The Amazon Spring Deal Days event is upon us, and as promised the firm has released a wave of “discounts”.
And, to be clear, there are some solid discounts between the sea of tat to be found if you're willing to look.
But, whether it’s due to the lack of caffeine in my system, the shortage of fudges I have left after Amazon launched a separate “Big Deal Days” event just before Black Friday last year, one set of “deals” it’s pushing in particular have irked me.
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Specifically the wave of discounts currently running on the LG C3 range of OLED TVs we reviewed in 2023.
If you jump onto Amazon right now you can get seemingly solid discounts on the 42-inch LG C3, 48-inch LG C3 and 65-inch LG C3.
Specifically, Amazon is selling the 65-inch LG C3 for £1104, an apparently decent £1721 discount.
Below it the tech giant is offering the 48-inch LG C3 for £820, a quoted £780 discount.
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Finally the 42-inch LG C3 is selling for £799, which is also a £780 discount, according to Amazon.
Why are those prices bad?
LG C4 OLED TV 65 inch in What Hi-Fi? test rooms
(Image credit: LG Electronics)
Why is that bad? It’s a fair question as the 42- and 48-inch C3’s both earned perfect five-star ratings when we reviewed them, with the 65-inch version garnering a still-impressive four stars.
And on paper they are very similar to the newer LG C4 and LG C5 we’ve reviewed, and also given five-star ratings.
There’s the same flawless gaming specifications, with all featuring four full-fat HDMI 2.1 inputs that will let you run multiple current generation consoles and gaming PCs at full speed.
Looking at the newer reviews, you’ll also see the main upgrades are relatively incremental improvements to things like peak brightness, colour volume and motion handling.
And to be clear the C3s are still solid OLED TVs, so if you have one there’s not a huge incentive to jump ship to a newer model.
So why am I warning you off them? It’s all about money. The prices aren’t great and the discounts aren’t as deep as they first appear.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll see the discounts being shown in their RRP are also from launch, not their average. They've sold at similar prices for a while.
On top of that you can get a newer LG C4 for pretty much the same price right now.
Specifically, the five-star 65-inch LG C4, which is a fantastic set we still recommend in our best OLED TV buying guide, currently sells for £1159, a £490 saving on its average price this year and the cheapest I’ve seen it go for this month.
If you’re after something smaller, Amazon's selling the 48-inch LG C4 for £899 (save £100) and the tiny 42-inch LG C4 for £699 (save £700).
That means there’s less than £100s difference between the 65- and 48-inch options and the 42-inch C4 is actually cheaper than its predecessor right now.
So, for the life of me, I can’t see why you wouldn’t go for the newer model.
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