Cheap TV as a Gift Idea

A cheap TV makes a great gift idea for kids – and cheap doesn’t have to mean poor quality

These days, kids and teens have come to expect that they must have a personal TV in their bedroom. However, the new flat screen televisions may cost a bit more than you can afford for this indulgence. If your kids have been dropping thinly-disguised ‘hints’ for their own TV, there’s a way to make this happen without busting the budget. While they still have access to the nice, big family flat screen TV in the living or family room, a cheap TV is quite satisfactory for watching in their bedroom. So where can you find a quality cheap TV?

You have a few options. If you’re looking for a new cheap TV, go to the discount electronics store and look over the selections. There are the small, four inch screen TVs which operate on either electricity or batteries. Kids think these are really cool, probably because they’re accustomed to all the tiny electronic gadgets they already have.

These are also a good remedy for boredom when there’s a power outage. This type of cheap TV will run for about 4 hours on batteries. If you live in an area where winter power outages happen frequently and may go on for days, the cost of batteries can add up. In my rural location, this is a problem. If you’re in a metro area, this isn’t usually a concern. This type of cheap TV solution is also good for camping or fishing trips. You might want to wrap up an 8-pack of batteries with this gift and let the kids know they are responsible for future battery needs.

The battery-electric TV also makes a good gift idea for Dad, if he’s into fishing or camping adventures.

Another cheap TV option may be found at the thrift shops. Yes, indeed, if you have two or three kids, vying for the personal TV, this can be the way to go. Check out the selection at the Salvation Army or Goodwill type stores. They usually have several on hand, in a variety of sizes, often at unbelievably low prices. For example, you can probably pick up a 19 inch TV for about $25! Now that’s a cheap TV. For less than the price of the new, battery or electric powered TV, all three kids can have a TV in each of their rooms. The thrift store clerk will plug the TV in so you can see the picture quality and be sure it works. If the tag says “sold as is”, it’s probably not a good choice. Sometimes, it may be marked as such because a dial or knob is missing, or the antenna is broken. If you can make the repair, it might still be a good deal. If not, move on to another.

Another place to find a cheap TV is through the classifieds or at garage sales. These can be great deals. The seller might have recently upgraded to a fancier model, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with his old one.

So there you have it. Your kids will be happy and you’ll have saved a ton of money!

Plasma TVs: 5 Quick Tips Before Buying

If you are in the market for a brand new plasma TV, there are a few things to consider before walking into the local electronics store or logging into your favorite website and handing them your money.

Arm yourself with these few tips and you should be able to make an informed decision about your purchase.

The first tip is to make sure you look at a plasma TV that can support the digital signal that is being broadcast by most cable companies. Older televisions may not support it. Make sure it is also HD, which stands for High-Definition, or ED (Enhanced Definition) ready. This is important because this is a format that many cable companies are switching over to.

The next tip is to make sure the plasma television you are considering has all the standard inputs in the back of it to hook up all your peripherals like your DVR, DVD player, and camcorder.

Next up is size: Plasma televisions come in sizes from 32 inches to 63 inches. Don’t buy one that’s too big for your living room. As much as you may want that big screen, room size might make it a bit too big. Be sure to purchase additional speakers since most models do not have built-in speakers. Don’t forget to take the room size into account.

Decide head of time if you are going to mount the television on the wall. If you are, don’t forget to
purchase the mounting kit or a stand so you have someplace to put your television. Be prepared to pay over $100 for a good TV mount. The last thing you want is for your TV to fall off the wall. You also want to look at a mount that can swivel so that you can adjust the viewing angle of your plasma TV.

Lastly, make sure you buy a reliable brand name. By sticking with someone like Pioneer, Panasonic, Toshiba or Sony, you can be reassured that you are going to get a reliable product and a solid warranty.

Did You Ever Wonder How Plasma TV Displays Work?

Plasma TV display technology is not only smart, it also represents the highest technology in its truest and finest form for video display as a rule.

Televisions for the past seventy-five years came from the same technology that involves using cathode ray tubes or CRT for short.

With CRT TV, a beam of negative-charged particles called electrons fires up inside of a huge glass tube. The electrons then affect the phosphor atoms that are all along the screen. These phosphor atoms start to light up in response.

A television image appears as the result of lighting up certain areas of this phosphor solution with different colors at varied intensities. This technology is very different from how plasma TV display works today.

Did you ever wonder how plasma TV displays work?

Plasma flat panel display is very different from CRT TV technology. Not only does it possess larger screen size but it is also only about six inches thick as well.

Plasma and CRT TV technology are two very different kinds of technology altogether. Nevertheless, the one tie that they share is the fact that they both deliver different lights at various intensities to create a wide spectrum of many colors to see.

Plasma TV display has a very basic idea and that is to light up little fluorescent lights that produce a TV image.

Flat panel TV technology contains three fluorescent lights that make up each individual pixel. These pixels each possess a red, green, and blue light that constitute the fluorescent lights of a plasma TV screen.

For more info on plasma TVs, visit About.com at this url: http://hometheater.about.com/od/plasmatvfaq1./a/plasmafaqintro.htm

How Plasma TV Came Into Being?

What’s cool this year are flat panel display TVs. This is especially true for large televisions that are 37 inches in screen size or larger. Flat panel display includes a growing number of several technologies that can be confusing to the average consumer just starting to shop for a new television. So here are some basics for you. We’ll start by explaining how plasma TVs came into being.

A plasma TV display panel falls under the category of a flat panel display and is a type of television that is in high demand by those who want the definitive in video display.

How plasma TV came into being? The idea for plasma TV display was originated in July of 1964 in the good ole USA at the University of Illinois. Hard to believe but true. Americans came up with the idea for the plasma TV only to be outdone commercially by Japanese and Korean companies.

The creators were Donald L. Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and Robert Wilson. The plasma display was part of the PLATO Computer System whose displays were somewhat popular in the early 1970s.

However, because CRT displays were a lot more affordable than plasma displays back then, sales started to gradually slip and went down in the latter part of the 1970s.

Even though plasma displays were costly. They were still more attractive to the eye in that they had a larger screen size and a profile that was very thin. We like thin.

So the plasma TV display has been around for a while overall. Some of the most important events in plasma TV history are as follows:

-Fujitsu presented the very first 21-inch plasma display that was full color in 1992.

-Pioneer started selling the first of plasma TVS to the public in 1997.