RCA Flat Screen TV

[Jeffhs]

It is a doggone shame that RCA flat screens are so unreliable. RCA, after all, was the company that pioneered b&w and color television in the 1950s; to put their logo on flat-panel televisions of such low quality today is almost a crime, IMO. I would never own a flat panel with the newer (post-1968) RCA logo on it. I know RCA was once a very fine brand of television, radio and even hi-fi stereo (my folks' first TV was a 1954 RCA Victor 21" b&w console; they also had the matching 45-EY-3 45-rpm record changer and an RCA Victor 3-way [AC-DC-battery] tube powered portable radio), but that was decades before the current trend of slapping once-famous brand names and logos on cheaply-made offshore-built devices began.

I have a 19" flat panel "Insignia" brand TV. Insignia is a house brand of Best Buy. The set has been operating flawlessly for nearly three years; it is used daily on cable, with an LG Blu-ray player and a Panasonic VCR.

I read somewhere that these TVs are built using many LG parts, including the panel which is rated for 60,000 hours to half brightness. This equates to some 20 years of average use, although I do not expect my set to last anywhere near that long. However, I am expecting it to last somewhat longer than the often quoted two years; how much longer, however, is anyone's guess. I am thankful I did not have the kind of out of the box problems some folks have had with these sets; on the contrary, mine worked well (and continues to operate exceedingly well) from the moment I unpacked it and hooked it up.