Flipkart, Amazon online sale tips: Be a smart' electronics shopper this season

Online festive sales have begun for this year for all major e-commerce names — Flipkart’s Big Billion day starting today (20th Sep), Snapdeal’s Unbox Diwali sale starting today (21st Sep) and Amazon’s Great Indian Sale starting on 21st Sep. While you will be tempted with a lot of offers on thousands of products across various categories, it often becomes a difficult task to decide the perfect choice with regards to the price tag.

Most people often end up securing good deals on products that they find not worthy or simply unnecessary. In order to help you with your purchase decision this sale season, here are some smart buying guides for some prominent product categories.

Televisions (Smart TVs, 4K TVs, LED TVs)

During the sale, you will find some irresistible offers on TVs across various categories and price ranges. The essence here is to get the one that makes more sense over a substantial period of time.

Are 4K TVs really worth buying now?

While they may look tempting on paper, most 4K TVs end up becoming something equivalent to much cheaper standard LED TVs. Right now, there’s a dearth of 4K content in the known world. You will still watch TV in 1080p, provided you have a Full HD compatible set-top box — no service provides streams content in 4K in India as of now. Therefore, it is only advisable to get a 4K TV if:
a.) you want to be future ready.
b.) you have a gaming console such as a PS4 Pro or XBOX One S that renders games 4K resolution.
c.) you have copies of exclusive Blu-ray Hollywood titles.
d.) you have a solid Internet connection to stream 4K videos from YouTube.

Is it sensible to get Smart TVs?

There’s no better way to say this — NO. Most TV panels that have the ‘smart’ tag are essentially giant Android tablets running extremely bloated iterations of vintage Android versions in order to mimic that of the expensive ones from world-renowned brands. None of them works as effectively as expected — you will only end up testing your patience. If you really want a ‘smart TV’, then it is advisable to get a good full HD panel with good picture reproduction and buy a streaming dongle such as an Amazon Fire TV Stick, Google Chromecast or an Apple TV. You will end up saving a lot more but not missing on the ‘smart’ experience.

(Note: Before buying TVs online, always get a hands-on demo to check out the actual picture quality and features from a nearby showroom.

Smartphones

This is a category of electronics that remains in high demand every festive season. Since smartphones are a natural extension of one’s personality, there are no smart suggestions to get the perfect one if you have no budget constraints — you have your iPhones and premium Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

However, if you are limited to an affordable budget smartphone, then you should preferably go for a phone from a brand that offers good post-sale customer service. When we say good post-sale customer service, we also mean timely software updates apart from good service centres. Brands such as Motorola, Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, HTC and ASUS should give you a better user experience over the course of a year.

Tablets

When it comes to tablets, lower price not necessarily means a good experience. Android tablets often tend to struggle with multitasking as Android isn’t optimised for the bigger form factor of a tablet. Therefore, you should avoid anything below Rs 20,000. If you want an affordable tablet under Rs 30,000, then you can go for Apple’s iPad (2017) model. If you are looking for more expensive tablets, then you have the usual Apple iPad Pro models and Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (read the review here).

Smart wearables

Smart watches are surely fancy but carry exorbitant price tags. Unless you are spoilt by the looks of an Apple Watch Series 3 or an Android Wear Watch, it would be sensible to go for cheaper smart bands. They do most of the functions effortlessly that you would need a smartwatch for — tracking your health, showing notifications from your smartphones and most importantly showing time. They are durable and you don’t carry the fear of damaging an expensive accessory on the move. The recently launched Xiaomi Mi Band-HRX edition is available at a cheap price tag of Rs 1.299. You can also check out some of the other affordable smart bands that we recommend you to buy this festive season (click here).

Refrigerators, ovens and washing machines

Buying home appliances depend on a lot of factors for various people — some prefer to go for the essentials whereas some need good looking appliances to complement their lifestyle. With refrigerators, prefer to go for the bigger three-door or side-by-side models only if you need more storage space — the smaller the refrigerator, the lesser power it consumes and is easier to maintain.

For microwave ovens, it is advisable to go for the models with convection and grilling along with standard microwave mode. A ceramic cavity will make it easier to clean and ensure a slightly longer life in comparison to the non-ceramic cavity.

As for washing machines, front-load models clean better and are comparatively gentle on clothes that their top-load counterparts. If you budget limits you to affordable top-load models, try to get a fully-automatic model as it will only require you to attend the machine when the clothes are done.