[quote=paramount]This is what I took away from CES 2012:
* 3-D is all but on it’s way out; at least it won’t be on the top of many shoppers lists. 3-D was a fad.
* OLED should be out in the fall, and as I understand the picture blows away anything out there today. Since it is new it’s big $$.
* TV’s are becoming computers (convergence).
* The TV manufacturers are trying just about anything to get you to buy a new TV. The 3-D thing didn’t work.[/quote]
3D prices have already crashed. Let’s face it, the glasses are annoying, there isn’t that much content out there and the payoff isn’t that amazing, and that’s assuming you don’t get headaches.
Built in wifi sounds nice, but it seems like most tvs don’t really capitalize on it beyond “if you pay for Netflix or Hulu Plus you can use it without an additional box”. I agree there’s definitely a trend towards television and computers converging long term. Some of us have been using HDMI cables to stream content from our computers to big screens for a while now. I look forward to the day when it’s easy to fling content between devices wirelessly.
It sounded like the biggest market for TVs this past Christmas was people who already own a flatscreen and wanted one in an additional room, such as bedroom. Similar to the PC boom and bust of the late 90s/early 2000s, we’ve reached the point in the cycle when most people who want a flatscreen have one, and there isn’t much incentive to upgrade. Maybe OLED or additional computer-like features will change that as the economy continues improving.
