{"id":3812,"date":"2017-11-26T20:16:23","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T03:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nigerianews.ca\/?p=3812"},"modified":"2017-11-26T20:16:23","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T03:16:23","slug":"tvs-getting-less-expensive-ever-lets-take-look-back-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nigerianews.ca\/tvs-getting-less-expensive-ever-lets-take-look-back-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Are TVs getting more or less expensive than ever? Let’s take a look back to see"},"content":{"rendered":"
November 27, 2017: \u00a0It’s an old adage that technology gets better and cheaper every year. But how true is that? There are certainly more inexpensive products every year, but often those less-expensive products perform worse than average. They’re just cheaper, but not as “good.”<\/div>\n
\nIf you look at the best TVs on the market, they’re still pretty expensive. But how does that compare to the best offerings from a few years ago? Most people don’t remember what they paid for their last TV, never mind a TV from 20 years ago. For that matter, how much did the best TV cost in 1997?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
To start our comparison, let’s use the LG B7A OLED. It’s nearly identical to the\u00a0C7 OLED, our current Best TV pick.<\/p>\n
The 55-inch has an MSRP of $3,000 for a price-per-inch of about $2.32. However, that’s the MSRP. They’re currently as low as $1,500 for lack Friday 2017. So in terms of screen area, that’s $1.24 per square inch, which is pretty amazing for the TV that has the best performance of the year, and by extension, some of the best performance of a TV ever.<\/p>\n
This is in today’s dollars because, well, it’s today. As we go back in time, I’ll use the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s inflation calculator and list the prices in today’s dollars as well.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2012 (5 years ago)<\/h2>\n<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Plasma! Ah the good old days. Well, sort of. Plasma TVs were great, but these are still old TVs. Today’s OLEDs are brighter, have better color, have higher resolution, and more. 4K was still on the horizon five years ago, but already creating waves.<\/p>\n
The VT50 series was an amazing television for 2012, and not ridiculously expensive: $2,500 for a 55-inch. In today’s dollars, that’s a fairly close $2,680. And price-per-screen-area is pretty close to today’s OLED. OLED’s MSRP anyway.<\/p>\n
It’s a little misleading, though, because plasmas always had a fantastic price-to-performance ratio. The similarly priced LCDs didn’t look as good and weren’t as well reviewed. The great LCD of 2012 that did look amazing was the slightly larger Sharp Elite PRO-60X5FD, which retailed for a brutal $6,000 ($3.91 PPSI). Think about that: you can get a 65-inch OLED today that’s larger and HDR\/WCGfor a fraction of the price of that TV. That’s progress.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
2007 (10 years ago)<\/h2>\n<\/span>Sarah Tew\/CNET<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Pioneer Elite Kuro PRO-110FD: $7,046 <\/strong> \nPPSI: $6.60<\/strong><\/p>\n
The legendary Pioneer Kuro. It is to TVs what the Porsche 959\u00a0was to cars: cutting-edge technological brilliance that was too far ahead of its time to last long. Though I assume Pioneer hoped to make Kuros far longer than Porscheplanned on making the 959.<\/p>\n
This TV was a revelation in contrast ratio and picture quality. When I reviewed it, I called it the “best TV ever.” When David reviewed the following year’s model, he said “The Pioneer Elite PRO-111FD represents the pinnacle of flat-panel HDTV picture quality.”<\/p>\n
It was also expensive. $6,000 then, $7,046 in today’s dollars. And get this: that was just for the 50-inch, for a PPSI of $6.60. Ouch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1997 (20 years ago)<\/h2>\n<\/span>Fujitsu<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Sony KV-35XBR48 CRT TV: $3,821<\/strong> \nPPSI: $5.83<\/strong><\/p>\n
1997 was the year the first flat-panel TVs really hit the consumer market (Fujitsu having started plasma production in late 1996). This TV was flat. It was the future. It was expensive. It\u2026 looked terrible. This was an ugly, ugly TV.<\/p>\n
CRTs of the era, like this Sony, weren’t much smaller, diagonally, and offered significantly better picture quality. For $15,000, it wasn’t even HD! 852×480 pixels.<\/p>\n
Today you can get 3,840×2,160 pixels, plus more color, contrast, brightness, and way more screen, for less than 5 percent of the cost of this TV when new.<\/p>\n
In comparison, the best TVs of the day were CRTs. Scratch that. The only TVs of the day. Rear-projection TVs were capable of a bigger picture, but for the best image, direct-view CRTs ruled. Sony owned this category for most of the last half of the 20th century. How about a Sony KV-35XBR48? $2,500, progressive scan, and despite the name, a massive 37-inch screen. How about them S-video inputs? Plus, it only weighs 200 pounds!<\/p>\n
There were perhaps better TVs in 1997, but the internet isn’t what it is now.<\/p>\n