Looking for Mr. HDMI Cable


One of the items our family received for the holidays was a lovely 40" Samsung 1080p LCD HDTV. Since my son has an Xbox 360 we needed to get an HDMI-M to HDMI-M cable (about 6 feet long) to connect the devices. The question then became where to find a cable at the best price. I was not in a big rush since the 360 experienced a red ring of death on Christmas eve and had to be shipped to Microsoft for warranty "repair" (i.e. replacement). I looked online to see my options. I started with Best Buy who had a cable available for $12.99 online, but the cheapest cable available at the Brentwood store was $29.99. Target was similar with an online cable for $19.99 but the cheapest one at the Brentwood Target being $32.99. Not to be outdone, Wal-Mart had an online cable for $15.86 but its cheapest one in the Maplewood store being a Sony model for a whopping $39.88. I also checked my newest favorite store, Micro Center (located right next to Target, in fact) which is where we purchased our Samsung HDTV, and they actually had a 6 foot HDMI to HDMI cable for $19.99, making it the cheapest bricks and mortar retailer locally. Next was checking my favorite e-retailer, NewEgg.com, and they had a 6 foot OKGEAR foot cable for $4.99 with $5.99 for shipping/handing for $10.98 total. So since I could wait a few days, NewEgg would beat Micro Center. But, then I checked everybody's favorite online cheap store, eBay, and found a Hong Kong dealer, lee-webweb, with an excellent rating who would ship us a 6 foot HDMI cable for a ridiculous $2.95 with free shipping. We ordered it on Dec 27, and it showed up today, Jan 6, so it did take almost two weeks, but still it is hard to imagine someone selling a cable that inexpensively. Coincidentally the replacement Xbox 360 showed up today as well, and we hooked it up with the new $3 cable to our HDTV and it works flawlessly. How can any retailer compete with Hong Kong eBay sellers who have almost no overhead? Even NewEgg cannot compete. The amazing thing is that most people in the general public probably end up spending ~$30 for their HDMI cable from Best Buy or Target. If they only knew about Micro Center they could save $10 if they do not mind a "QVS" brand cable, and they could save $20 going with NewEgg if they could wait a few days. Or if they can wait two weeks, they could go with the Asian eBay connection and buy one for almost nothing like I did.

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