Insignia NS-H2002 home theater

This home theater does not have a digital in, so I am not interested in it per se. But it is crazy cheap at $69. It might not be as powerful, but the my interest in it is entirely of a different sort. Suppose, one even knew that this system is prone to breaking and developing all sorts of problems. Still, wouldn't this be the case when getting an extended warranty actually be a good idea? With a product so cheap, well bellow competition, you could have it replaced if it ever broke... Insignia is a BestBuy brand, so it is probably not all that terrible after all.

DAVHDZ235 vs. Philips HTS3555

To my great dissatisfaction, it turned out that Sony Bravia DAVHDZ235 does not have a digital in. I don't know why I assumed that it would. It seems as if Philips is more digitally diligent. Their HTS3555/37 has a DTS and Dolby Digital Decoder. And the speakers are not as huge as on some other models, and the main unit is somewhat slim.
It also has a MP3 line-in and a USB port. It does upconversion to 1080i and even plays DiVx files.
BestBuy has it for $180 or something, but from the reviews (quite good, I must add) it looks like it sold for $156 at some other point.

Here is the manual to this Philips HTS3555 home theater:

DAV-HDZ235 upconversion

As it turns out, DAV-HDZ235 does upscaling to 720p/1080i. Suddenly, this model is becoming a lot more appealing :) This feature is not mentioned on a few sites where they sell this model. And Costo price is still unbeatable - about $50 below competition. Also (well, I am new to this home theater world...) it comes with a microphone. When connected and placed in the exact location where you expect to be listening to this system most of the time, it balances out the audio levels for all the speakers!

Nintendo DS Lite coupons - one sweet deal

You can't have too many Nintendo DS's in the house, really. Someone is using one, the other just got accidentally washed in the laundry... Microcenter is still running what I consider a fantastic deal on DS. Get the console for a regular price ($130) and get 2 coupons for free games worth $30 each. The first coupon is good in December, the other one - in January. I already used the first coupon - Yoshi's Island. This will be someone's Christmas present.

Sony Bravia DAVHDZ235 home theater and Sharp SH12U

Here is one thing to consider when choosing the size of your new TV. A bigger TV, especially if we're talking smaller sets, will be very likely to have more connections. I learned this the hard way. My Sharp SH12U, even though the screen size is quite sufficient for me, does not have an analog audio out jack. It only has digital audio out with Dolby or PCM. Because digital channels that I get over QAM do not have a loud enough audio signal I started looking around for a way to boost the sound. If only I had analog audio out on the TV! Like a headphone jack or something... I would have gotten a Logitech X-530 or Logitech X-540. This last one even has a 'matrix' feature that creates surround sound when there is not 5.1 source. Unfortunately, I now have to look for a more expensive (which is fine) and space-consuming (not fine!) option. Costco has a Sony Bravia DAVHDZ235 home theater for $170, but it is obviously bigger than a Logitech speaker system. All the speaker components are significantly larger and then there is the set-top box. I understand that this give you more power, but I just don't need that much power! Frustrating.

KLH SBHT 6W 6-Piece 550-Watt Micro Home Theater

KLH SBHT 6W 6-Piece 550-Watt Micro Home Theater


1 subwoofer, 2 front-channel speakers, 2 rear-channel speakers, 1 center-channel speaker, and speaker wire. This product should be available under $200!

Really cool design. It would be great to be able to turn the speakers in any direction.
I actually have a KLH TV/DVD combo and it has served me well.

Sansa e280 microSD issue

So, Sansa e280, an 8gb mp3 player with FM and video really really was only $80 at Costco for a few days! There is only one major inconvenience, as in the previous versions. When you start the device with the microSD card inserted, it has to "refresh the database" which takes up to a minute. Apparently, this problem is difficult to solve. Also, a few mp3s failed to transfer to the new Sansa, although they worked fine on the old one and still work fine on the new one from the memory card.