14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that a television set with a screen size of 32 inches and a native resolution below even HD would cost somewhere around $200 / €145 or so, but that's not the case for the Sceptre Color Series.
Instead, the newcomer, despite the resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels, needs you to pay around $600 / €433 for each one.
Assuming that exchange rates even matter, which they probably don't, meaning that the actual price, in European countries, could be of €600 instead.
So why do the TVs cost so much? Other than the size itself (32-inch diagonal, as we said), which isn't enough reason on its own.
The answer is the colorful bezel, which can come in pearl white, black, purple and pink. That's pretty much it, really.
The weight of 12.3 lbs / 5.57 kilograms is pretty nice too, and the I/O capabilities (one USB 2.0 port, a headphone jack, digital/audio outputs) aren't a bad addition either.
Nevertheless, the price seems a bit steep, especially for something that is supposed to sell as a low-to-mid-range product.
It doesn't help that Sceptre itself has similarly sized TVs of the same specifications selling for less than the current figure.
The existence of three HDMI ports, one VGA, one composite and one cable/antenna port is a plus, but it doesn't justify the tag either.
So what, exactly, is Sceptre trying to do here? Betting on peoples' taste for style. Maybe someone owns a home with color-themed rooms and needs a purple TV for the purple guest bedroom, or some such thing.
Then again, those prospective customers are probably swimming in money, so they're more likely to look at better displays, like a Panasonic 4K TV with Ambilight technology (paints the wall behind the TV in the colors on the display itself, adding immersion). Even if they don't go for 4K UHD resolution (ultra high definition), they could just get, say, a 47-inch Full HD one which ships for $1,100 / €1,100.
A final but equally queer detail is that even the unremarkable, black Sceptre X322XV-HDR (that's the name of the TVs) costs $600 / €433. So even the color-coding argument is invalidated.
At his point, we're fairly sure that Sceptre will have to reduce the price of the Sceptre X322XV-HDR pretty soon, or restrict the supply to a limited inventory unless it wants to incur some losses. The price-performance-quality ratio is just too questionable for anything else. Then again, TV bezel color options beyond black, white and silver actually are pretty rare.