AmazonBasics: Bezos and Co. starts private-label consumer electronics line
By Darren Murph 
posted September 20th 2009 12:51PM
posted September 20th 2009 12:51PM
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Read - Amazon's press release
posted September 20th 2009 12:51PM
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I'm a gold member at MonoPrice and shop there all the time. They still don't have a few things that you would think they should carry. Hopefully Amazon can bring competitive pricing and a bigger selection to the field.
How do you become a gold member?
i love monoprice.
just ordered an aux cable for my zune hd yesterday. only cost me $1.60
Max -
Does the aux cable output video? Whats it called? Very interested.
I love MonoPrice, and $4.73 true overnight shipping (to California) beats Amazon's $25 minimum on many occasions. I just ordered about 8 cables from them they cost $20 including tax and shipping and got to me THE NEXT DAY.
Amazon, an empire in the making. Yes, not just retail, eventually amazon will control manufacturing too.
Amazon 6ft braided HDMI $35
Monoprice 6ft braided 24awg 1.3a $8.30
Amazon also carries two $8 HDMI cables, one 6.5ft and one 9.8ft. Oddly the 9.8ft one is cheaper.
The $35 one is the "ultra high speed" one whatever that means.
Yes, Amazon does sell a 9.8ft HDMI cable for $8.35.
Monoprice charges $4.74 for the same thing, and you can pick your colour to boot.
Amazon is going to have to do better to displace monoprice...
"Amazon is going to have to do better to displace monoprice..."
Trying to undercut Monoprice wouldn't be profitable.
Given the power of Amazon's brand/marketing, they just need to be cheaper than Best Buy et. al. to win over mainstream consumers. The masses who buy $30 printer cables and $90 HDMI cables don't know jack about Monoprice, but many of them do know and trust Amazon.
To the person who doesn't know about Monoprice, a $30 HDMI cable seems like the best deal ever.
"Yes, Amazon does sell a 9.8ft HDMI cable for $8.35.
Monoprice charges $4.74 for the same thing, and you can pick your colour to boot."
Yeah, and I can get it via Priority Mail for $9.69 total -- which from CA tends to take a week. Via guaranteed second day, $15.62; overnight $24.99 total.
With Amazon Prime (which already more than pays for itself, for me) I get guaranteed second day for $8.35, and overnight for $11.34. And Amazon Prime speeds range from "as advertised" to "greased lightning" -- I once got my second day package 14 hours after ordering.
Don't get me wrong; I'm a happy Monoprice customer -- but when I need a single cable fast, Amazon starts looking like a better deal.
Awesome. Die, Monster Cable, die!
Plenty of people who don't know about Monoprice would gladly pick up Amazon-branded AV cables... and still undermine The Evil Monster Empire. A bag of win all around.
BUT GAIZ I THOUGHT MONSTER CABLE MADE IT TEH BETTARZ? LIEK AT FRIEZ?
Rip-off prices so far compared to monoprice.
Of course, I meant amazonbasics prices are a ripoff so far. Gotta love Engadget's reply system.
I had always wondered about the monster talk on the boards....
And then I saw them at the local electronics type shop, what an outrage, monster price seemed to be all they offered
This is a great idea -- some consumers give in to the Monster Cable bit thank to all of the FUD. Monoprice is an awesome place to shop, but the average consumer might have a hard time trusting that it's okay to get cheap HDMI cables.
Hopefully Amazon pushing it will make people feel more comfortable buying cheap cables and eschewing the FUD from the high-end cable retailers.
I agree. I think this won't affect Monoprice as much as it will Monster.
There's nothing wrong with that :-)
More good places to get cheaper cables will make people realize we don't need $100 cables for our system or $20 power adapters for our mp3 players (here's looking at you, apple!)
Yeah, Amazon TV is coming.. :)
Yea, it's called Amazon VOD...
Agree with you completely. They may be dipping their toe in the market with cables, but there's no reason they wouldn't come out with televisions and other Consumer Electronics to help make more profit in high ticket, high competition product areas.
It may all seem like a conspiracy theory but the same way that supermarkets have their line of branded products it just makes sense for other retailers. Only a few will be able to get away with it, but Dell and Amazon could definitely make more millions by letting someone else make the televisions and they just promote the heck out of them on their site and other marketing material.
All it's going to take to take is an email here or there, a splash page and whatever they want to push will become a best seller. Competition from Monoprice will only impact a small percentage of customers since many people don't know who they are and just buy what they see, not what's "the best value."
Chance Stevens,
Editor, http://www.hdtvbeat.com
Monoprice is a bunch of frauds that cheat you out of your money with low-quality and sometimes broken items. Then of course, they refuse to replace it...those assholes...I'd rather throw away money then give it to them.
Seriously? What crawled up your ass? I've never had trouble with Monoprice, and I've ordered many cables and a few toner cartridges.
I not only buy cables, but bulk wire & cable from them, never had a problem in over a dozen orders.
The only problem I have with Monoprice is tax and shipping fee. Other than that, they have great products.
Agreed completely with the above, i've never had a problem with monoprice. Some of their non-cable items, like the Iphone backup battery, could have higher build quality without question, but for $8 or whatever ridiculous price they charge I consider it well (really well) worth it. I've never had any problem whatsoever with quality on their actual cables.
The only reason this amazon thing appeals to me is that, as a Amazon Prime member, the idea of a $2 cable with free 2 day shipping is pretty compelling. Monoprice shipping charges are very reasonable, but Amazon+Prime is just absurd.
He must be a1ex@monstercable.com
O_O
I admit, I am pretty excited by this. A big company promoting cheap cable solutions instead of overpriced ones like Monster -- I never thought I'd see Amazon do something like this.
Anyways, I have a question. What's the difference between "Ultra High Speed" HDMI cables and "High Speed" HDMI cables? Amazon is selling both, and one is like $30 more expensive than the other.
I think it's just marketing... According to HDMI.org(the hdmi trade group) "•High Speed (or “category 2”) HDMI cables have been tested to perform at speeds of 340Mhz or up to 10.2Gbps, which is the highest bandwidth currently available over an HDMI cable and can successfully handle 1080p signals including those at increased color depths and/or increased refresh rates from the Source. High-Speed cables are also able to accommodate higher resolution displays, such as WQXGA cinema monitors (resolution of 2560 x 1600)."
http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/faq.aspx
When you look at the transfer speed of the Ultra-high speed on Amazon's site it's the same as high speed.
The outer cabling is different (braided) on the more expensive one, and they mention shielding unlike the normal one.
That said, I sure wouldn't pay the extra $30.
There is no difference. All cable sold for HDMI A/V purposes are expected to be HDMI 1.3 and thus support 10.2 GB/s. The only difference is braiding. I find it deplorable that Amazon is engaging in Monster-like tactics, trying to scam 300% premium out of the consumer under false pretense of delivering "higher quality experience"
It's not true there's no difference.
Hey, don't get me wrong. All my cables are from monoprice.
But all cables, even digital ones, are actually analog. When digital signals are sent down them they are distorted in various ways. As long as the receiver can make out the signal the sender is sending, you're fine. So this means cables can be made to far lower tolerances without audible (or visible) distortion. You can even use cables that are out of spec as long as the signal gets through.
But still, you can find that certain combinations of poor transmitters, crummy receivers and low-quality (not necessarily low-price!) cables can cause problems.
So sometimes the cheapest (worst) cable can't do the job, and you need to buy a higher quality (more expensive), so there can be a difference in cables. But that's still not a reason to go spending a ton of money blindly lining Monster's pockets.
It could be interesting to see this develop as a competitor to Newegg's Rosewill house-brand of computer accessories. Rosewill tends to have more enthusiast builder stuff (PC components, etc.) but as AmazonBasics grows, so will the overlap.
Yes.
I can't imagine today is a good day at monoprice, this is terrible for them. Fantastic news for the consumer though, especially all those out there who don't know about monoprice, they will soon be enlightened.
Amazon Prime FTW
Awesome, I do 85% of my online shopping at amazon and usually just get cables at monoprice. If amazon can be close without me having to look through all the vendors and their shadiness, they will have 90% of my online spending.
Why are you guys worried about monoprice? Have you LOOKED at Amazon's prices for this stuff? $35 for a 6 foot HDMI cable is pretty ridiculous and about 300% more than monoprice.
That's about what a reasonable cable costs in a store. I feel like this is more of a "you know, you don't have to buy Monster Cables" strategy than a low-price option, and from a name people (well, the general public, not the Internet) trusts.
not many people know about monoprice though. amazon just has to price these ~50% cheaper than than what people find in stores, which is still much more than monoprice, and people will buy it. tell your friends about monoprice!
This product is pretty good, and I'm gonna let you sell it, BUT MONOPRICE HAS ONE OF THE BEST PRODUCTS OF ALL TIME!
I do believe you have won this comments thread.
...what a jackass....
Oh wait, was that just tweeted? Quick, take it back!
I'm wondering if the amazon branded DVD+R DL are good quality or not, might switch to those from Verbatim
I, for one, welcome our new discount overlord!
The HDMI cables are still a rip off. 6.5' for $35. Come on Amazon.
They also have a 6.5' for $8. The $35 is braided cable, which is quite a bit more expensive to produce (and totally unnecessary on such a short run).
Funny how the single most important thing about this is whether or not the cables are overpriced. Legitimate concern, but interesting that's the biggest selling point.
"Funny how the single most important thing about this is whether or not the cables are overpriced."
As opposed to?
What do you think people should be interested in about these cables?