I got bit by this earlier in the year. I needed a smaller TV for the bedroom. I narrowed down the line I wanted. Target and Best Buy were the only two local stores to carry it. BB had the 2023 model, Target had a 2022 model with a sub-designation that was $50 cheaper. I went with Target because I didn’t care if it was an older model, just needed something good enough. Well, it wasn’t good enough, not even close. The color accuracy was so bad that the tint adjustment was useless — it was both too pink and too green no matter what. I dug out my old calibration disk and tried to adjust the color by isolating red/green/blue channels. The best-effort adjustments made it better, but still awful. I even connected it to the network (hardwire only, fuck “smart” appliances) just in case a firmware update helped. It did not, so back it went. Had to wait, multiple times in line and for someone to pull from the back, for like 45 minutes because they “don’t do exchanges” so I needed to do a song and dance to get the sale price on a replacement purchase. Got the replacement home, same deal. At that point I suspected it was leftover Black Friday junk.
Took it back and went to Best Buy. Spent the extra $50. Perfect color out of the box. Lesson(s) learned.
i ended up with a cheapened ‘walmart’ model that was also a “last year’s model”. was the cheapest, smallest 1080p in the store a couple years back when prices were inflated and selection was weak. but i couldn’t take it back, it was a gift.
i’m stuck with only 2 hdmi, no bt or 3.5mm, and rca analog inputs i’ll never use… but at least i got the better remote than a co-worker that has the next year’s model–and i’m still grateful i was able to finally dump the 19 inch tube and the equally-small monitor that were serving as my “TVs”.
