View Full Version : What is a good brand for an LCD HDTV?
NowhereMan 1966 03-02-2013, 11:04 PM Once I get going financially, I plan to buy an LCD TV from 32 to 36 inches to replace the Sony my aunt gave us since the picture tube is going. What is a good brand and I'd still like to have RCA inputs to hook the Playtation (the first one) to it. Are there any brands to stay away from? The Sony is getting so ornery, I'm thinking about bring out the 1982 Zenith from semi-retirement, although I still use it everyday. ;)
mstaton 03-02-2013, 11:12 PM I would avoid Samsung and Sony due to possible screen failure after a few years. Avoid Sanyo like the plague. Parts are almost impossible to find after the warranty runs out. LG is pretty decent, Vizio is not too bad. Sharp is OK Hard to find ones with composite anymore. Get an extended warranty.
kx250rider 03-03-2013, 11:38 AM I agree with Mstaton on LG... Never heard anything bad about them. The trick is to figure out who made the panel on any particular set. I've been out of the business for 5+ years now, so I'm out of touch with who is using who's displays. Sometimes the cheapest WalMart special, might have a good display in it. I'd see what looks good to you, then Google to find out what's inside it.
Charles
Ed in Tx 03-03-2013, 06:47 PM My nearly 6 year old S0NY LCD with a "S-LCD" panel from the S0NY and Samsųng joint venture in it keeps on truckin'. 26,292 hours so far, nary a glitch. I run the backlight at "3" ("5" is max)which greatly reduces panel heat and power consumption.
I'm beginning to keep an eye out for another one same or higher up model larger size up with low hours because these older ones have variable audio output RCA jacks and I think the pic quality is excellent when you get one tweaked in properly.
http://videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=177991&stc=1&d=1362357664
bgadow 03-03-2013, 09:10 PM I had a Sharp that had a nice picture but was very buggy, and finally got to the point that I retired it. (I got it for free when the previous owner got tired of the bugs) I replaced it with a Sanyo a few months ago, so far so good. I chose it because it was the lowest cost set I could find that wasn't made in China (came from Mexico.)
mstaton 03-04-2013, 12:07 AM My 52" Sony only has 5729 hours and it's 6 years old and my 2008 47" Sony has 20,003 hours on it. Both were free but broken. The 52" was only 2 years old when I got it and the 47" was also 2 years old when I got it. Most of the hours were put on by the previous owners. Both minor issues. Looked like bad screens on both when I got them but turned out not to be so. 1 T-con for the 52 and LCD ribbon cables for the 47(defective from being too thin-poor contact). Generally when the Sony/Samsung screens go bad, they "ghost" and are darker on the right half. Once warmed up for 15 minutes they work fine(usually). Once they get to that point, they are done. They can be repaired but is quite expensive and not worth it. Not all Sony/Sam screens will go bad. Some Sony's use Sharp LCD's
ChrisW6ATV 03-04-2013, 01:11 AM I actually recommend Samsung for their picture quality, and Sony second. LG sets are decent but often do not have the ability to show true black (when viewed straight-on) as Samsungs can. Vizio sets seem to be good value for their prices, but they are NOT reasonably repairable after the warranty runs out.
mstaton 03-04-2013, 01:50 AM I dont think any are "reasonably" repairable anymore. I think some of the older sets are built better. I'm trying to repair a 52" Sanyo that is just out of warranty and the part is NLA. Cant find it anywhere. The customer is SOL sadly.
Zenith26kc20 03-07-2013, 06:11 PM Vizio has the most parts available from the scavengers that resell the organs from dead ones on the internet. The most often seen brand here is Phillips. They are plain garbage. I won't take plasmas in anymore. They love to come back after a repair. I use a LG plasma sparingly at home but it enjoys devouring a sustain module a bit too often (loud bang and dark screen follows).
I've had a number of Sony sets come in that eat their remote IR pickup module. It is getting very hard to find at a reasonable price to find that module.
Get the extended warranty and give the beast plenty of ventilation.
Unplug it if you are not going to use it for a couple of days or longer to avoid the capacitor plague.
And absolutely NO Polariod! They are worse than Phillips! We don't see a lot as people just throw them away when they break!
Ed in Tx 03-07-2013, 07:50 PM Recent sample picture off my nearly 6 year old S0NY LCD set (40V4100) . I'd definitely buy another.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p72/tblazed/ch8-newsladies-sm_zps0e523c3c.jpg
btw notice the S0NY Bravia LCD TVs on the local WFAA Ch 8 ABC affiliate's news set..:D The local NBC station uses Sony on their set too. Don't know if that's paid S0NY product placement or just the choice of the engineering department.
joemama99 03-09-2013, 12:41 PM Believe it or not,I have had very good service from my sceptre 32 inch lcd.A friend has one also and they keep right on playing.
Jeffhs 03-09-2013, 02:47 PM My Insignia 19E720A12 19" LCD-LED set is nearing the end of its 2-year factory warranty, but still works well except for one thing. I'm on Time Warner Cable, and the TV keeps putting local channel 3.1 on channel 116.1. Lately the set has been doing this with the PBS affiliate on channel 25.1 as well -- it will put the station on channel 74.1. (One of Insignia's support personnel told me recently in an email that this is a known issue with these TVs, and to use a cable box for channel tuning if the problem persists, or until a firmware update is issued to correct the problem.) However, the set still makes a beautiful picture (better than I ever had with NTSC analog) and works quite well otherwise, so I will keep it.
Insignia is a house brand of Best Buy for TVs and audio gear; these are meant to be "value line" items that supposedly offer more features than other brands in the same price range. Best Buy also carries televisions under the "Dynex" house brand. These TVs do not have as many features as the Insignia line; however, having had no experience with Dynex and going strictly on what I have read online about the brand, I cannot say whether they are better or worse, performance-wise, than Insignia. Knowing that Dynex is one step below Insignia, however, I would think the former could be of lower quality than the latter, so I'd buy another Insignia TV if and when mine goes bad.
tubetwister 04-20-2013, 06:03 PM Here is my take on the brands mostly after a lot of reading and shopping
these are my opinions based partly on past experience , my own research ,published reviews and customer feedback which may or may not be entirely correct . I bought two new sets in Jan 13 so I did do a fair bit of research.
IMO Tier one brands would be Sony,Toshiba,Sharp,Panasonic ,Samsung followed by LG,Vizio
The better second tier brands would be TCL,RCA,Hisense, Insignia, Magnavox and Phillips.
followed by Dynex ,Emerson,Sanyo Westinghouse.
Third tier would be ,ProScan, Element,Seiki, Sceptre,Sigmac, Haier, Polaroid,JVC Upstar, Curtis intl.Orion,Coby Apex ,Sansui Hannspree,Affinity,Poloroid ,etc.
Apex ,Sansui Hannspree,Affinity ,etc.
Of course the groupings opinionated here can vary by set model or in some cases the particular OEM mfr and parts used for a particular brand or model which are subject to change YMMV.
Here are a couple of good links
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-high-definition-tvs/
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-hdtvs/
tubetwister 04-20-2013, 06:19 PM My Insignia 19E720A12 19" LCD-LED set is nearing the end of its 2-year factory warranty, but still works well
Insignia is a house brand of Best Buy for TVs and audio gear; these are meant to be "value line" items that supposedly offer more features than other brands in the same price range. Best Buy also carries televisions under the "Dynex" house brand. These TVs do not have as many features as the Insignia line; however, having had no experience with Dynex and going strictly on what I have read online about the brand, I cannot say whether they are better or worse, performance-wise, than Insignia. Knowing that Dynex is one step below Insignia, however, I would think the former could be of lower quality than the latter, so I'd buy another Insignia TV if and when mine goes bad.
I bought a new Dynex in late 2009 The power supply capacitors failed in jan 2013 . Of course the picture and sound went out when that happened. I was a little disappointed that it only lasted three years before it had a failure
having owned Toshiba ,Sony and Sharp CRT sets that lasted 10+ years without problems .
I replaced it with a new Toshiba.
I was able to repair the Dynex by replacing some bulged capacitors on the power supply board it was only $3.80
for the four caps . I have repurposed it as a second PC monitor.
Dynex/Insignia are from the same manufacturer which is now Hisense
a large China global OEM company . Hisense is starting to market sets of their own brand as well now. Hisense is well known overseas and gets good reviews. Dynex/Insignia recently changed from another OEM to Hisense for most of their sets it is possible the newer sets might be better some the reviews on some of the newer Insignia sets are decent now
NowhereMan 1966 04-20-2013, 06:31 PM I'm also thinking of leaning towards LED sets but for now until my finances permit, we had to put the 1982 Zenith back into service since the Sony died.
tubetwister 04-20-2013, 06:40 PM I'm also thinking of leaning towards LED sets but for now until my finances permit, we had to put the 1982 Zenith back into service since the Sony died.
Won't be long and LED , Plasma and later on OLED will be the only choices
Toshiba,RCA and many others are not making CCFL LCD sets anymore .
JAnoY 04-24-2013, 02:24 PM I'd recommend getting a LED set myself. I recently had to replace one of the CCFL's (lamps in the set that look like the smaller versions of florescent shop lights) in my RCA. Used the set for 2 days and another lamp goes and I loose the picture again. LED's tend to last ALOT longer than the florescent lamps.
waltchan 05-02-2013, 02:29 AM I would avoid Samsung and Sony due to possible screen failure after a few years. Avoid Sanyo like the plague. Parts are almost impossible to find after the warranty runs out. LG is pretty decent, Vizio is not too bad. Sharp is OK Hard to find ones with composite anymore. Get an extended warranty.
What's your opinion with Panasonic?
CoogarXR 05-02-2013, 09:06 AM I work for an electronics recycler, so I usually only see the junk. Most of the junk models I see are Westinghouse, Apex, Element (all three seem to be the same OEM, certain models have identical parts and cases between the three), polaroid (hemorrhoid), philips/magnavox/sylvania/emerson (all Funai made, all junk).
I see a lot of samsung an vizio too, however, they are nicer TVs. The used parts market is huge too, so they are cheap and easy to fix. I personally run 2 vizio 23" LEDs on my main computer setup. They've run for hours and hours for years with no repairs needed.
Pioneer plasmas are my TV of choice though. The only other LCD I have is an NEC LCD3210; it's an old commercial-grade unit. Decent picture, and that model lasts forever.
twbranch 05-02-2013, 10:43 AM For the Vizio, I would go upper shelf on those. The cheaper models are ok but not as good. Sharp is a great tv. I have had mine for 6 years without issue. I have a cheap Insignia with DVD that is not too bad but is not on as much as the Vizio. Avoid the Element TVs although I have hear the top end models have better components and JBL speakers.
NJRoadfan 05-02-2013, 10:53 PM I dont think any are "reasonably" repairable anymore. I think some of the older sets are built better. I'm trying to repair a 52" Sanyo that is just out of warranty and the part is NLA. Cant find it anywhere. The customer is SOL sadly.
Sanyo is owned by Panasonic these days. Where these units outsourced to a 3rd party?
120hz or 240hz Samsung LED. 6000 minimum-9000 Series !
MK1234Tfan 05-06-2013, 10:48 AM I have a 32" Sony Bravia LCD purchased back in 2008 and haven't had a single problem so far. *Knock on wood* However I have seen some people with the exact same set that had display failure. Maybe theirs was a few months before mine?
davet753 05-06-2013, 07:34 PM I bought a Westinghouse LCD set in 2005, and it has operated flawlessly on a daily basis since it was brought into the house.
The employee break-room @ work has a 22" Westinghouse LED installed 3 years ago, and it's never been turned off since it was hung on the wall. It too has operated flawlessly.
In 2006, I bought a Westinghouse LCD computer monitor, and it went south just a few days after the warranty expired.
You win some, you loose some. Besides, the way TV sets are made these days they are all pretty much disposable junk.
NowhereMan 1966 06-27-2013, 03:37 PM We finally got a Vizio 32 inch 720p HDTV. The UPS guy showed up last week and he had the TV for us. We did not know who bought it but the manifest was legal and addressed to us. My aunt bought my mother the Vizio since Mom is battling breast cancer now. The 1982 Zenith is going into semi-retirement although it will still be used.
wa2ise 06-27-2013, 09:32 PM I'd recommend getting a LED set myself.
Some LED lit sets have the LEDs behind the LCD panel (instead of along the edges with plastic lightguides to spread the light around). And the LEDs behind the LCD can be selectively varied in brightness to match the average brightness or darkness of the video scene in the portion of the LCD panel the LED is lighting up. Makes for deeper blacks. Essentially the LEDs are fed what would look like a very low resolution copy of the video signal.
Jeffhs 06-27-2013, 11:45 PM My Insignia 19e720a12 19" LED-LCD HDTV is nearing the end of its factory warranty (2 years), but still works as well as the day I installed it. :thmbsp: I received an email from Best Buy a couple days ago offering to extend my set's warranty one or three more years (I chose three), but the website isn't working properly. I can enter my information (name, address, card number, etc.), but when I click "submit" at the bottom of the page, I get an error message: "An error has occurred. . . ." My input is not accepted as a result. I don't know what's going on, whether the site is down for maintenance or there is a problem with it. I have posted to Insignia's TV message board in hopes of finding out what is going on with the renewal website, but to date (two days later) haven't received a response. :no:
Oh well. I may yet hear from Insignia on this; I hope so, as I am very much interested in renewing the warranty on my TV if at all possible. It's worked very well for me so far and continues to do so, so I'd like to keep it under warranty as long as possible.
For NowhereMan1966: First, I am very sorry to have read in your last post that your mother is ill. I hope she beats the breast cancer as soon as possible, although with any kind of cancer you can't tell. Depends on whether it is caught in time.
Second, congratulations on getting that Vizio flat-screen TV. From what I have read online about this brand, it is a good make and will serve you well. You and your mother will enjoy it, I'm sure. Since the new set has a clear-QAM tuner, you may no longer need a cable box, although since you have Verizon FiOS service it's hard to tell. Depending on the tier of service you have, a box may be required to receive the additional channels even if your TV has a built-in clear-QAM tuner. I'm not familiar at all with Verizon's FiOS cable-TV service, so don't know if you'll need a box to get anything on the new set; many cable operators have converted their systems to all-digital, requiring every subscriber to use a cable box in order to receive anything--including broadcast channels.
NowhereMan 1966 06-30-2013, 02:27 PM My Insignia 19e720a12 19" LED-LCD HDTV is nearing the end of its factory warranty (2 years), but still works as well as the day I installed it. :thmbsp: I received an email from Best Buy a couple days ago offering to extend my set's warranty one or three more years (I chose three), but the website isn't working properly. I can enter my information (name, address, card number, etc.), but when I click "submit" at the bottom of the page, I get an error message: "An error has occurred. . . ." My input is not accepted as a result. I don't know what's going on, whether the site is down for maintenance or there is a problem with it. I have posted to Insignia's TV message board in hopes of finding out what is going on with the renewal website, but to date (two days later) haven't received a response. :no:
Oh well. I may yet hear from Insignia on this; I hope so, as I am very much interested in renewing the warranty on my TV if at all possible. It's worked very well for me so far and continues to do so, so I'd like to keep it under warranty as long as possible.
For NowhereMan1966: First, I am very sorry to have read in your last post that your mother is ill. I hope she beats the breast cancer as soon as possible, although with any kind of cancer you can't tell. Depends on whether it is caught in time.
Second, congratulations on getting that Vizio flat-screen TV. From what I have read online about this brand, it is a good make and will serve you well. You and your mother will enjoy it, I'm sure. Since the new set has a clear-QAM tuner, you may no longer need a cable box, although since you have Verizon FiOS service it's hard to tell. Depending on the tier of service you have, a box may be required to receive the additional channels even if your TV has a built-in clear-QAM tuner. I'm not familiar at all with Verizon's FiOS cable-TV service, so don't know if you'll need a box to get anything on the new set; many cable operators have converted their systems to all-digital, requiring every subscriber to use a cable box in order to receive anything--including broadcast channels.
Thanks. BTW, I'll have to try the QAM tuner on Verizon. IIRC, I think you have to pay extra for HDTV, I'm not sure.
waltchan 11-04-2013, 03:14 PM IMO Tier one brands would be Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Samsung, followed by LG, Vizio.
Toshiba is no longer a tier one brand and should be taken out of the list. All Toshiba flat-panel televisions since 2011 are outsourced and manufactured by Compal in China. Your Toshiba TV was made by Compal (are you shocked now?). :yes:
Dave A 11-04-2013, 06:32 PM At my ballpark I first had LG plasmas starting in 2004. Glad to see them go. Vertical screen lines issues. Next came Sharp LCD's about three years ago. Both were marketing deals. The large and small Sharps are ok...buy not a great picture. The Sharp 32" have deteriorated though. They start ok but the pic begins to pixelate after an hour or so. A channel change and back to the channel relocks it just to start over again. I picked up some Insignias cheap for a test. They are rock solid on my cable plant. And I love my Samsung 26" in my bedroom. My big set is a 34" Sony XBR CRT set but that is for another thread.
Jeffhs 11-05-2013, 02:31 AM I picked up some Insignias cheap for a test. They are rock solid on my cable plant.
I have a 19" Insignia flat screen that has worked flawlessly since new in 2011. The set is now two months out of warranty and still works great. :yes: Insignia is a house brand of Best Buy; the TVs are actually built by XOCECO of China.
I bought my mom an Insignia 26" (?) set in 2009 for her kitchen and it is on from pretty much sun up to sundown, and no problems yet.
I also have two Panasonic VIERA's from 2007, a 26" and 41" set, both bought used. I am very happy with them. Though I hear Panasonic quality had gone downhill.
Main set of a 60" Sharp Aquos, bought in 2008. No problems so far, knock on wood.
I recently bought, off of Craigslit for $100, a Panasonic plasma, 50" I believe, from 2002. Very nice, HEAVY, set. Don't know what i'm doing to do with it, but I love the commercial build quality. Only downside is no HDMI input, and 720 max resolution.
Kamakiri 12-26-2013, 07:42 AM I bought the wife a 46" LCD set made by Element for Christmas. Picture is outstanding, and only $329 (factory refurbished).
It's got horrible reviews for reliability, but it's made in Detroit (I think).....so at least I tried to do my part to keep the dollars here. Bought it from a small independently owned place locally called Dirt Cheap TVs. Small place, only 3 or 4 employees. Even if the set turns out to be lousy, I'll feel good about the money I spent.
jr_tech 12-26-2013, 02:32 PM it's made in Detroit (I think)
This brings up a question are there *any* TVs that are *actually for sure* "Made in America"... I suspect that there are US companies that import sets from China with their brand name, and make some money distributing those sets. I have heard that Vizio sets are US built, but the little 24 incher in my computer room clearly says "made in China" on the back.
Anybody got a recent TV that actually says "Made in USA" on the back. :scratch2:
jr
CoogarXR 12-26-2013, 05:52 PM I am not aware of any LCD panels made in the USA. Sure, the mainboard can be made in the USA, and the case plastic, and maybe it's assembled in the USA, but I doubt there are any 100% made in the USA sets.
coppercity 03-11-2014, 09:44 PM I would suggest LG or Sony, I just retired my still working fine Sony KDL32L4000 from early 2008, for a LG 42" LED 1080P. Tired the Samsung Smart TV did not like it returned it.
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