My 7 year old 100Hz 29″ Grundig IDTV has gone haywire in the past week. The service man came to have it fixed last Thursday for some HKD$400 on-sight and labour costs and another HKD$430 for parts, which lasted 2 days and then back with the same problem. He will be coming again next Tuesday and that could mean more money on top of the repair warranty.
This week, even though we have another 14″ in our living room and a 21″ in our bedroom, I find that I quite enjoy the more quiet moments at home.
Normally we would have the TV on almost night long. However, the TV was out just in time for Alec’s new school term which he would now be doing homework at night anyway. I find having the 14″ on even for news was either to low a volume to hear the contents of the news or too loud for comfort. So I just have it shout off all together and listen to some light music either on CD or the radio.
I was thinking my next TV would be a HKD$8K projector. That is, in hope of entry level DLP projectors would come down to that price line when the Grundig is dead. This is now about 2 years earlier than I’d expected.
I did some checking around and found that the entry level DLP’s are now about HKD$11K. However, one has to buy a screen, a long cable, and a bit of installation. Yet a 25″ TV is about HKD$3K, which is really good considering 21″’s are about HKD$2.2K, and one would really need a 100Hz tube to view a 29″ comfortably, which is around HKD$10K.
So, if on Tuesday I needed to pay just a few hundred dollars to have it fixed, I’d have it fixed. If a main board were needed, which I was told that it could run me just over HK$2K, I’d just have them fix it just like they did last time under the repair warranty and then sell it to a street hocker. Then I would just get a 25″ for HKD$3K for now, and wait for a couple of years before I get a projector.
I also just read that the going price for a replacement 3000hr bulb on the HKD$11K DLP is about HKD$2.8K! That gives me another reason to wait.
WhaUSay?!