LCD TV choice / reliabilty

Hi,

I'm about to upgrade our 5 year old 26" Sony Wega CRT by purchasing an LCD TV, probably 40" - 46". I've been loking mostly at Sony and Samsung.

What's the general reliability/repairability of LCD TVs, particularly these brands.

These sets come only with a 1 year warranty. Does it make sense to spend $250 for a 3 year extended warranty considering the sets themselves are priced at $1600 - $2000.

Al Moodie.

What is awful about them? I was just at Best Buy and the pictures on most them looked wonderful.

Most of the pictures that I see on them look bloody awful, so I'm not going to be replacing my 36" Tosh CRT set anytime soon. However, I have seen some

*very* good pictures on some NEC pro plasma panels installed at a local bar where I gave some assistance to the installer / supplier with some sound distribution issues. These were big mothers - like 60" - and weighed in at a hefty 6 grand UKP each, but it just goes to show that given the money, these things can work. I think that part of the problem is that people trade up from a 26" CRT set to a 40" flat panel, and then sit the same distance in front of it. I have to admit that the further you get away from them ( assuming that your living room is big enough ) the better they look, but that's defeating the object of upgrading the size, as you come back to, effectively, a 26" equivalent again ...

My daughter recently bought a 32" Philips LCD, and I have to say that in general, it looks pretty good - good enough brightness, contrast ratio and viewing angle, that I initially mistook it for a plasma. However, that said, you can still see motion artifacts on it, and colour shading rendition errors, that just are not there on a CRT set with a standard off-air TV signal going in - either analogue or digital. My mother has a Panasonic CRT set with a built in digital tuner which is now exclusively all that is used to receive off-air transmissions. With the exception of the low bitrate 'cheapo' channels, which suffer from all of these digital display problems anyway, the picture on this set is still better than my daughter's LCD.

I think that the best advice that can be given to anyone thinking of purchasing a flat panel TV, is to set aside a half day to go into the stores that are selling them, have a really good look from the sort of viewing distance and angle that you will be at in your home, and talk to the sales person. Whether they are showing pictures from a DVD or not, all stores have the capability of showing a real off-air picture, so you should ask to see a variety of stations' pictures on any set that takes your fancy. Don't be taken in by the nice darkened home cinema demo areas either. A lot of the time, your TV will be watched in daylight, not a darkened room. Also, don't let the salesman blind you with just HD pictures. Make sure that you see some 'normal' resolution pictures as well, as these will still be the standard for a while to come yet, and if the set is operating in a non-native mode to display these, it may perform rather less well than it does in its native hi res mode ( a bit like LCD PC monitors ).

As far as the extended waranty deals go, I would recommend them, but make VERY sure that the panel itself is covered under the terms of it. Some, I believe, exclude this very expensive (both plasma and LCD) item. Hope this helps.

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" wrote in news:Dc1Kh.1551$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net:

One has to remember that with any TFT LCD display,there's a certain number of pixels allowed to be defective and still be "salable" or "good". The LCD monitor I'm using has one bad pixel [ON,not OFF]close to the top of the display,and fortunately not in a really objectionable location.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

you know, i use to have 1 bad pixel with this DAEWOO 15", at some point, i don't know when, it cured it self.. :)

--
"I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken"
Real Programmers Do things like this.
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5

They look pretty bad to me, especially if you view non-HD content on one. Even good HD content I tend to see a lot of banding with smooth gradients like sky. That said, I'd still rather a 40" LCD than a 26" SDTV but I'm still fond of CRT projection myself, despite the large size.

To me, a still picture on an LCD is really nice. A moving picture from an NTSC source or computer is nice. But the artifacts from HDTV broadcasting are horrible, and it wouldn't be any different on CRT, or plasma, or any form of projection.

--
        Martians drive SUVs!

Al Moodie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

At that size, I might look into plasma. Or check out reaer projection sets, if room allows.

Extended warranties are a major earner for retailers. If you view not having one as a bet, its a bet with excellent odds.

NT

Above 32", plasma generally looks better than LCD, plus has a wider viewing angle.

Consumer Reports used to recommend getting the extended warranty on LCD TV's because of the cost of backlight replacement, but now recommends against it - in 3-5 years, you can buy a new TV for just a little more than the extanded warranty. As usual, they made that change just after we bought a new 26" Sharp with warranty....

That sounds like you were watching a Sony LCD TV. Just because Sony sucks doesn't mean that all LCD TVs suck, d*****ad.

Ah, the foul-mouthed troll returns. Shields UP!

FUCK YOU AND FUCK SONY!!!