Underestimating the Power of Secondary Features

Have you ever spent tons of money on a birthday or Christmas present for a young child, only to find that he/she is more fascinated with the box it came in? I've noticed a similar situation when it comes to high-tech products and the "average" consumer. Sometimes the feature that you just gloss over during your presentation, or worse, don't even mention, is one that's likely to pique the customer's interest.

This Father's Day was a case in point for me. We arrived at my parent's house, where my dad was overly enthusiastic about showing us a new discovery he made about his flat-panel TV and DVD player. When he puts in a music CD, the track titles come up on-screen, along with a standard play/pause menu, controlled via the remote. He had no idea, but absolutely loved the ability to pop in a CD, sit on the couch, and scroll through some tunes! My mom is planning a party with the girls next weekend, and she plans to set up her background music using this newly discovered method of theirs. Of course they don't really have any speakers, but let's take things one step at a time...

We often overlook simple functionality like the ability to play back CDs and control them using your TV. The same goes for features like being able to play back photos on the big-screen, or even connecting the TV to a computer and surfing the 'net using the flat-panel as an oversized monitor.

These hidden gem features go way beyond just TVs and DVD players. Lots of consumers don't know that you can use the same flash memory card in a digital camera that you can in an MP3 player or a digital camcorder, for instance. I'll bet lots of dads that received iPods this Father's Day (or Father's Days past) don't realize they can also play back photos and video on the device. Or what about that portable iPod dock? I'll bet many owners don't even know that they can connect other things, like a different portable player, speakers, or even a CD player attachment, to that nifty device using an AUX input on the back.

It's amazing how much we take for granted that the consumer knows. If you're selling technology products, learn to read the customer and gauge what features he/she might like, and might not care about. It doesn't hurt to say "did you know that this product X and can also do Y?" You might just be surprised at the response.

First-Ever Brand Repair Rates for Flat-Panel TVs

Since flat-panel TVs have been a relatively new product category, we haven't had any historical data to indicate what repair rates might be...until now. Consumer Reports has just issued what it deems the first-ever brand repair rates for flat-panels and rear-projection TVs, based on approx. 93,000 sets purchased between 2004 and 2007. The outlook? It's good!

Although many manufacturers might be banking on one technology coming out superior to the other, this isn't the case: there was no difference in reliability between LCD and plasma TVs, both of which had a very small 3% repair rate. Kudos to Panasonic, which took top ranks with just a 2% repair rate in both LCD and plasma categories.

Other highly-reliable LCD brands included Sony, Sharp, Samsung, Toshiba, and JVC; and in plasma, a gold star also goes to Pioneer and Samsung. Although they haven't been on the market for a full three years to qualify for the longevity tests, Consumer Reports says that the reliability of the latest Olevia and Sanyo LCDs, and Hitachi plasmas, looks "promising".

Rear-projection TVs, on the other hand, didn't rank so well. These sets required much more frequent repairs than LCD or plasma sets, with a repair rate of 18% that was mainly due to bulb replacements. Sony and Panasonic had the least repairs in this category with their rear-projo LCDs, followed by Samsung's DLP TVs.

As both LCD and plasma technologies continue to improve, we can only predict even better repair rates in both categories. Congratulations to all of the flat-panel TV manufacturers that came out on top. These reliability rates are just another notch in the belt to convince lagging consumers to switch over to flat-panel TV.

[Photo: Panasonic Canada's Barry Murray at the company's product showcase last year. Panasonic came out on top in terms of repair rates for flat-panel TVs, with the lowest percentage of repairs in both LCD and plasma categories.]

TV Prices to Drop Like Flies

It's no secret that price erosion in the flat-panel TV market is running rampant. Pricing usually dips to an all-year low during the final months of the year, due to holiday season promotions and the like. Now with many retailers already reducing prices in wake of the strong Canadian dollar, how significant of a drop can we expect to see over the next few months? According to Consumer Reports, pricing will be somewhere in the ballpark of 30% cheaper than we saw this time last year.

Consumer Reports predicts that plasmas will see the cheapest pricing, with a 42" 720p model available for as little as US$1,000 (so would this translate to $920 CDN?), and some 50-inchers flying off shelves at $1,500 a pop.

Translation: if you're in the market for a flat-panel TV, and even think you might be in the near future, now is the time to buy. Pricing probably isn't going to get any better than it is now, given that so many factors are coming into play to drive it to an all-time low.

Big Changes Come in Small Packages

From the desk of Lee Distad's Professional Opinions:

One of the hottest stories on the daily tech e-newsletters today is Sharp’s demonstration at CEATEC JAPAN 2007 of a new 12.7-inch LCD display that is only 20mm (less than an inch) thick.

Sharp’s announcement follows on the heels of last month’s declaration by Sony that they will be bringing a similar sized OLED panel to market this Christmas.

The biggest flat panels often hog all the attention at trade shows and media events. Witness the arms race of the last few years between Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic, and LG to show off bigger and bigger LCD and plasma displays. In fact the same press release that trumpets Sharp’s new super thin panel is dominated by the announcement of their 108-inch LCD panel (the subtext there being “Take THAT, Panasonic!”).

While the competition to build bigger panels is fun to watch, and certainly important to technological development, it’s almost a sideshow compared to what may be the main event: better, brighter, thinner, more energy efficient displays.

While the sizes may be unexciting, the leaps that are being made in LCD and OLED are going to be earthshaking, and will have a huge impact on devices with displays, from phones and pocket computers (will there even be two different categories in three year’s time?) to kitchen appliances, onwards to obvious things like laptop monitors and, of course, televisions.

Besides, today it’s a 12-inch display that’s less than an inch thick. Tomorrow it might be a 70-inch television hanging on your wall that’s no thicker. Now are you excited?

I can’t resist drawing a parallel to 65-million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The thunder lizards may have been mighty indeed, but the future was being made closer to the ground, as tiny little mammals began to proliferate.

So yes, sometimes very small things are a prelude to big changes.

http://businessopinions.blogspot.com/ (For more of Lee Distad's Professional Opinions)

Plasma Continues To Be Maligned In The Trade Press

From the desk of Lee Distad’s Professional Opinion:

It seems like only yesterday that LCD and plasma flat panel televisions were a mysterious future technology, just off on the horizon of the CE Industry’s future, when really it was more like 10 years ago. In that time, we’ve all see the sea change. Even as recently as four years ago, we were all still talking about the coming “Flat Panel Revolution.”

Well, the Flat Panel Revolution is over, and the flat panels won. In that time, I’ve witnessed plasma technology be the victim of concerted vicious rumors on retail sales floors about their durability and lifespan. Granted, the earliest iterations of Plasma tech had birthing pains, but these stories have grown legs all out of proportion to the original shortcomings of the technology.
Fact: The big boys of the plasma world, such as Pioneer, Panasonic, Hitachi, and LG have spent boatloads of money over the years to make plasma a viable display technology for home consumers. The end result is flat panel sets with a lifespan in the neighborhood of old-school tube televisions, and brilliant, dynamic picture quality.

That’s why this morning, I was shocked to see an article in a daily trade newsletter riddled with misinformation about plasma.

The Retail Bridge: It's Official: Plasma Isn't Dead Yet
Sure, the technology is expensive, delicate and prone to burn-in, but sales of plasma HD television sets are expected to grow by as much as 25 percent in 2007, according to a report published Tuesday by the (admittedly biased) Plasma Display Coalition.

I’m sorry, but “expensive, delicate and prone to burn-in”? This isn’t 2001 anymore. If you look at the median prices for major manufacturers, it’s pretty much a level playing field for both LCD and Plasma in terms of what the customer pays for a set.

While I can remember five years ago the boxes for Hitachi plasmas had a little level gauge on the outside to warn if the box had been tipped in transit, that’s pretty much a non-event now. I’ve seen plasmas that were stored face down for a week with no ill effect. Granted, that’s not what the manufacturer recommends, so I don’t recommend it either, but there you go.

The “burn in” thing is a boogey man that’s right up there with “dead pixels.” Every major brand uses a technique in their sets’ video processing that slowly creeps the picture vertically and horizontally, pixel by pixel to reduce the likelihood of any cells permanently etching themselves. The static logos that networks run in the bottom corners of the screen are no longer the television-ruining threat that they were back when CRT-rear projection was the standard.
From an image quality perspective, while I have been much more impressed by the last two generations of major brand LCD panels than I have been in the past, I still have to give the nod to plasma for clarity, sharpness, and colour saturation in the 50-inch and larger category, at least among all the panels I’ve critically examined (hint: it’s a LOT).

Despite having to swim through a sea of misinformation, the plasma category continues to sell well to consumers, which is really all the rebuttal that is needed.

http://businessopinions.blogspot.com/ (For more of Lee Distad's Professional Opinions)

If You Designed a TV, What Features Would You Include?

If you were to design a flat-panel TV, what features would you incorporate? 1,200 consumers were asked this very question by LCD TV manufacturer Westinghouse Digital Electronics. What did they say? You might be surprised at the results.

The most logical, top-desired features were wireless/Bluetooth connectivity; and a built-in DVR or DVD player. Consumers also want a 120 Hz refresh rate, which results in a significant reduction in image blurring and ghosting: an important feature for any type of programming. It’s good to know that energy-efficiency was also on the mind of consumers.

All of the aforementioned features are promising news to any flat-panel TV manufacturer that's already incorporating many of them into its latest designs.

But two of the most surprising features cited were voice recognition and a touch-screen interface. Apparently having a wireless remote control isn’t good enough: couch potatoes are so lazy, they don’t even want to have to push a button to change channels and find their desired program! The touch-screen idea is oddly on the complete opposite end of the spectrum: if people historically have grumbled when they can’t find the remote, for what function would they want to walk up to a display and leave grubby fingerprints all over it?

The moral of the story: although average consumer insight can often lead to valuable suggestions on product design improvements, sometimes people just get carried away. And I'll add that ideas should always be taken into consideration, no matter how silly they might sound: but final product design should always, always, always be left to the experts.

On a related note, this brings to mind an old episode of The Simpsons, where Homer is given free reign to design a modern car for the average guy, and it ends up looking like a spaceship on wheels, with a horn that plays “La Cucaracha”. Lesson learned.

[Photo: Westinghouse’s TX-42F430S 42-inch 1080p LCD TV].

Don't Adjust Your Set: This is a 50'' LCD TV That's as Thin as a Tube of Lipstick

Imagine an LCD TV that’s just 20mm thin, boasts 100,000:1 contrast, reproduces 150% of the standard NTSC colour gamut, and only uses an average of 140 kWh/year. Sound impossible? Perhaps futuristic, even? Well, such a display isn’t that far off the horizon: Sharp Electronics has already built a prototype that fits the bill.

The display measures 29 mm thin at the frame, and just 20 mm within the main display section. At 50-inches in size and weighing 25 kg, Sharp says the LCD would consume just 140 kWh a year, based on the average of 4.5 hours of daily use.

It will likely be a very long time before such a model actually come to fruition as a saleable product, but it’s an interesting look into the future of flat-panel TV, and exciting evidence that development in this category shows no signs of slowing down. If you haven't joined the flat-panel train yet, it's about time you jump on!

[Photo: This is just one concept design of Sharp’s prototype 20mm thin LCD TV that has already been developed in Japan].

Wal-Mart Steps Up CE Presence

According to several reports, U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart is stepping up its consumer electronics offerings, adding more flat-panel TVs from brands like Philips, Sony, and Samsung; and bringing on VoIP products from Skype, including calling cards. I was unable to confirm just yet if the additional SKUs will be available north of the border as well (stay tuned). Either way, this is big news for fellow CE giants, not to mention independents, both of which have been finding it hard to compete with Wal-Mart’s massive price cuts.

Let’s put things in perspective: right now at Future Shop, a brand-name 32-inch widescreen, high-definition LCD can be purchased for just shy of about $1,200. A no-name model is available for $700. A year ago, the same product would have been about double that!

Last month, Wal-Mart Canada added the Prive brand of LCD TVs to its roster: budget-conscious consumers can grab a 32-inch model for a measly $470. The CEO of Prive’s parent company, SOYO, commented at that time that the company was “happy” to be part of Wal-Mart’s “aggressive plan to build its consumer electronics division.” Aggressive is an understatement.

At this rate, we’re bound to see a “buy one, get one free” sale on HDTVs by Christmas. The mere thought deserves a chuckle, but this is a serious issue. A breaking point is going to be reached at some point in the near future. It’s already begun to happen: Circuit City announced a massive restructuring plan in February, closing a whole whack of stores in both the U.S. and Canada. And the retailer wasn’t shy about the reason, citing “intensified gross margin pressures” experienced with flat-panels TVs in the third quarter.

Of course it can be argued that customers won’t get the same level of product knowledge and customer service through Wal-Mart than they would a specialized, independent retailer; or even a CE-targeted big-box one. But it appears that Wal-Mart is ramping up its staff product knowledge as well: reports online claim that U.S. employees have been put through extensive product and customer service training within the consumer electronics department.

Wal-Mart obviously means business in this area. How will this bode for traditional CE retailers, not to mention the rapidly dropping prices of product like HDTVs? We’d love to hear your comments.