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CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page.
Hey, remember that Roku 3 box you bought the other day? Maybe you can wrap it up and gift it to someone this December.
Why? Because this: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Best Buy has the Insignia NS-55DR420NA16 55-inch Roku TV for $449.99 shipped (plus sales tax). That’ll save you $130.
Enlarge ImageBest Buy
It’s a good price on any 55-inch TV, but one with Roku already baked in? Even better. That leaves all three of its HDMI inputs free for stuff like cable boxes and game consoles.
This is very new model, one introduced just a couple months back. At the time, CNET’s David Katzmaier said it “delivers the simplest, most comprehensive smart-TV experience on the market” and rated it four stars .
Meanwhile, nearly 150 Best Buy customers gave it an average rating of 4.6 stars. So, yeah, good TV. Really good.
And easy to use. Obviously the standard Roku interface is quite easy master (and already familiar to a lot of people), but here it adds tiles for the TV’s HDMI inputs and lets you give them custom labels. Thus, just as easily as you’d select, say, Netflix, you can choose your plugged-in Blu-ray player or TV antenna. Everything is seamlessly integrated.
Videophiles may note that the Insignia has just a 60Hz refresh rate, which I consider a feature. TVs that offer 120Hz or 240Hz produce the dreaded soap-opera effect, the worst thing to happen to television since “Jersey Shore.” (Hi-yo!)
That “issue” aside, this is a seriously sweet TV for the money. Order it today and it might just arrive in time to watch the rest of the World Series. Even if you miss that, there’s always “Peaky Blinders” on Netflix. You are watching “Peaky Blinders,” right?
Bonus deal: In case you missed it last time, StackSocial continues to offer the Dream Design Bundle — a mammoth collection of logos, icons, templates, graphics, themes and so on — for whatever price you want to pay. Of course, the only logical option is to beat the average price (currently just $10.66) so you get the entire bundle, and not just a small portion of it. A full 10 percent of the proceeds goes to the excellent charity Project Hope.
Bonus deal 2: Have you read CNET Magazine yet? It’s incredibly awesome and you can get a one-year subscription for just $9.99. Now, with that shameless plug out of the way, here’s another great magazine deal: six issues of PC Magazine Digital Edition for $1. That’s not $1 per issue, mind you, it’s a buck for all six. Just keep in mind it’ll automatically renew at the regular price (unless you cancel) once your trial subscription comes to an end. The mag can be read on just about any mobile device using Zinio.
