Due to limited space I'm in the market for a LCD set of about 19" screen size. Knowing to stay away from any set made by the no name brands and to put the stink eye on even some of the majors I thought to ask you chaps as to any recommendations.

Found a Sanyo DP19640 that fills the bill size and price wise. This model is made in Indonesia which I suppose is a tad better than sending my money to china, but what sort of durability record might this model have? I tend to leave my sets on for many hours a day.

For the record, if I had the room available I'd use a CRT set, preferably a Zenith CCII

PS Panasonic bought Sanyo recently and plans to phase out the brand in early 2012:
http://japantoday.com/category/business/view/brand-name-of-sanyo-to-be-basically-terminated-in-april-2012

All I can tell you is what I've seen.

I've got a similar model 19" Sanyo LCD set that was given to me. The only thing that happens is the green power LED lights up. From what I was told, it only had a few hours on it before it died. My testing indicates that the motherboard is defective. I'm hanging on to it in hopes that a junk set with a good board will come along.

Then, another friend gave me a 37" Sanyo that lost it's inverter board after 3 years of use. I ended up tossing it because I didn't want to replace the board.

And, during my many trips to wal-mart, I've seen many people returning Sanyo brand LCD sets.

If I were in the market for an LCD set (even a small one), I'd stay out of wal-mart. Instead, I'd try to find a name brand set, like a Panasonic or Sony, from an electronics store who is willing to back up what they sell.

IDK, maybe if Sanyo has been bought by Panasonic, the quality will improve.

Thanks for the input. Wally Whirled offers an extended 2 year warranty for $20 and while I almost NEVER buy such plans it may be prudent in an instance like this. Will keep looking but haven't found anything else in this price range, closest are about $75 more.

What about the sets with a built in DVD player? Are these problem children as I suspect?

I don't care for any TV with a built in DVD and/or VCR player. In most of these, they use the cheapest playback mechanism possible and they don't last long. If space permits, I'd recommend getting seperate components.

Speaking of service contracts, a friend bought a 37" Dynex TV from best buy and he took out the extended 2 year warranty. Of course, the TV died while under warranty. When he took it to the local TV shop that does their warranty work, they told him that the module that was needed for the repair was NLA. Best buy ended up refunding his purchase price and he was able to buy a 42" TV with money left over.

I used to never recommend extended warranties; but, I now think they are a good idea, since newer TV's tend to develop problems early on life.

Sanyo did have a decent reputation in recent years, from what I had seen, but things keep changing. It wasn't that long ago that they were still building some stuff in Arkansas. I didn't know about the Panasonic buyout.

I don't know what brand I'd buy. One of my distant relatives bought a new Sanyo LCD and had me set it up for them. I thought the picture was awful, and nothing I could do seemed to improve it. She was happy, though. I have a Sharp that I got for free from a repair shop. The audio is dead-I bypassed it by running the sound through my stereo. It has a great picture but is very glitchy. It likes to turn itself on in the middle of the night, and at the same time it will lock-up so that you will walk in to find a frozen image from 2am, and the only way to make it go away is to unplug it. Good way to freak out the Mrs!

When I was cleaning out my friend's shop I tossed some late model LCDs from Toshiba, Emerson & Polaroid. The brands I'd probably look at the closest would be Panasonic (and their associated brands) and Samsung.

I have had a Sanyo from Wal-Mart for about 3 years and have not had any issues 'yet.'

My niece bought a Sony Bravia. Had to be replaced 2 times before the waranty was up.

That's exactly what I figured about those combo sets. They're built to a price and the quality suffers for it.

My understanding is that most electronics fail on a bell curve so unless they develop a problem early in life then they'll last for years until they do. Doesn't seem to apply to today's SMD filled software based sets.

Unless it has moving parts or the item in question is very expensive there really is no need for extended warranties as the numbers don't crunch. Seems that there's a new paradigm with all this digital and flatscreen stuff.

If the amount of your space is limited, quality-wise, you would be much better off getting a 13" CRT set - either new or used.

HAD a 13" crt and from the viewing distance I needed a pair of binoculars LOL. The spot is in the bedroom of my 5th wheeler...it's a small fold down shelf in the corner and depth (and width) is greatly limited. And for proper viewing the set will have to be positioned at an angel, further limiting the available depth. That's why I must use a flat screen TV.

I have zero repair experience on any flat panel sets, but if I were to look to buy one, I'd go to Costco and get one of their house brand (Vizio), and that's because of their excellent no-hassle returns. Also, I haven't looked at Consumer Reports lately for TV sets, as I have no plans to buy. But you might try that also.

Charles

i dont care what any of you say about sanyo lcd tv,s. they are one of the best out there. we do warranty for walmart stores on sanyo and we see very few and none with major trouble. they are fine tv sets and will outlast the majority of anything out there. and they dont have crappy capacitors in them.
steve

sanyo lcd tv,s. they are one of the best out there. we do warranty for walmart stores on Sanyo and we see very few and none with major trouble.

Maybe the WalMart managers are tossing most of the returns rather than bothering? Sanyo may have decided that giving the consumer a new set may be cheaper than paying for warranty work. They may have instructions like "If condition X exists on the returned set, toss it and give the customer a new one, and send us the paperwork and maybe the set's back with serial number". "If condition Y exists, we can get that fixed cheaply, send it to the repair shop".

You guys are great! I can totally see that scenario about the stores exchanging the set and then tossing it as I had a buddy who worked for K-Mart and that's what they did...they'd cut the power cord off so as not to confuse it with any other stock on hand.

I did notice an odd artifact on the Sanyo....while a series of credits were rolling by (white letters on a black background) there were flashes of pink in the lower most line of text. WTH? Most odd. Doubt it was due to the source signal, more likely it was from some weird signal processing issue within the set itself. Gotta wonder if it's a systemic thing or isolated to the one set I saw...even if I don't end up buying this model I'd still like to know.

HAD a 13" crt and from the viewing distance I needed a pair of binoculars LOL. The spot is in the bedroom of my 5th wheeler...it's a small fold down shelf in the corner and depth (and width) is greatly limited. And for proper viewing the set will have to be positioned at an angel, further limiting the available depth. That's why I must use a flat screen TV.

This may be really out in left field, but have you given any consideration to a projector? A pull down screen and ceiling mounted LED projector might work ok in this application.:scratch2:
jr

Or, you could take the advice of a friend, who used to fix TV's. It finally got to the point when someone asked him what brand TV to buy, he'd tell them to find a set that they liked and buy it.

From a buddy that makes a living repairing flat screen sets:

Stay away from Sanyo.

His favorite sets in order are: Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Vizio. He likes Hitachi, only because they have great factory service support for independent folks like him.

His money makers: Philips/Magnavox, older Samsungs (caps), LG (inverter boards and power supply issues), and the oddball sets: Polaroid, Westinghouse, Dynex and Insignia.

Sony sets have had panel problems but to avoid problems, Sony replaces the set. He rates their Bravia LED sets as the best pix/value.

He says Sanyo sets are poorly designed - 85 degree caps, and too few vents. He has an account with SFS (Sanyo's parent) - just for buying replacement parts.

Whatever you buy, put it on a surge strip if possible. Summers here bring in lots of money for my buddy, thanks to lightning storms and the all-too-common power supply failures.

I got all of this just before Christmas - we picked up a 47" set to replace my Panasonic Tau CRT set. The TV armoire, other furniture, Christmas Tree, and 3 kids all were a tight fit. We got a Samsung, and it rocks. It has a wifi adapter, so we stream Netflix - getting rid of HBO! If we turn on the Blu-ray, it senses that and changes sources automatically. I'm still toying with the setup - this thing has like 18 or so adjustments for the picture. I used live football coverage and got it set up nicely. Of coourse, my wife is gaga over the facebook crap, but I am sold on the picture. Saving Private Ryan was a treat the other night!



Cheers,

I have a Sanyo 32 inch lcd set and have had no problems. Since I sell electronics at Wal-Mart here is the deal. Our return policy is so librel that it is no indication of the quality of any brand of set. If you buy it and don't want it for any reason within 90 days with your recipt we will take it back. This month I will sell sets on Friday before the super bowl only to take them back the week after. Many of the sets are returned with the defect saying "bad picture" What this really means is I want my money back for some reason, and I am afraid you will not refund my money on a perfectly good set. We will of course, we do not care. Our agrement with most manufactures is if it fails within 90 days the customer is to return it to the store and the store will just replace it. We then send the defective one back to the manufacture for credit. In the case of Vizio we return the defective ones to them and they refurbish them and send them back. We mark them down 20% and sell it as a refurbished set. We will not sell you a refurb or repaired tv without telling the customer and discounting it. In my store I have tv sets on the tv wall that have been on for almost 2 years. 24/7 364 days a year baring a power failure. In the last 4 years I have only had 2 lcd tv's die on display, and the only ones I have had that didn't work out of the box were Samsung sets. I had 3 of those. Sometimes we may get a bad batch from the manufacture. I remember once we saw almost every 32 inch Philips set returned as defective. This apparently only affected one production run since the next run we received had no failures. I kind of agree with radiotvnuts tv friend find one you like and buy it. There is just not that much difference in quality from one brand to the next.

This may be really out in left field, but have you given any consideration to a projector? A pull down screen and ceiling mounted LED projector might work ok in this application.:scratch2:
jr

That would be like trying to make a rounder wheel! :D Whenever possible I try to abide by the K.I.S.S. principle. Thanks for the suggestion just the same.

Or, you could take the advice of a friend, who used to fix TV's. It finally got to the point when someone asked him what brand TV to buy, he'd tell them to find a set that they liked and buy it.

That would certainly keep him out of hot water LOL He couldn't be blamed for not suggesting a brand!

I purchased a Sanyo 32" LCD set back in '06 (DP32746), still have it and it's still working as well as new.

It has two quirks, that while mildly annoying, don't manifest themselves frequently enough to warrant a repair:
1- Occasionally while changing channels, the TV will turn off. No biggie, it turns on no problem.
2- The tuner will reassign channel assignments. For example (I use OTA signals here) Channel 10's multiplex will appear on the next lower channel, Ch. 6 in this case. Even though Ch 6's PSIP info will appear, Ch. 10's video & audio will show. Not sure why it does that, and only a complete reset & rescan will correct it.

Outside of that, it's been a decent set for 4+ years now. LCD is still sharp and bright, built in tuner is reasonably sensitive, and it's pretty easy to operate. Would I buy another? Probably not (my most recent purchase was a Panasonic), but this set has been good for what was then a 'cheapie' model.

Latest update: found a Vizio (shudders) at Costco on sale for $199.95 which has LED edge lighting (guess they got rid of the mercury filled bulb) and chock-a-block filled with wireless internet aps. Not sure what all that's about just yet but it has peeked my interest. Will keep you posted (if you can bear the tension LOL)

Sanyo did have a decent reputation in recent years, from what I had seen, but things keep changing. It wasn't that long ago that they were still building some stuff in Arkansas. I didn't know about the Panasonic buyout.

I don't know what brand I'd buy. One of my distant relatives bought a new Sanyo LCD and had me set it up for them. I thought the picture was awful, and nothing I could do seemed to improve it. She was happy, though. I have a Sharp that I got for free from a repair shop. The audio is dead-I bypassed it by running the sound through my stereo. It has a great picture but is very glitchy. It likes to turn itself on in the middle of the night, and at the same time it will lock-up so that you will walk in to find a frozen image from 2am, and the only way to make it go away is to unplug it. Good way to freak out the Mrs!

When I was cleaning out my friend's shop I tossed some late model LCDs from Toshiba, Emerson & Polaroid. The brands I'd probably look at the closest would be Panasonic (and their associated brands) and Samsung.

They may still be. Their "headquarters" isn't but two hours away from my area.

Couldn't find that size model in any of the local stores so I ended up ordering it online from them. Postage was a bargain at only $9.95. It should be here by the end of next week.

While at the store I dinked around with larger versions of the same model and the menu is very nice and detailed (lots of sub menus which the geek in me lives for). Not that this Vizio is super fancy but it does make the Sanyo look much lower rent in comparison.

He says Sanyo sets are poorly designed - 85 degree caps, and too few vents. He has an account with SFS (Sanyo's parent) - just for buying replacement parts.


strange we never have to replace caps in the sanyo sets. i dont buy your story at all. steve

He says Sanyo sets are poorly designed - 85 degree caps, and too few vents. He has an account with SFS (Sanyo's parent) - just for buying replacement parts.


strange we never have to replace caps in the sanyo sets. i dont buy your story at all. steve

YMMV - I have repaired some Sanyo sets myself - mostly inverter board issues and a tuner that wouldn't lock (ATSC, a real pain without a good signal source, the VA62 didn't do), but my buddy swears that Sanyo/Fisher Corporation is trying to be the cheapest out there. His breadwinner sets include Sanyo.

radiotvnut has had the Sanyo woes too:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=247205

Cheers,

And, that one went to the trash because I got tired of looking at it. And, I was afraid that if I did fix it and sell it, it would die in a week. Then, I'd have an angry person back over here making threats because they spent their last bill on a TV and it didn't last a week. Actually, I feel that way about most newer TV's. I could fix the older ones with some degree of confidence that they would last. And, when I sell something, I don't want to see it again.

And, I have a 19" Sanyo with very low hours that died, except for the green power light. I could get a main board for around $75; but, I'm not willing to sink that much into this TV. The price of new flatscreens are constantly coming down and, before long, one will be able to buy a 42" LCD TV for less than $200. It's getting to the point where it's not even worthwhile to invest in repairing a used flatscreen for resale, because they certainly won't bring much when a new one can be bought for a low price.

Funny subject. A bit ago I had my daily driver 50" toshiba plasma fail on me (actually made by lg). As it was under the gun for y sustain surgery, right in front of it was my 1967 zenith color set. Lol it was a sight to see. Usually it seemed to be the other way around.