Mr. G’s TV

The Goods

Mr. G called me up mentioning that he had just moved into a new apartment. Since his former roomie had take the TV and DVD player, Mr. G was in the market.

Normally this would be the point at which I feverishly research the options: How big? Plasma or LCD? What is your budget? However, as luck would have it, I had an excellent lead already on a great TV. Turns out it was the right size and well within his budget. The last decision was Plasma vs LCD. We discussed the pros and cons of each and decided that based on his specs, Plasma was the way to go.

We headed over to our local Costco since that was where I had initially seen this TV. It was a Panasonic Viera. It seemed right but we definitely cruised the TV aisles for a good 15 minutes just to be sure before finally settling back on the Panasonic.

Panasonic Viera

Unfortunately I had to take the picture at a funny angle because of the flash, so the picture looks washed out and gray, however, in person, it is stunning picture quality.

We loaded it up in the cart:

In the cart

We got into a bit of a panic for a second because it just barely fit in the back of Mr. G’s car.

Barely in the car

In addition to the TV, we picked up an up-converting DVD player and a nice little black piano finish TV stand from Fry’s Electronics that matched the TV and DVD player perfectly.

Back at Mr. G’s place, we grabbed a couple of beers and worked on assembling the stand and set up the TV and DVD player in about an hour and tossed Entourage in the DVD player. The picture looked great and the only thing missing was a was a nice comfy couch to relax on. Fortunately, that is coming in the next week or so.

Here is a picture of the final set up. You can see the quality of the picture is great. My cruddy cameramanship can be noted again with the blurring on the screen. Lay off me! I’m still learning how to use this camera!

Final setup

Final rundown of the goods:

  • Panasonic Viera 42″ Plasma TC42PX14 (this may be a Costco specific model) – $650
  • Toshiba Up-Converting DVD Player SD series – $50
  • Piano Finish and Glass TV Stand – $110
  • Total with tax: Less than $900!

In Mr. G’s own words…

Mr. G has graciously offered to write a bit in his own words so I’m hoping to have those in a week or two. I’ll put a post on the main page when I get it, so don’t be too concerned about checking over here.