Purchasing Plasma TV online (1 Viewer)

[Fran Lu]

In the process of gathering info for my new home theater.

I'm leaning towards purchasing the Panasonic TH42PHD6UY. If I'm correct, this is a commercial model correct? Does anyone currently have this model? I'm curious to know people's thoughts. How does this compare to the consumer model?

Also - I'm a little cautious about ordering online, considering the fragile nature of Plasmas. Is there anyone that has had good success with ordering a Plasma online? Which dealer? Was the process comfortable, and did any issues arise? What precautions, or questions should I ask before ordering from a particular online dealer?

 

[JoshuaT]

My parents bought a plasma online and it had several "spots" in it. They returned it and bought it brick and mortar.

~josh

 

[Edwin_H]

My suggestion is head over to Link Removed
Lisa is fantastic and I had an absolutely wonderful experience getting a Panasonic PWD5UY from her a little over a year ago. Head over to the site and check out her prices. They cannot be beat and her customer service is top notch. Tell her Edwin sent you.


Edwin

 

[Mort Corey]

The commercial models are "ship back" vs "in home" for any warranty service. The picture quality should be the same. Consumer models come with built in tuners and several different inputs where the commercial model offers optional plug in cards for various inputs. Consumer models come with stands and speakers and the commercial models do not.

As far as shipping goes, they get here from all the way across the sea OK

Mort

 

[RoyGBiv]

I also bought my plasma, the Th-50PHD6UY from Lisa at plasmaextreme. They were wonderful. I ordered it on Monday and received in on Saturday. It was sent by truck across the country from Seattle to RI. The price was excellent and included shipping, but I paid $50 extra to ensure that two people would deliver it. The guys who did were great. They took off the outer box out at the truck while I watched. The inside box was perfect, and that was what they carried into the house. The plasma was in perfect condition. They unpacked it and laid it against the wall and waited until I plugged it in and could make sure it worked before they asked me to sign anything. It works great, and I have not had a single problem.

OTOH, you should be aware of several things. First, as stated above this display does not come with a tuner of any kind. For me that makes no difference. It does not have any speakers. I knew this going in, and I bought a pair of relatively inexpensive speakers to use for when I just want to listen to the news. They work fine with the 10 watt amp the display has. It doesn't come with a stand. I didn't care because I was wall mounting it, so I was happy not to pay for something I wouldn't be using. From the factory it only has 3 inputs: 1 component (Y, Pr, Pb) input with BNC connectors. This is important to remember. 1 VGA or component input via D15 connector, and 1 input that is EITHER s-video or composite (if you have connectors plugged into both, the s-video supercedes the composite). For me this was fine.

Also, as stated above it requires you to send it out for warranty service. I am hoping that for me it won't amount to anything, and so far I haven't been close to needing a service call. But, I also have to remember that I saved over $3000 from buying it on line. That would easily pay the expense of getting it to a service center if I needed to. You also have to remember that for every horror story you hear about having to send it out for service, you hear horror stories from people who had in-home service form a B&M store where the service people had no idea what they were doing.

I was very leery of buying anything this large via the internet, but Lisa was a pleasure to work with, I had the TV faster than if I had bought it locally, I saved a bunch of money, and I am very happy with the display I received.

SMK