Ikea to integrate TV, Blu-ray, sound system into sideboard Ikea, the Swedish flat-pack furniture giant, is to offer its design-conscious punters consumer electronics equipment, it said today. Heck, if Apple can build a global business on the back of stylish gadgets, why not Ikea, the acme of Scandinavian minimalist chic? Ikea won't simply offer TVs, Blu-ray players, wireless audio …
Years back I bought ikea furniture for my lounge. A few years after I bought a new TV (this should already be ringing warning bells!) and needed a new TV stand to take it.
So off I went to ikea, and it was all good. They still sold the same range, and they had a nice TV stand in roughly the right size. Got it home, assembled it, put TV on it, stepped back...
And it was pink. WTF! My other furniture was a nice warm, orange-ish wood colour, but this was a definite pink. Not just a little off-colour, but a totally different colour, and pink. I'm sorry but I'm just not having a pink TV stand.
Took it back, and was told that the colour of everything varies depending on the batch, so if you buy something a year later there's a fair chance it'll be pink. You have a choice of having a pink piece of furniture in your room, or replacing the whole lot. Throw in all your AV kit because it's built-in and that could get very expensive very fast.
Had this once with a dining table leaf - it was a different finish to the other one.
Took it back , replaced, went home - right one but damged.
Took it back -replaced, opened there and then, wrong finish -- but noticed that the packing was slightly different between the two finishes.
Chat wth manager and we went and checked - yup, we could tell which finish by which factory had packed them.
Sorted - actually good service as they were happy to go beyond "It fits" or "it's the right code" or "replace or refund". It helped a lot that I wasn't one of the screaming complainants who had done stupid things and were blaming it all on the returns staff . Been on that side if it, symapthy helps.
To be honest - I'd prefer Ikea for someting like that than one of these cheapish beds with a flat screen on a lift.
Yep, and it'll have the same problems.
If you decide you want a new look for the room in three or four years time you don't just get rid of the old TV stand, you get rid of all of your equipment too.
Or if the TV breaks down in a few years you have to carry the whole unit to the repair shop (or replace all of your kit).
Hmmm, I'd rather have Korean or Japanese equipment built in! Nice enough idea, but would prefer cabinets with integrated VESA pillars, incorporating a cable conduit.
It's going to be a poor (wo)man's Bang and Olufsen, but at least B&O's panels are made by Phillips.
IKEA are alright... 15 quid gets you a cabinet thing on wheels that accommodates hi-fi separates perfectly : D
Someone ought to tell the cameraman he's been using daylight bulbs with tungsten film... Seriously, I know that Hollywood is in love with that overdone turquoise look, but *that* is just ridiculous.
As for the whole sideboard concept- yeah, it's a bit retro, but not in a way I think has any cachet at the minute. It just looks like a quaint relic from some middle class home of the 60s. And is the integration so important that it's worth going with some unknown noname brand?
Ikea's business model works (or worked) really well because some time in the 1980s people decided that furniture was a consumable: buy cheap and replace often. I suspect that model might be breaking with people moving back to the prudent grandmother model of buying decent stuff less often and looking after it. So it makes some sort of sense to integrate consumer electronics because they still have a pretty fast replacement cycle.
The idea of replacing a sideboard just because I want to upgrade my telly brings me out in a cold working class miser sweat.
I've got an old 78 player in a cherry cabinet with louvre doors for the volume. It even has wooden needles that you can re-sharpen with a natty little guillotine.
You don't get a more wooden sound than that. Unless you can actually press platters out of ebony.
Oh man ... can you press platters out of ebony? I'd totally out-hipster everybody if I had wooden records.
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