What TV makes are reliable
 

Following on from dead tv thread...

What TV makes are known to be reliable and which ones are to be avoided?

Will be getting new goggle box today, probably warranted 2nd hand to save a bundle.

Never seen a Sony pop myself :)





That was until last week when my mates 3 year old crt went bang. Don't make em like they used to :D

Bang & Olufsen. Reassuringly expensive. One of our TVs is a B&O and it's very reliable. Problem is, they look good, the quality is excellent, they are reliable, they cost a bomb, but feature-wise they are somewhat lacking i.e. never again. The rest of our TVs are Phillips, Thomson, Sony and a couple of cheapos for the kids rooms (we only pay one licence fee per house over here). I reckon you can't go too far wrong with most of the major brands but Sony would be the one I'd be looking at if it were me.

Interesting remark. I thought this was the norm. Where in Europe do you pay one licence fee per telly?

I thought the UK paid per telly? Obviously I'm mistaken.

Mind you, coming from Belfast we never paid any licence fees...ever. Every time they sent the van round to snoop it got burned :)

Per house mate... :)
Sounds suspiciously like West Yorkshire...... :D

Frenchie is spot on. B&O are indeed very reliable with only a few of their models throwing up problems.
TBH with any consumer electronics now-a-days it is a game of hit and miss.
If you take it as £ per anuum you can get a widescreen TV for £500 and you will get £100 pa out of it, in my mind thats not bad.
Panasonic, Toshiba, JVC and Sony are the mainstream ones I would look at.
Sony are a bit overpriced (says the B&O owner ;) ) JVC represent good VFM ...but again a bit more hit or miss. The other 2 put together a good all round package.
All imo of course.

LOEWE (sp?):Thumb:
Pioneer
Bang&Olufsen

Yamaha. if you can find them for sale in this country same for the two below
Onkyo
Denon

The B&O's use phillips tubes IIRC and Loewe but the software is a lot better than a phillips set but you get the same tube, so you may save heaps of cash and get the same quality if you buy a phillips.



Panasonic or sony are very good set imho.


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used to be the case with some models eg. MX5500 but not now.

do B&O still use phillips gear in their hifi's too?

Panasonic are still very reliable. Sony still make great tubes and have a great picture but haven't been reliable for the last 15 years odd.

No point buying second hand when new sets are so cheap. You don't know if the second hand set has been running night and day either.

A tip is to buy your TV from a John Lewis store if you can. They give a no-quibble free FIVE YEAR guarantee on any TV they sell, and they price match within the local area too.

We got our Panasonic flat 28" for £599 - should've been £899 but a nearby electrical store was having a closing-down sale - and it's been great.

I always buy Sony and have never had aproblem, from a small bedroom size portable to a 42 inch.

ive only ever had panasonic. completely reliable with as great picture:)

Our Philips portable just started going on the blink, but it is 20years old (suspected dry solder joint...hit it and it works! :D ) ;)

Our old lounge philips still works too, only fault was a dead backup battery (for the memory). That's about 18 years old now. But it has the dreaded "Lukemia-vision" (red emitter gun/red phosphor on the tube has worn out).

Also have a 30 years old Philips in the loft (ultrasonic remote control - wow! :cool: ). Still works, did have have its problem though (kept loosing color - problem with the remote control circuit), but back then they were fixable too. ;)

On the other hand my Dads old Philips had quite few problems (but it was under extended warrantee so it never cost him anything) That lasted for 13 years. So it really is hit and miss.

I'm not pushing Philips TV's...just seems we always end up with them due to them usually having the best price/spec when compared to other brands.

Got a Philips (had a few in the past and they've been fine apart from my current one of course!!) 32" with 3 scart inputs + svideo and 4th vid front input, 100Hz, stand, 6 head VCR, 1 yr old for £350 with guarantee (they replace it, no questions asked rather than take it away for weeks on end). All it's missing is a glass plate that sits on the top (purely cosmetic) and a small scratch.

Oh, and they're delivering in 3 hours and taking the old set away! bonus! saves me backbreaking getting the bl**dy thing up 2 flights of stairs.

Dracoro
Edit I see you got one!

The lower end of the market tvs, even the well known makes are sometimes rebadged budget manufacturers, so beware, unless you are in the trade and can recognise the various models on display, you could get caught out. There is no longer a top quality manufacturer which stands out above the rest. You get your well known makes, philips ,sony, panasonic JVC, hitachi, and some others, and then the budget makes goldstar, goodmans ,bush and various supermarket makes. Your best bet would be to buy a well known make and get as long a guarantee(3-5years) thrown in for free or low cost insurance. If I were to buy another tv for myself, then I would list them in this order of preference.

Sony
Panasonic
Philips
Jvc
Hitachi

If money is tight, look at the supermarket makes, but get a long period money back guarantee or replacement.

If you know someone with a trade card for Makro, Costco, then sometimes they have good deals.

Goodluck in your search, but it is a minefield and only time will tell if you get a good reliable make/model

Andy

Got a 28" panasonic, dead reliable, and IMO a way better picture than any Sony I have seen:)


PS, I thought everybody used LG cathode ray tubes anyway? The differences being in the software used to control them.

Got a Philips. No problem, very happy with it. Had a Matsui portable for about 15 as well years and still as good as the day it was bought.

Just bought the kids a JVC 17" lCD each for their rooms. Look good and nice picture.

Chip

I'll stick with Pioneer for now

3 years old Plasma and still going strong :notworthy

got both our ex display cheap from makro

bush (i know) 28inch in my room
and a jvc interiart 32inch pure flat jobbie a funking great fools lantern

Another vote for Panasonic here, I have 36 incher (and me tellys quite big too)

Loewe everytime. Absolutely the best picture I have ever seen on a TV. Had mine so far for 3 years and as pin sharp as the day I got it. Not cheap, but afaik I have never heard of one of these German sets go pop.

OK, now you have! My 32" Loewe Credo needed a new tube (actually a Philips unit) when it was 2 1/2 years old, after the set was left switched off for a couple of weeks while we were on holiday. Something bad happened to the picture geometry and it couldn't be corrected. The new tube has been in about the same length of time and seems OK.

I totally agree on the picture quality, though - I've still never seen a better PAL TV picture anywhere.

Ive had a JVC 21" Nicam tv for about 7 years and never had a single problem with it.

Ive also had a Sony Trinitron 14" for about 2 years. Picture quality brilliant.

The only problem Sonys have is the tube can go. This happened to our old set. It was easily repaire however.

Id choose Sony everytime. They come with a premium price though.


My dad bought a Sony Wega 32" WS with full SS system recently too - Its amazing.

Bought the cheapest 20" I could find 10 years ago - a Samsung. Still working perfectly...

Most jap appliances share the same internals. Youll find alot of the cheaper brands are essentially Sonys.

You probably find its the other way round, alot of the budget units either have samsumg or daewoo parts- see the sony budget vcrs they have a daewoo mechanism

Lol, as I was typing I thought that may happen, doh! Murry'd myself. :) Still after this one (Aconda) I would get another...or if I get rich a Spheros.