It's that wonderful time of year where my wife and I participate in our annual tradition of purchasing a new TV. It's not that we want to buy a new TV every year but for the last 3 years our almost 1 year old TV set has died. Thankfully we purchased the TVs at a small chain in the Midwest, Rex Electronics, which offers an incredibly cheap extended warranty. Normally I would caution against wasting your money on an extended warranty but I've found cheap extended warranties to be invaluable when it comes to off brand TVs.

If we hadn't opted for the 2 year warranty, which only cost $20, we would have easily spent over $2,000 on no name HDTVs over the past few years. Alternately, we could have spent the money on one name brand 1080P HDTV and had money left over for surround sound! Thankfully when our last TV died on Friday, we were able to pay a little extra and get a Samsung with excellent reviews, something I wish we had done from the start. As an added bonus, the picture is 10 times better than the Soyo it replaced.

When most consumers go shopping for a new HDTV they have one thing on their minds: price. Sure the specs are important to some extent, but for the masses, cost is the deciding factor. But shopping for an HDTV on price alone is a major mistake, as many other factors should play into your decision.

Take a look at this recent PC World survey, which asked owners to rate the reliability of HDTVs. Sony sits at the top of the list with above average marks in every category, except ease of use, where it ranks only average. These high marks don't come without a cost; Sony HDTVs are amongst the highest priced units on the market. The extra cost brings more than reliability in this case it also brings a higher quality picture.

As you move down the list, you'll find plenty of brands which are ranked as average for reliability. Many of these, including my current go-to budget brand, Westinghouse, offer a great compromise between price, quality and affordability. Another budget brand which received good marks this year is Vizio, which has surprised me by offering a relatively high-quality unit at a very low price.

The Wii is a pretty amazing piece of technology. Not only has it brought casual gamers of all ages together, but it did it in a way which disillusioned many hardcore gamers frustrated by the lack of many features we have come to expect from the current crop of video game consoles. For lack of a better analogy, the Wii is a lot like sex -- the more people you have to play with, the better, and, well, playing by yourself just feels...wrong.

Toss in the fact that online play is about as much fun as smacking your shins with a splintered 2x4, due to the lack of voice chat and the inability to create a friends list which spans all games, and you'll begin to see where I am coming from. Nintendo reasons that it doesn't support these features in order to make the system more family friendly, but its competitors have managed to provide these features while giving parents the ability to limit the use of voice chat. These factors have turned me off of the Wii even as it sits there taunting me with its pulsating blue light.

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The final push over the edge into overrated for me comes from the lack of quality control, which has led to a slew of gimmicky games worth less than the plastic case they come in. Even Nintendo Fanboys admit that the lack of Nintendo's Seal of Quality has lead to an abundance of crap for the Wii. Unfortunately, other than Guitar Hero, games for the Wii without Mario or Luigi have, as a whole, been a disappointment. For every Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers, there are hundreds of games which could barely pass for a lame web game.

Sure, playing the Wii is fun and it has even inspired three kids to get off their couch and lose weight. However, the novelty of swinging around a Wii 'mote to play a game wears off about the time your last party guest heads home. As a gamer who owns a Wii, I can't help but notice that the Wii seems to get the majority of its use when I haul it to a friend's or to my grandparents for Christmas. As a whole, the Wii is lacking in games, online support and single player fun, leading me to the conclusion that it is overrated.