade A1 to A3
https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/ct/refurbished/...
Laptops direct sell refurbs too
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/bct/tv-and-home-en...
Nice onehttps://centresdirect.co.uk/c-46-refurbished_tv.as...
Various grade A1 to A3
https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/ct/refurbished/...
Laptops direct sell refurbs too
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/bct/tv-and-home-en...
I’m not convinced many of the savings are worthwhile. Take the Samsung Q60A 55 inch at appliances direct. All ex display selling for £807. The same TV new from AO is £849. Is it really worth saving £42 so pretty much 5% but having to put up with a used item. Lots of other prices are also similar savings
craigjm said:
I’m not convinced many of the savings are worthwhile. Take the Samsung Q60A 55 inch at appliances direct. All ex display selling for £807. The same TV new from AO is £849. Is it really worth saving £42 so pretty much 5% but having to put up with a used item. Lots of other prices are also similar savings
Yes, I've figured the same out pretty quickly and thought I was missing something. . . . . which leads nicely onto the next question, how can you figure out which model is best ( examples Sony 40inch TV models may look like 40JHN221003Y or 40JMK221145H ( I've just used random keys after 40 )) thus offering a decent value?mgsontour said:
craigjm said:
I’m not convinced many of the savings are worthwhile. Take the Samsung Q60A 55 inch at appliances direct. All ex display selling for £807. The same TV new from AO is £849. Is it really worth saving £42 so pretty much 5% but having to put up with a used item. Lots of other prices are also similar savings
Yes, I've figured the same out pretty quickly and thought I was missing something. . . . . which leads nicely onto the next question, how can you figure out which model is best ( examples Sony 40inch TV models may look like 40JHN221003Y or 40JMK221145H ( I've just used random keys after 40 )) thus offering a decent value?Go to RicherSounds, they will price match Currys or John Lewis and give 5 or 6 years guarantees.
The models numbers should give away the year of the model, the class, the series and sometimes sold by Currys or John Lewis.
https://en.tab-tv.com/?p=12043
The models numbers should give away the year of the model, the class, the series and sometimes sold by Currys or John Lewis.
https://en.tab-tv.com/?p=12043
craigjm said:
Many people on here are fanboys of a certain brand and the advice you will get here will almost certainly be "buy a panasonic". I have never subscribed to that. What I would do in your position is go onto a site like John Lewis and list all the TVs and then use the filters on the left to narrow it down choosing the screen size you want, the type of screen, any particular features you want, the resolution etc etc and the price range and it will narrow down the selection for you to choose from. Then go and look at a couple to see that they have a picture quality and sound quality you like and after that when you have chosen one do a google search to see who is selling it the cheapest and buy from there. Bear in mind that the TV companies release new TVs annually and the closer it comes to their refresh time the easier it is to pick up a bargain. Samsung refresh in March normally for instance so in late Jan and Feb you can get a deal on the outgoing model. Not sure when the others refresh but a quick google will give you the info you need.
Whilst I can't disagree about the fanboys comment, some of the rest of the advice in this reply is either inaccurate in the current economic climate or just monumentally bad. "see who is selling it the cheapest and buy from there" Really? That's a great way to get shafted if something goes wrong with the telly.
Recent history tells us that the chances of a TV having backlight problems outside of the manufacturer's warranty period have risen dramatically with LG primarily but also some Samsung models. This is mainly on their lower and midrange sets, and it's since HDR became a core feature. Both brands are putting too few backlights in their TVs. The result is that those that remain are being overworked. The sets either get purple patches as the backlights start to burn out, or lose backlighting completely as one or more LEDs simply pop and short out the whole backlight set.
Buy from an established reseller offering a long warranty. This is either John Lewis or Richersounds. Both have keen prices already, and will price match local stores if they're selling cheaper (Costco?).
Price erosion on TVs used to follow the pattern suggested, but that can no longer be relied upon. (It's not much help either to someone looking to buy today rather than wait it out.) COVID and Brexit have both thrown major spanners in the works. The overriding factor now is supply. I'm not just talking about whether the store has stock, but about the whole supply chain right the way back to the component suppliers. Everything has been disrupted. This partly explains why the savings on refurbed models are often laughable.
If it's difficult to get hold of new stock for a reseller, then getting the most out of whatever stock they can lay their hands on is their next option. This has been the pattern for the past 12 months or so. Things are improving, but it will still take some time before we get back to the commodity surplus situation of the past.
mgsontour said:
Yes, I've figured the same out pretty quickly and thought I was missing something. . . . . which leads nicely onto the next question, how can you figure out which model is best ( examples Sony 40inch TV models may look like 40JHN221003Y or 40JMK221145H ( I've just used random keys after 40 )) thus offering a decent value?
IME "value" means different things to people. For some folk it's simply the biggest screen for the lowest cost from an acceptable brand. For others it could be the TV with the biggest range of apps. To me, 'value' means the TV that gives the best viewing experience, so I look at the panel type, the backlighting, the scaling, which HDR formats are supported, that sort of stuff. https://www.rtings.com/tv has become a useful site for tests on a broad range of TVs not just higher-end models. This is a U.S. based site and so some model numbers are different for the same set between the States and Europe. Other models are made for the States only. You'll soon get the gist of it though with a bit of reading. Google is your friend.
In my own case, the TV in my lounge is a Panasonic GX800. At the time I bought it was the best performing TV in its price range which also supported DolbyVision. If I was buying today, with a similar amount of money, I'd have the Sony HX9505. If we didn't need to run subtitles for my wife then my choice would have been OLED then and again today.
Part of my AV business includes installing aerials. I'm in a lot of folks houses, and so I see a lot of TVs. Budget brands such as Sharp, Hitachi, Bush etc all have a common trait that their picture scaling is fairly poor. They make SD TV transmissions look quite ropey. It's not helped by the TVs being on Dynamic mode. This makes things such as the sharpness and contrast overdone. Even after adjusting properly though, the lack of processing power in these tellies shows through. It probably doesn't help either that in some homes the family is sat on top of the biggest TV size they could afford. It always means that the jam is spread extra thin.
In order to be of any more assistance, we really need to know your budget for the anticipated screen size, and whether it's a bright or shaded room, plus any specific requirements such as HDR format support.
craigjm said:
Lucid AV.... I didnt say dont buy from a reputable source, I thought that would be a given for anyone who isnt thick which is why I used the example of JL. Personally I would buy it from JL or Richer Sounds for the decent warranties
I'm not trying to make a big issue out of it, and it might not be what you had in mind, but it came across as "buy from the cheapest vendor, no matter who that is". I'll repeat, it might not be what you were thinking, but that's how it read. - In fact, scratch that - Rereading your original post just to check I haven't got hold of the wrong end of the stick, you advocate exactly what I've said; Shortlist via the JLP web site, then go to their stores to view, then search online for the cheapest seller and by from there.
Setting aside the thick insult for a moment, one of the reasons why the TV industry is in such dire straits with a lack of decent high street retailers offering decent support is partly because of advice such as yours which amounts to 'go look at it at the dummy's shop; the idiots who spend money keeping a retail store open and stocked with tellies. Use them as a demo facility. Take up their time, and use their knowledge, then go buy it "a fiver cheaper" online from someone you've never heard of'.
Don't get me wrong, there are lots and lots of other reasons why the High Street TV shop is no more, but this price paranoia is a significant factor.
Absolutely but thats the problem with online shopping these days isnt it. People do just that, go to a store to view and there buy from the cheapest legitimate seller online. companies like AO and Amazon of course have really changed how we buy any electrical item. There will come a day when the likes of JL and Currys wont be in bricks and mortar for us to go and have a look which will be a real shame but most people put convenience over all else these days.
I tend to find that for most people, when it comes to buying TVs they just stick with the brand they have had and know. Its rare for people to have a samsung in the lounge, a panasonic in the dining room, a sony in the bedroom and an LG in the spare room. Cue loads of people now saying thats exactly their setup
I tend to find that for most people, when it comes to buying TVs they just stick with the brand they have had and know. Its rare for people to have a samsung in the lounge, a panasonic in the dining room, a sony in the bedroom and an LG in the spare room. Cue loads of people now saying thats exactly their setup
Online selling certainly made shopping by price easier, but doing that has always been around.
Even before the Internet, Tottenham Court Road dealers and others up and down the country would advertise in the back of the Hi-Fi and AV press. Often it was amazing deals on stock they couldn't get because it was in high demand. The idea was to hook prospective customers and then lead them along so far until they could switch sell to another seemingly amazing deal that they just happened to have in stock.
Brand loyalty has been eroding for a long time. The biggest shift in the TV market came with the introduction of flat-screen TV; fist plasma, then LCD. Had anyone really heard of Fujitsu as a consumer brand before they brought the first plasma screens to the mass-market?
The Koreans couldn't break the stranglehold that Sony and Panasonic and the 2nd-tier Japanese and European brands had on the UK CRT TV market. Samsung and LG had been around for years, but never really got any traction with CRT. That all changed though with LCD. Proactive marketing and aggressive pricing strategies tuned consumers to new brands.
Perhaps the biggest killer blow to the High Street though was the supermarkets. When they started selling made up brands (e.g. Techwood, Technika, Linsar, Durabrand etc) and their suppliers started buying up and licensing well-known brands for unrelated products (Polaroid, Blaupunkt, Wharfedale) then any pretence that the bulk of UK consumers cared about brand pretty-much evaporated.
The supermarkets soon realised they could sell any old crap so long as it was big and cheap; so they did. In the process, they dragged the trade in to the gutter. The sort of tat-level that consumers would have skipped over five or ten years before in favour of a second-tier brand such as Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Sharp, or Philips became mainstream. We hit new depths when people were fighting over P-O-S Polaroid TVs in ASDA.
This won't be popular to say because it goes against what the media love to preach about Rip-Off Britain, but the Government really screwed consumers when it changed the retail rules. Abolishing RRPs just caused confusion about value. But worse than that, forcing manufacturers to open accounts with any Tom, Dick or Harry and so abandon dealer agreements with stock plans, training and aftersales support made the consumer goods trade worse for the public, not better.
That's the crux of it: "the consumer goods trade worse for the public, not better."
Cheaper consumer goods prices has always happened. It is driven by competition between manufacturers. There was never anything stopping authorised dealers discounting products very heavily. This happened before the Government started tinkering. But, in order to be able to sell those goods at whatever the retailer saw fit to charge, they first had to satisfy some basic requirements to prove they could support the products. That got wiped away for brown goods (TVs, VCRs, DVD players etc) when the Government interfered. It opened the floodgates for "entrepreneurs" if you want to call them that to simply take a manufacturer's price list and mark it up by enough to cover credit card fees and a small operating percentage. There was no longer a requirement to hold stock. They didn't need to have a service department, and no requirement for demo stock and a shop floor. They could just cherry-pick the hot products and forget the rest.
The end consequence hasn't just been dealer closures. That's simply the most visible aspect. It has caused a massive restructuring of the manufacturers too. Some have drastically reduced their ranges. Others have shut up shop completely. The result now is less choice for consumers, not more. Fewer outlets to buy from; fewer product choices; less innovation.
Even before the Internet, Tottenham Court Road dealers and others up and down the country would advertise in the back of the Hi-Fi and AV press. Often it was amazing deals on stock they couldn't get because it was in high demand. The idea was to hook prospective customers and then lead them along so far until they could switch sell to another seemingly amazing deal that they just happened to have in stock.
Brand loyalty has been eroding for a long time. The biggest shift in the TV market came with the introduction of flat-screen TV; fist plasma, then LCD. Had anyone really heard of Fujitsu as a consumer brand before they brought the first plasma screens to the mass-market?
The Koreans couldn't break the stranglehold that Sony and Panasonic and the 2nd-tier Japanese and European brands had on the UK CRT TV market. Samsung and LG had been around for years, but never really got any traction with CRT. That all changed though with LCD. Proactive marketing and aggressive pricing strategies tuned consumers to new brands.
Perhaps the biggest killer blow to the High Street though was the supermarkets. When they started selling made up brands (e.g. Techwood, Technika, Linsar, Durabrand etc) and their suppliers started buying up and licensing well-known brands for unrelated products (Polaroid, Blaupunkt, Wharfedale) then any pretence that the bulk of UK consumers cared about brand pretty-much evaporated.
The supermarkets soon realised they could sell any old crap so long as it was big and cheap; so they did. In the process, they dragged the trade in to the gutter. The sort of tat-level that consumers would have skipped over five or ten years before in favour of a second-tier brand such as Toshiba, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Sharp, or Philips became mainstream. We hit new depths when people were fighting over P-O-S Polaroid TVs in ASDA.
This won't be popular to say because it goes against what the media love to preach about Rip-Off Britain, but the Government really screwed consumers when it changed the retail rules. Abolishing RRPs just caused confusion about value. But worse than that, forcing manufacturers to open accounts with any Tom, Dick or Harry and so abandon dealer agreements with stock plans, training and aftersales support made the consumer goods trade worse for the public, not better.
That's the crux of it: "the consumer goods trade worse for the public, not better."
Cheaper consumer goods prices has always happened. It is driven by competition between manufacturers. There was never anything stopping authorised dealers discounting products very heavily. This happened before the Government started tinkering. But, in order to be able to sell those goods at whatever the retailer saw fit to charge, they first had to satisfy some basic requirements to prove they could support the products. That got wiped away for brown goods (TVs, VCRs, DVD players etc) when the Government interfered. It opened the floodgates for "entrepreneurs" if you want to call them that to simply take a manufacturer's price list and mark it up by enough to cover credit card fees and a small operating percentage. There was no longer a requirement to hold stock. They didn't need to have a service department, and no requirement for demo stock and a shop floor. They could just cherry-pick the hot products and forget the rest.
The end consequence hasn't just been dealer closures. That's simply the most visible aspect. It has caused a massive restructuring of the manufacturers too. Some have drastically reduced their ranges. Others have shut up shop completely. The result now is less choice for consumers, not more. Fewer outlets to buy from; fewer product choices; less innovation.
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