Why Such A Vast Chasm Between UK & Irish Prices For TVs (& Other Stuff)?

the hip phrase now is "image retention" it does happen. I cant watch images that are distorted so with 4:3 you get bars either side, you can have a white image either side but that puts me off as well so I use 14:9 and switch to full as quickly as I can. Here's tip, if you do see a bit of image retention switch to a 16:9 channel with no logo eg BBC and leave it there for a good while it will burn away the image retention. And by following your own guidelines you will be fine, dont forget pausing tv as well and sky menus, if you have sky et al can be tricky.

hOw's the picture quality? By the way dont get everything from NI look at uk sites as well.

enjoy

noah
 
Dont if this point has been made before but We have always been used to paying more without questioning.
It begins at Government charges on Houses, Cars, medical, Electricial goods (duty used to be even higher), Gas, Electricity & the cost of policital representatives. All astronomical charges with a myriad of excuses justifying why each charge is required to be higher in our country than in others.


Retailers take their cue from there and price accordingly.
Its in out ethos to pay more and mostly we dont even realise the descrepancies.
Some countrys are like that.
 
Thankfully more and more folk are bucking that. Even just discussing it is a good thing.

Mark
 
They must be reading this post because Alliance Electric and panasonic.ie have both reduced the TV to 1299 now...900 Euro drop in a few months..
 
You should try bestpricewins I bought a tv and washing machine through this site the TV came from Belfast and the washing maching came from a retailer in Tipperary. Looking for a dishwasher now.
 
They must be reading this post because Alliance Electric and panasonic.ie have both reduced the TV to 1299 now...900 Euro drop in a few months..

I'd say €1299 could be a resonable price in ROI for that TV. It's plausible that it could at a stretch cost €300 more than from RS due to rent/insurance/wages/VAT/reasonable prifit.

It's too late for me, as mine is already on my wall. This'll sound cynical (possibly because it is . . .), but I wonder if this price drop has anything to do with the fact that Panasonic has launched its new range of 2009 TVs, and that the PZ80 range is close to end of life?

I post about this stuff on boards.ie too. There's an Alliance guy on there. He's actually pretty sound, so far as I can tell in this virtual world. My problem is not with the decent floor staff of good shops - it's with the business owners who treat Paddy as a mug.

Imagine you worked on the shop floor for Harvey Norman and I came in to ask you why your TH-50PY80 costs €800 more than the effectively-identical-in-all-but-name TH-50PZ80 that I bought in Belfast.

What range of answers could you offer?

"My wages are so high, they have to pay for them somehow"?

"This TV makes you happier"?

"Rent/insurance for this shop is dearer than the rent/insurance for the shop you bought it from"?

"Harvey likes his Maserati Gran Tourismo S, and he has to pay for it somehow"?

"Look mate, I just work here - I buy all my own hi-fi stuff from Richersounds in Belfast too, cos even with my staff discount, RS is still cheaper than HN"?

I drove to Belfast on Monday to collect some stuff.

From RS, I got a Pioneer VSX-818 amp (£170) & DV-410 DVD player (£70), and a 5.1 set of Yamaha NSP-110 speakers (£90).

While walking through Castlecourt mall, I nipped into GAME. I've been planning on getting an XBox and wanted to check out their prices. I walked out with an XBox 360 Elite, a 2nd controller, a quick-charge dock for two controller batteries, 2 rechargeable batteries, Kung-Fu Panda & Lego Indiana Jones for the kids and Dead Space, Halo 3 & Mass Effect for me. For £287 (€322 today).

I'll leave it to those of you interested enough to find out what all that would have cost down here, but I'll point you to Argos as one example for the 360 Elite + one controller: €250. No games, no charger, no rechargeable batteries.

Speaking of Argos, again while in Castlecourt, I nipped into Argos and bought speaker brackets for £9 (€10.10 today). In Argos in Dublin, the exact same brackets are €13.49.

Gimme a "G"! Gimme an "R"! Gimme an "E"! Gimme an "E"! . . . . . . .

Well, you know the rest.

Dont if this point has been made before but We have always been used to paying more without questioning.
It begins at Government charges on Houses, Cars, medical, Electricial goods (duty used to be even higher), Gas, Electricity & the cost of policital representatives. All astronomical charges with a myriad of excuses justifying why each charge is required to be higher in our country than in others.


Retailers take their cue from there and price accordingly.
Its in out ethos to pay more and mostly we dont even realise the descrepancies.
Some countrys are like that.

Someone, some-ones, make decisions on what to charge Paddy. Paddy has been a mug. Paddy accepts really bad treatment. Paddy is conditioned to believe that there is no alternative. No alternative price to €1999 for a 50" TV. No alternative to Fianna Fail. No alternative to half the money he pays for his car going to the "government". No alternative to the "government" flushing the money they take off Paddy straight down the jax. No alternative to waiting 9 months for the results of a smear test. No alternative to fearing walking the one mile home after a night in the pub. No alternative to corrupt bankers/developers/politicians manipulating Paddy's constitution in the sole interest of self-advancement and self-preservation, in the full conscious knowledge that Paddy the Mug will suffer big-time for a long time as a direct consequence of their actions, while they won't feel the slightest ounce of discomfort because their deliberate actions have secured a recession-proof existence for them and their families and friends, and generations of decendants of same. No alternative to the inept and corrupt policing, judgement and punishment of those corrupt bankers/developers/politicians. No alternative to the "government" flushing more of Paddy's money down the jax. Paddy accepts "that's just how it is".

Okay, so the split isn't as simple as greedy immoral capitalists and mugs, but there are more mugs than there are greedy immoral capitalists.

I'm tired now. I might go and watch Transformers again on my big TV. Then none of this'll matter till I wake up again tomorrow . . .


Mark
 
Look at an aricle in todays indo about a new mercedes, makes me weep.

noah
 
By Ray Managh

A NEW Mercedes Benz was fitted with secondhand alloy wheels and used tyres just before it left a leading car sales showroom, a court heard yesterday.

This I assume.
 
So how much would AW have saved by doing this? A bit less than it's cost them, I'm sure.

At least the customer stood up for himself.

The greedy immoral capitalist mistook that Paddy for a mug. Bravo that man - I hope he got loads out of them.


Mark
 
yes, but look at the price €66,500 and they saw fit to fit 2nd hand tyres and alloys???

If mercedes were any good they would close the dealership but....

we have no hope...

noah
 
Good Thread Phaedrus

I gave up on major (to me) av purchases some years ago. I'd wanted projector for over a decade, but couldn't afford the price of the quality to make it worthwhile. I was browsing an av mag and saw very low uk prices on the latest incarnation of the long running Panny projector home cinema line, so I checked out the prices in Dublin. The earlier model was selling for e2.5k. I got the lastest much improved version, in that instance, for about e1430 with 3 year extended guarantee including delivery to Dublin from a well known uk bricks and mortar shop which operated a good online store. I found this from browsing forums. It was my first major online purchase and I now usually look online when getting AV or game related stuff as typically it's better priced, sometimes by a huge margin as is seen in this instance.

I've been looking at the Irish panny TH-50py and as said it's going for e1299. I wanted an extended parts and labour guarentee for fuss free life without recourse to the Sales of Goods Act, during I'd hoped a 5 year period anyway. I could only get quoted for an extension to 3 years at cost of e200, so e1500 for tv with 3 year warrenty. It wasn't what I'd go for as I wanted peace of mind for a good 5 years, so I was going to forget about about till google led me to this thread.

I see that in Richer Sounds up north, 1100 sterling with 5 year full warrenty from that shop. Works out about e1200 at todays exchange rate. So gets me same set with, as Phraedus helpfully explained, an equally redundant analogue tuner, but a UK one instead of Irish.

Might you tell me if there is issue with being a bord.ie member to get the delivery charge of 20 euro/sterling(?), to dublin, I'd appreciate your advice.

Thanks to you, my interest in this set is renewed. I wasn't inclined to have a plasma shipped via, truck, boat/plane then truck again with a few fork lifting episodes here and there from the UK, but a hopefully straight run from up north is better bet. The 5 year guarentee is main selling point for me with the price. I'm looking at the Dublin shop mentioned, Alliance Electric, as their site says that some of their Pannys come with a 5 year warrenty, so I'd move on that if it was manufacturers warrenty, and if they get back to my email..

I'll go with-out rather then be ripped off. I spent a week fixing a car window regulator which would've cost nearly e300 as a full unit to replace, as the small part I needed wasn't available as a spare, I'm that poor...ha ha.
 
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I got my 50PZ80 from RS with the regular 1-year warranty, but at the end of that year, I can still but an RS 5-year warranty for £100 (10% of TV price), which I probably will do.

RS do deliver to boards.ie members anywhere in ROI for £20. I'd almost 200 posts on there before I ordered from them.

There's some good stuff on there, so it could be worth registering anyway and asking RS's manager, John, a few questions about what you're interested in.


Mark
 
I signed up, and after doing a search, I found a direct communication option to that shop.

Thanks pal.

pat
 
I just want to amend a part of my OP, but don't seem to be able to edit the post.

"The TH-50PY80 is apparently identical to the TH-50PZ80 in every respect except the tuner.

The PY model has a tuner that recieves only Ireland's soon-to-be-defunct analog terrestrial broadcasts.

The PZ model has a tuner that receives only the UK's digital terrestrial broadcasts ("Freeview")."

It seems that the 4 Irish channels are broadcast in Dublin on analog UHF, and the tuner in the UK TH-50PZ80 is able to receive them. I haven't connect to my aerial yet, so can't personally confirm this, but am reliably informed that this is the case.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58867697&postcount=4


Mark
 
You should check out the costs of Maplins stuff here and their online site. Its less that half the cost in the UK. Their top brass (England based) are aware of the huge descrepancies.
 
You should check out the costs of Maplins stuff here and their online site. Its less that half the cost in the UK. Their top brass (England based) are aware of the huge descrepancies.

I'd imagine that'd be closer to the truth if "are aware of" was replaced by "dictate".

Argos' UK catalog (I got mine in the Castlecourt Centre in Belfast) is "interesting" to compare with the ROI version.


Mark
 
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