Will 2010 be the year of 3D in our living rooms? That may depend on our wallets. 3D HDTVs won't come cheap, and many brands won't include the required active shutter glasses, forcing consumers to shell out even more money for the emerging technology.
Samsung will be one of many who won't include the specs with the HDTV, making it hard for the second class consumer to drop loads of money into the new trend.
According to ITProPortal, Samsung's 55-inch 3D LED HDTV is already on sale at Amazon, tagged with an impressive $3300 pricetag. However Samsung is also selling separate active shutter glasses for a whopping $150 a piece (the SSG-2100AB).
With that said, a family of four will be forced to shell out $600 for the glasses after dumping over $3,000 load into a new 3D HDTV.
ITProPortal also points out the drawbacks to active shutter glasses: they require a CR2025 battery, they may have an effect on brightness and contrast calibration, they they do not fit children. In addition, viewers must have at least own one pair of the active shutter glasses in order to benefit from the 3D technology-- those without the glasses can't watch the content simultaneously because of the way it's formatted.
So the question still stands: is this the year of 3D? For consumers with deep pockets, 3D technology may be tomorrow's investment. Consumers pinching pennies may not jump onto the 3D HDTV bandwagon for a while. Besides, the first version of 3DTV is probably going to not be so great and have kinks that need to be worked on.
We suggest waiting for at least 2nd generations of 3D TVs.