Black Friday Looming Large

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, kicks off the holiday shopping season and is both highly anticipated and seriously dreaded in the retail community. Most stores are promoting some signficant sales in connection with the annual event, including this latest missive from Wal-Mart that expands Black Friday to include Thanksgiving Day as well, at least online.

It's somewhat funny that in Wal-Mart's press release, the retail giant highlights specials on Polaroid HDTVs because five minutes earlier, I received a press release from the Home Theater Specialists of America (HTSA) discouraging people from buying low-end brand HDTVs like Polaroid. From that release I quote:

"Even more disturbing is the poor or non-existent warranties on many less expensive models. Flat panel TVs are still high technology. Consumers who shell out $599 and $699 for a large flat panel are expecting manufacturers to stand behind their product if a problem arises. With these cheap models, though, the consumer is often on their own even within the limited one year warranty period. With Polaroid's HDTVs, for example, they will not repair them after the warranty period expires. So buy a Polaroid today, have a problem 366 days from now, and it's a good as junk. "

Now HTSA may have a point about the warranty issue. The problem is the model lines they encourage people to buy are all at the higher end of the brand spectrum, specifically "Sharp D92, LG Opus, Hitachi V Series & Director Series, Pioneer Kuro and Sony XBR 4 and 5." Not that these aren't great HDTVs because they are, but many people can't afford them. When faced with the choice between a lesser brand HDTV and no HDTV at all, I would vote for the non-brand name HDTV every time.