I recently visited my local Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart stores to see what combos they had on their shelves, and all offered quite a few. Just to give you a rough idea of prices and brand names, I’ll mention below some specific examples of combos I saw. However, I have no information about quality or reliability, and I am unable to make any recommendations.
The most popular sizes for TV-DVD-VCR combos seem to be 27-inch and 20-inch. In the 27-inch screen size, I saw an Emerson TV-DVD-VCR combo for $337 and a Sylvania for $350. I also saw a Toshiba for $569, but it had a flat screen which is supposed to provide wider viewing angles, reduced reflections, and straighter horizontal and vertical lines. In the 20-inch screen size, I saw a Sansui TV-DVD-VCR combo for $284, a Panasonic for $344, and a Toshiba for $380.
Most of the TV-DVD combos I saw had 20-inch TV screens. Among these were Apex at $250, RCA at $280, Brokosonic at $300, and Panasonic at $350. I also saw an Advent 24-inch TV-DVD combo priced at $284.
TV-VCR combos seem to be decreasing in popularity—presumably because of the apparent slow death of videotape—but they are still available in stores. In the 19-inch size, I saw an Emerson for $150 and a Magnavox for $157. I also saw a 20-inch Panasonic with a built-in FM radio for $200.
As people cope with the transition from videotape to DVD, many are choosing DVD-VCR combos. Among those I saw were Emerson at $109, Toshiba at $130, Sanyo at $139, Zenith at $140, Philips at $150, Panasonic at $158, and Sony at $180. There was also Brokosonic at $90, but that was after a $30 mail-in rebate. Not all the DVD components of these combos supported progressive scan and not all would play MP3 recorded in both CD-R and CD-RW formats.
