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| You bought a 42" Plasma? Last I checked they run around $7,000 |
You might want to check again. I paid $2,400 and the same model is going for around $1,900 now.
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| Plasma TV's require maintenance |
Yup, you have to wipe off the dust that accumulates on the screen. It's a backbreaking job, but for a crystal clear picture, it's worth all the blood, sweat and tears.
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| absolute bitch to install |
A lot of them now include this amazing feature called a "stand", which allows you to "install" the TV by setting it on a solid surface, like say, a wooden entertainment center. Granted, the cables don't plug themselves in, but no one seems to fault the Xbox for that shortcoming either.
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| DLP and LCD TV's that are cheaper |
DLPs are rear projection and not flat. A DLP TV quite literally would not fit where I have my Plasma TV. LCDs look like shit compared to Plasma. Maybe they'll improve in the future, maybe we'll have robots that wipe our asses, the fact was I wanted a TV when I bought it.
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| Talk about money going down the drain due to newer technology. |
Umm, guess what - when the Xbox 2 comes out, I can connect it to my TV just fine. Yeah, the TV will lose value as it ages and eventually become worthless just like my 19" TV did, but it won't become any less useful. The cost of the TV is actually just a drop in the bucket compared to how much I've spent on computer upgrades since I got into PCs back in '91. I bought my prior TV when I was 15. I'll still be watching DVDs on it (or possibly Blu-Ray discs) when your rig that rips up the FPS in Half Life 2 is sitting on the curb waiting for its ride to the trash heap.
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| Did I also mention that $2000-$3000 could net you a decent projection system where you could get a great picture and a 9 foot screen? |
Well, you shouldn't have mentioned it. My younger brother has a projection setup, it's real nice except for the fact it looks absolutely horrible unless you're 3 miles from the screen and you have to pull down a screen to watch TV. Unless of course you don't mind looking at the screen dangle and flap in the breeze from the ceiling fan all day long. Oh yeah, it also can't compete with any ambient light whatsoever. Great if you have a home theater room, crappy if you just want to sit down and watch some TV.
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| A buddy of mine just bought a digital rebel, and spent some $900 on the camera. I just bought a $300 Cannon ELPH and take pictures that look just as good. I have all the same features too. |
Like a vast selection of high quality lenses and the ability to use a 4GB Microdrive as storage, just as a start?
There's a reason people buy a DSLR, if you think a point-and-shoot camera is all you need, you don't get it.
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| And I just priced an Athlon64 system today for a friend. I was buying a few clearance and refurb parts, but I can build him a good Athlon64 for $700. |
Actually, the system I had priced out was just an upgrade to what I already have... New motherboard, CPU, RAM and video card. To play one game, it's just not worth it.
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| Lastly, your XP2000 may perform fairly well, but every single benchmark in the world says that Athlon based processors perform rather poorly in photoshop, auto editting, video editing, rendering, encoding and decoding. |
Well every benchmark in the world can say a new system can whoop the shit out of mine and I'd believe it. But when I apply a filter in Photoshop and it completes in under a second, I fail to see the need to throw money at a nonexistant problem. I'll give you video rendering is slow as shit no matter how fast of a computer you have, but guess what - not everyone is a home Spielberg. I own an old VHS camcorder and I never use it.
My point isn't to argue over who has more toys, it's who gets more use out of what he spends. If you actually use your computer to play modern PC games on a regular basis and you're getting what you feel is a good value out of it - by all means continue to do so. Maybe I'm getting older, but I just feel there's other, more interesting things to spend money on than computer parts every time a new game comes out. I've got a 286 in my closet with Star Control 2 on it that's a true testament to that fact. Damn VGA-only games, damn them to hell.
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Topic: Half Life 2 (Read 368 times)