The Big Cable Ripoff
A big source of revenue for brick-and-mortar electronic stores is the rack of cables usually located near the front of the store. It’s certainly convenient to find all of your USB, printer, Firewire, power, HDMI, Audio and other cables at your local store, but the markups on them are enormous. HDMI cables are probably the worst offenders. Here is an excellent example:
Circuit City 4′ HDMI to HDMI cable $39 (Nexxtech 4′ )
BestBuy 6′ HDMI to HDMI cable $59 (Dynex 6′)
The “Monster” brand of these cables cost all the way up to $180.
Now for a dose of reality…Meritline and other online retailers carry the functional equivalent for about 1/10th the price. Here is a 6′ HDMI cable (with free shipping) from Meritline for $7.49:
The only reason to ever buy cables from a local store is absolute desperation.
Update: I’ve been using the Meritline HDMI cables for several weeks now with various devices and they work perfectly.
