Flat Panels Rule, Boob Tube All But Dead

[Nick]

Are you still thinking TV means CRT?

REDWOOD CITY, California (AP) -- The lone conventional television set at Anderson's
TV store sat along a side wall like a castoff. Its screen was dark as dozens of other
gleaming flat-panel and big-screen models flashed nearby with vivid color images.

The staff at the Redwood City store hadn't even bothered to turn on the cathode-ray
tube TV until a reporter asked to see it on a recent afternoon.

The obvious neglect reflected the wallflower status of today's CRT TVs, as well as the
mature technology's doomed future. Experts say the old-fashioned boob tube that
catered to generations of Americans will soon be all but extinct.

"It's already dead, but it doesn't know it yet," said Jon Paul Belstler, an audio/video
consultant at Anderson's. "It's just trying to hang on."

Across stores and in homes, sleek LCD and plasma televisions are taking over. ...

More @ CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/10/23/tube.tv.decline.ap/index.html)

[wakajawaka]

I know that HD on a CRT set looks amazing, but I will never buy another CRT set for as long as I live. The last CRT set I bought was a 36 incher, weighed a ton, big bulky a pain to move. Compare that to my 61 inch rear projection that my wife and I can easily move around and my 32 inch lcd, which hangs on the wall, no comparison.

[James Long]

Tube TVs are a good way to get into HD cheaply. The main drawback being the limit on the size of a tube and the weight. Perhaps my next set will be a projection or LCD - but the prices are going to have to come down.

[FTA Michael]

Ditto to wakajawaka. When our CRT died a few months ago, we went to an LCD because of the weight/footprint factor. And because it looks great. :D

[Earl Bonovich]

Also too from a retail point of view....

Stores Like Best Buy, CC, and others.
Can stock more types and quanity of "flat" TV's, then they could the CRTs.

They are lighter, and "safer" to display... since most of them can BOLT down.

When evern I am Best Buy, I look at some of the 26+" glass tubes on a shelf, that is over my son's head, and I fear some day somewhere we are going to hear a story about the shelf giving way.


Plus with Online... there is little way they are going to make good profit/sales on glass/crt's... shipping is just going to be too out rageous.

[Cholly]

Several of the major manufacturers have already abandoned CRT receivers. If memory serves me, Panasonic, JVC and Toshiba either have discontinued them or will do so by year's end.

[JM Anthony]

I've been enjoying a 61" Sammy DLP for the last 3 years and I know I wouldn't go back. Great PQ at a great price.

John