Just got the e-mail flyer for Micro Center’s 14 hour after christmas sale. At first glance the advertized prices look fine. As you know however it is always a good idea to review the fine print. Unfortunately every single price had roughly the same fine print. “Price after instant savingx and $xx MicroCenter mail in rebate.” Sorry, wrong answer.
I am sure that Micro Center is very reputable regarding rebates. In fact I have had reasonably good responses from them regarding those mail in rebates. However they all come with terms and conditions that must be read and followed carefully. And to be honest, I happen to think my time and energy is better spent finding even a slightly worse deal at one of MicroCenter’s competitors.
Take for example the 42″ LCD HDTV for $799. This price is a combination of an in store coupon, of which 25 are available, an in store rebate, and a $200 Micro Center mail in rebate. In other words, I am walking out of the store with a $999 hole in my finances that is being filled with a 42″ lcd ‘hdtv’ tv. I am also being offered the opportunity to get an additional $200 back for performing like a circus elephant.
So you may be wondering, is this really all that bad of a thing? Well let’s look at the alternatives.
BestBuy.com, Yep, for $999, I can walk away with a 32″ lcd tv. So this is an ok deal if you can get there in time.
CircuitCity.com – Looks like I cann pick up a 42″ DLP prjection screen for $899, no rebates required.
Since I receive quite a bit of my personal e-mail through gmail, including this ad, google ads has tossed in a few related ads as well. Found one for LCD TVs from a vendor, and this price is reasonably safe from them.
Being male, I might stop there, saying surely there isn’t za better deal to be found. But then I remembered some story showing up on Digg, and sure enough a quick check turned up this story http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9669342-1.html?tag=blog showing that BigLots is selling 42″ plasmas for 799. And it also points out that Amazon is selling them as well. So for the screen itself, it’s not a spectacular deal. On the other hand, neither of these deals suggest that the display comes with a tunner. Additionally the report is that this is an edtv at big-lots though I am not sure about the Amazon deal.
All that is well and good, but is the difference in costs going to make up for the agrivation of submitting a mail in rebate? especially when none of the other deals require one?
Not in my book.
Additionally I am comfortable with the setup I have at home, and see no reason to replace the projection I am throwing up on the wall with a screen smaller than that today. It may only be standard def, (actually a little better than that for dvd, but the tv-capture cards are analog) but that works with the equipment I have. And the display is a 91″ screen. All reports are it makes a pretty ok game display.
So, no deal from me. In fact none of the specials looked particularly good. We’ll try again some other time I think.
-Rusty
