Always Best To Check With The Boss...

Mum likes to watch the tennis and the Formula 1 and I’m getting her into Moto GP too, but there’s a problem – her eyesight. Because our old living room cathode ray tube was a poultry 28”, she was finding it hard to read the scores on the screen.

So dad and I were sent on a mission to find a new TV which was a bit bigger and off we went. There was a problem though, we were not given a budget or any guide as to size.

Deciding that anything over about 37” would be dismissed as being excessively large for our lounge, we set about comparing models. Not as easy a task as you may think. You see most of the electronics shops selling HDTVs seem to think that the best way to demonstrate their wares is to put a random assortment of Standard Definition feeds into all their sets so that the image quality just goes from bad to worse. Kudos to John Lewis though, they at least leave the remotes with the TVs so that customers can have a play - and play I did. I did the sensible thing (much to some customer’s annoyance...) and switched every TV attached to an HD source to HD – in most cases this was BBC HD showing the golf. This allowed for a direct comparison and thus we were able to make a shortlist.

At 37” around the £500 mark, there was nothing to separate the top 3 manufacturers Sony, Samsung and Panasonic. At that price, no other manufacturer could compete for image quality. As we’ve had Panasonic TVs in the past, dad decided that we should go for one again and I agreed, but which one... there are several slightly different models at slightly different prices with slightly different specifications and all by Panasonic... we need the Boss.

Once at home, the Boss was surprised to see us empty handed, but once we told her why, she reluctantly agreed to return to the shops with us the next day for the final sign off... that evening i spent a while researching Panasonic HDTVs on the internet and found out that Comet do several which, although slightly more expensive, do come with free BluRay players.

The next morning came and the 3 of us trotted off to the nearest Comet (ok, second nearest as my internet research showed that the nearest had run out of the free BluRay players). Once inside, mum quickly perused the wide selection of TV’s before returning to look at the ones dad and I had earmarked.

“I don’t like any of those, I like that one.” Says mum pointing to a near top of the range Panasonic 42” LED 1080p HDTV...

“But it’s twice the price!” says I

“I don’t care.” Says mum “that’s the one i want.”

Dad and I glance at each other for a second with grins developing on our faces...

...then as if by magic a shopkeeper appeared. Then, after I negotiated a 9% discount on the TV with a free BluRay player AND a couple of other expensive freebies AND a 20% reduction on an already reduced accessories pack which included a high end HDMI cable and a power cleaning, surge protecting, eco friendly power distribution board AND he carried the whole lot out to the car for us, he wished he hadn’t appeared as his commission had disappeared.

TX-L42D25B