[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by Brainphart

Too bad they sold a large portion of their TV division to Samsung.

Samsung and Sony panels are the same for the most part. What makes a Sony TV different from a Samsung TV isn't the panel. Processing, backlighting, etc are also quite important. The TV divisions themselves are still separate from each other, and Sony still has theirs. The article is specifically talking about the panel manufacturing. While it is a shame that Sony sold their stake in panel manufacturing, it also frees them up to look at other technologies beyond Samsung's (say, LG's panels). Note that Sony also has their own Crystal LED tech they are playing around with while Samsung is playing around with OLED.

Considering Sony can make a TV with better PQ in some ways with Samsung's own panels, I'd be interested to see if Sony can make a good IPS-based TV that doesn't have LG's usual problem of low contrast in their sets.

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

Sony still believes their products to be worthy of the premium price they charge. I like some of their products (have one of their TV's, their Playstation consoles, PSP, and their readers), but I'll be first to admit that they are often-times WAY too expensive out of the gate.

Quit with the Sony-tax, and people may be more attracted to them again.

Part of the problem I think is that Sony tends to pack in too much tech in products that drive up the price. Their game systems for example, are loss leaders or break even at launch. Yet they are really expensive. Why? The tech they put in. To get the price down, they would have to rip out some of that tech to do so.

With readers, it boils down to two things: 1) The statement above with earlier readers made from metal and other more expensive materials that are harder to manufacture with. 2) They didn't want to play the loss leader game with the hardware itself, unlike Amazon and B&N.

Unfortunately, when your competition is using the razor blade model, you get to be the one that has the "<Insert Brand Here>-tax" unless you do the same thing. Especially when people don't care why it is cheaper (and that they are paying for it on the back-end), just that it is. Cell phones are another great example of this weird quirk of human thinking.

Sony's real problem is that they want to pack in as much stuff as possible to be "bleeding edge", or will use more expensive materials to get a "quality feel". And the end result is that their stuff is more expensive at launch because of it.