Money Crashers » Reviews

Bright House Is Much Better Than Comcast

Erik Folgate — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:09:25 +0000

The cable industry is one of the most baffling industries in this country. It is still one of the only industries that allows companies to monopolize a territory. There are alternatives such as satellite TV which is getting big, but I live in Florida and I see my mother-in-law’s satellite go out every time there is a thunder storm. If you’ve ever lived or visited Florida, you know that there is a thunder storm almost every day. When we lived in Jacksonville, Florida, Comcast was our only cable option. It was the first time that I was hooking up an HDTV to cable, so I didn’t have any other experience to compare it with. We just moved to Orlando, and Bright house is the cable dominator here. I now have something to compare it with, and I must say that I am much more impressed with Bright House’s services.

Comcast Problems

The box they gave me was a regular HD box, not the DVR version. It had no HDMI port in the back, and I really wanted to use HDMI, because it’s one cord for video and audio and it’s a better picture. So, what I ended up doing was getting a DVI to HDMI cord, but then I found out that only plays video. So, I had to hook up the big red and white audio cables to get audio. It was a mess.
The cost with Internet came out to be $127.92 after the promotional rate period. This seemed insane to me at first, but I figured it must be more because of the HD and On-Demand channels that we had.
Their analog signal looked absolutely horrible on an LCD TV, and there was no feature to automatically stretch the picture to fit the entire screen. The HD channels looked good, but there were times when it would freeze up or look really choppy.

Why Bright House is Better

The customer service has been excellent. They have had to come out twice since we got the service, and they came out well within the time window.
Their standard HD box has an HDMI port which I was very happy about. I got their HD DVR box as well, and the first box they gave me didn’t work well. It wouldn’t work with HDMI and the component cables made it looked like everything was red and green. However, they came out within a couple of days and switched out the box with no questions asked.
I pay $92 bucks, rather than $127. That is always a beautiful thing. They have more HD channels, but I don’t get on-demand channels. I didn’t even get premium on-demand channels with Comcast, so this wasn’t much of a loss to me. But, this price DOES include use of their DVR, which I didn’t have with Comcast. The $30 savings is well worth it.
The HD picture seems more crisp, and the analog channels look much less blurry than the Comcast channels.

I know there are many of you out there who have had a bad experience with Bright House, and I would not be surprised. Cable companies can really be a pain. But, in comparison with Comcast, my personal experience is that they are worlds apart. The problem is that you are stuck with the cable company that offers services in your area. What can we do to get more options for cable?

Could the Car MD Save You Time and Money On Your Car?

Erik Folgate — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:00:54 +0000

Okay, maybe I’m just really slow when it comes to finding out about new products, so bare with me if the Car MD is old news to you. If you have a car that is new than 1996, then it runs on a computer. That computer spits out information to mechanics when something is wrong such as when your check engine light turns on. You know this best as the $50 to $75 dollar “diagnostic charge” that mechanics will hit you up with every time they use their equipment to read the computer inside of your car. Well, the Car MD will read your car’s computer just the same and tell you about the health of your car.

When I first heard about this product on the Dave Ramsey radio show, I thought it was a great deal. For $89.99, you can buy a device that takes the guess work out of what really needs to be done to your car. Plus, you can use it when searching to purchase a used car. I am always so fearful that I will buy a used lemon from someone who is dishonest. As a faithful servant to the way of the money crasher, I always buy used cars. I’ll let someone else take the depreciation hit on new cars. So, this may be something that I look into buying.

I’ve probably sounded like a big infomercial so far, but don’t worry, I’m not getting paid a dime to write this article. I want to know if any of you out there have bought it. Is the product legitimate? Let me know, because if it works well, I think it could help a lot of people save money on car repairs and prevent from buying a car that will give them trouble down the road.
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Could the Car MD Save You Time and Money On Your Car? is a post from: Money Crashers

Review: The Samung Flat-Panel Television

Erik Folgate — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:15:01 +0000

I’m going to start a series where I review a consumer product from time to time that I have had either a bad or good experience with. The posts will be under the simple category, “Reviews”.

Today’s product is the Samsung LCD Flat-Panel family of Televisions.

What I own:

I have the 40″ Samsung LN-T4042H 720p model LCD Flat-Panel Television. Samsung has dozens of current LCD models out there with varying different styles. I am assuming that they stay consistent in quality, given that I have friends with the 26″ model, 42″ model, and 32″ model.

What I love about this TV:

It has 3 HDMI inputs. Most TV’s have 2 HDMI inputs. This allows me to hook up my Xbox 360, DVD player, and Cable Box via HDMI. It’s a beautiful thing.
I love the look of this TV. It has a slick, glossy border around the outer edge, and it’s very thin. It fits perfect in the corner of our apartment.
Amazing clarity on HD channels. Even though this is the 720p model, and all newer models are 1080p, you can’t complain about the crispness and clarity of the picture. The colors are vibrant and the contrast ratio makes blacks look like true blacks and whites look like true whites.

Things I don’t like about the Samsung:

The controller is a little weird. It’s very long, and it’s tough to configure it to control all of the devices in my entertainment center.
The TV only has a 1 year limited warranty. I would rather have a 3 year limited warranty for something that I use every day. I’m just hoping that it lasts a while.

The bottom line: I think Samsung is the second best flat-panel television on the market. I still think that the Sony Bravia has the best overall picture, but Samsung sometimes offers a better value with other smaller features that some people look for. I am very satisfied with the purchase, and I got a great deal, because the 720p models were being liquidated at the time. But, I can’t even tell the difference from 1080p to 720p since my previous TV was a 19″ CRT TV. Related Posts:

Review: The Samung Flat-Panel Television is a post from: Money Crashers