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Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (175258)	10/25/2005 10:14:04 PM
From: Meathead	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

John, I think Dell's strategy in the big screen market will rely heavily on the fact that soon, many won't need to see the screen before they buy... similar to the way PC's are now sold today. Dell will want to establish itself as a brand name in this market that is synonymous with 'best in class' and the biggest bang for the buck so the consumer is compelled to compare every thing else against them. Dell can win customers by consistently placing at the top of big screen TV reviews like CNET, AVS forum, big screen roundups or any of a myriad of tests where videophiles compare all of the top brands in those head to head competitions. If you regularly garner, top pick, best overall value, editors choice or whatever, it can really drive sales and mindshare. re: how many folks will want to actually 'see' these screens before they buy Dell sells more LCD panels than anyone on the planet, mostly sight unseen. The quality and price are unbeatable and the reviewers always rank them high. re: going to your local Best Buy and checking out 50 screens I've done this countless times and always walk away frustrated. I'm convinced I can not adequately assess the quality of a BIG screen in the (insert fav BIG box retailer here) environment. Not saying it can't be done, it just doesn't work for me. Lets face it, to the average Joe, or even the above average Joe, the daunting world of video specs are no less confusing than a Chinese menu written in Hebrew. Walk into any Best Buy, Frys etc. and you are hard pressed to compare anything side by side because, the BIG SCREENs you want to compare literally, aren't side-by-side. Add to that trying to master multiple remotes and get all the settings to comparable values. And even worse, the program material is changing so fast (usually movie trailers and the like) that you can never see the same image on both screens. It's an exercise in futility if you are trying to ferret out the finer nuances of two or more competing brands. And for the most part, for top brands like Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, etc in a particular category like DLP or LCD at a similar screen size and price point, the differences are SUBTLE. One might have a bit more luck at these so called 'high end' retailers but expect to pay dearly for the privilege of buying from them. Or, we can let the internet video snobs hook up all their fancy test patterns and light meters to do all the exhaustive testing to inform us which one has the best black levels, convergence, fewest digital artifacts etc, etc. Who are we to argue? Then all we have to do is research ergonomics, feature set, I/O, etc and skillfully blend it all into a price we are willing to pay. I would bet many already do that today and just go down to the store to pick-up what they have already decided on. Sure we all stand there and stare awestruck at all the big bright brilliant displays but it's just not a good place to really evaluate the product much less compare the competition. Seems counter intuitive doesn't it? re; how well Dell can do ship/install of these systems on a mass scale Doubt Dell will offer much in the way of installation services. Then again, these things are lightweight and no more difficult to hook up than a PC for most applications. And let's face it, they are far simpler to use! A well designed user manual, hook-up and troubleshooting guide can go a long way towards de-mystifying the experience. And I guarantee you that TV's will generate far, far fewer service calls than today's typical PC's. But I hear your point about the less savvy being totally confused about advanced hookups and setups. I could tell you stories.... ok, here's just one.. A few years back my neighbor bought a 61" Toshiba projection HDTV for ~$2500. Several months later he invited us over for drinks and to marvel over this thing. Well the first thing I noticed was the picture looked like crap. If you've ever seen a standard NTSC broadcast picture on that big of a screen you know what I'm talking about. Turns out he had a SA 2100 non-HD cable box plugged in thru the S-Video connection. He was under the impression that because it was a HDTV, everything he was seeing was High Definition. I said no man, "you need an HDTV receiver hooked up with component video and a real HD broadcast". He was happy as a clam, blissfully ignorant and would have never known the difference until someone told him otherwise. I won't even go into how his 5.1 speaker system was set up... MEATHEAD