Yesterday at a new Hard Off that just opened up in the last month, I saw something amazing: Two Samsung 19 inch HDTVs (I think they were HDTVs, possibly monitors, but they had remotes with them and looked more like TVs), one marked as used for less than 3 man, and the other marked new for 40,000 yen, complete with HDMI ports. I don't need a new TV or monitor (but damn, is that ever-so-tempting), but a friend of mine does, and he's seriously considering going back there and buying the used one. It looked to be in exactly the same condition as the new model; I couldn't even tell it was used in the first place.
Anyway, this got me to thinking. I've never seen Samsung products for sale at all the electronics stores I usually go to in this area. Does Samsung even sell its products in Japan? If not, could this be the reason why these HDTVs/monitors are so cheap? I have never seen a monitor or HDTV with HDMI inputs sell for such an incredibly low price here. Just seemed too good to be true, but Hard Off wouldn't stock broken products or rip off its customers, right?