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I've had my share of dealings with the larger Chinese-built RCA's in silver plastic cabinets and I agree that they are total junk. Some have built-in digital tuners and some do not, while others have built-in DVD players and some don't. The front panel buttons on these sets are bad about "leaking"; which, causes all sorts of goofy things from a set that powers on by itself to the wrong command happening when a button is pressed. Also, the flyback transformers are a high failure part and I've seen quite a few bad CRT's in these sets.
Just a couple of months ago, my friend who resells stuff picked up a 20" RCA truflat TV/DVD combo. Someone had broken the tray out of the DVD player and it's buttons were flaky; but, the TV worked. However, the CRT was gassy (it used an LG/Philips CRT) and the only way to get a watchable picture was to turn the contrast almost all the way down. Otherwise, the picture bled like crazy. I think he sold it for $10 at his sale.
I was replacing flyback transformers (mainly M134C, ATC010, and ITC008 chassis) in those later RCA's when they were only two to three years old. The transformers were not that expensive; but, the replacements are just as crappy as the originals and when a CRT TV is only worth a few dollars on the used market, it makes it not worth the effort.
As junky as Funai and Orion are, I'd take one of those sets over a later model RCA. The smaller RCA's seem to be a little better; but, the 27" and larger ones are not worth the powder it would take to blow them up.
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