We were getting due for a new TV. Our current one is a 36″ Toshiba that we bought in August of 2001. For it’s time, it was a bad-ass TV. We got more compliments on that thing than I can count. But 6 years later and the TV world is a very different place. I’m no different and the HD bug bit me in the ass too.

I always mulled it over. The HD offerings are still pretty slim, technology will only get better and prices will only go lower. I always kept my eye on reviews, news and info from the HDTV front. I saw my parents TV. As little as a week ago I’d have told you we’d probably hook up with a new HDTV around the holidays and that I’d certaily be getting a Sony SXRD model.

How quickly things change.

I was pissing around looking at TV’s this past Sunday and stumbled across a pretty sweet deal on Best Buy. Sony’s “E” series of TV’s were dropping prices. Admittedly this isn’t the SXRD technology I was after, but the price was enticing. We stopped in to check the TV out on Monday. Looking at it side-by-side with the “A” series, I wasn’t sold.

The next day we got Best Buy Rewards members coupons in the mail. 12% off of TV’s. Supposedly not good on sale prices, but nothing I thought I couldn’t get around. The deal was looking a little better. I started contemplating.

In the store I could see a difference between the “A” series with SXRD and this “E” series TV with LCD procjection…but I’m entirely pompous and anal when it comes to TV picture quality. My wife claimed no difference in her eyes and my daughter actually thought the “E” looked better. So I questioned myself? Sure the “A” series looked better, but did it look $900 better? I wasn’t sure it did.

Then on Wednesday I mentioned the TV to my mom. She was curious and pulled up the Best Buy site. The price she mentioned in passing was $200 lower than the price I saw just a couple of days earlier. I questioned her and she insisted she was looking at the right TV. I pulled up the site real quick and Best Buy did drop it another $200 since I last looked. Now I was really considering it. At this lower price, if I could get them to accept the 12% coupon, it would be a $1200 price difference between this TV and the same size “A” series TV.

We went back over to Best Buy on Wednesday night.

We left as new owners of a 55″ Sony TV.

I did a little research. When the TV first hit the market in March of last year it had a ‘list’ price of $3000. I scored it for right around 1/3rd of that price 15 months later. I’m ok with it. My plan is that it’s a nice way to get our feet wet with the HD thing. In another two years or so when everything starts switching over, we simply score a better quality TV and slip this one into the bedroom.

After less than 24 hours with the TV, my impressions are exactly as anticipated. With HD source material it looks anywhere from “really, really great” to “downright fucking astounding.” The catch is that with Time Warner cable we have something like 11 or 13 HD channels. Not exactly a plethora of choices.

The other 200 channels in SD range in quality from “bearable” to “I cannot even watch this mess of a picture for more than two seconds. Someone please gouge my eyes out. I long for the technical quality of your average YouTube offering.”

All in all I’m pleased. I just hate how a nice HDTV makes you realize how shitty the signal you’ve been watching for years is so horrible.

Without further ado, the before and after:

Can’t wait to get back from vacation and spend some time with it.