It's prime time for buying a TV

On a recent evening, only one customer lingered in a local Best Buy's cushy Magnolia showroom, where the chain store shows off its high-end, state-of-the-art televisions.

He was sitting on a leather sofa, fast asleep.

In these tough times, shopping for a TV has become less about state of the art and more about state of the economy.

Luckily, it's a good time to snag a bargain, experts say.

This is a time of year when TV prices traditionally stabilize. The big discounts usually come at the end of the year for holiday shopping, then more price specials arrive leading up to the Super Bowl.

After the big game, prices edge up a bit in a normal year.

"This year the promotional pricing did not end" for the simple reason that TVs didn't sell as well as usual during the peak shopping periods, said analyst Riddhi Patel of the research firm iSuppli.

"The volume seemed OK on the TVs 42 inches and smaller," said Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV market research for DisplaySearch. "It's the 47-inch-plus TVs that have gotten more difficult to move."

Another good factor for bargain shoppers: Stores are nearing the time when new models traditionally start showing up.

"Retailers and manufacturers will make every effort to move out the older models before the new ones arrive," Gagnon said. "When there are new models out there, that's what people want."

In a normal year. A sparkling new TV, with the latest whiz-bang bells and whistles, is great fun to have. But given the uncertainty of the times, a bargain on last year's gadgetry is just fine for many of us.

Cutting-edge technologies are definitely out of the question for lots of people. At the giant Consumer Electronics Show in January, some TV manufacturers showed the latest version of LCD TVs, which usually use fluorescent illumination. The new models use light-emitting diode technology, instead, resulting in TVs that are slim and easy on electricity, and produce an image quality so spectacular that it's like looking through incredibly clear glass into another world.

Unfortunately, the prices are otherworldly too. A 52-inch Sharp model with LED backlighting goes for about $11,000.

Another new feature is the 240 hertz refresh rate that practically eliminates the slight blurring on LCD TVs during fast-action sequences. That's nice, especially for sports coverage, but the 120 hertz rate that was the rage last year is clear too. And most of us can live with the still widely available 60 hertz sets that seemed just fine until the upgrades came along.