Funai Longevity

[MRX37]

Okay... brand new Funai here. Starting the stopwatch and powering it up...

Mmm hmm, so far so good...

Oop! There it went! 52 seconds! Hm, their quality must be improving...

Seriously, I have yet to find one Funai that works.

[sampson159]

my son works for a refurbisher.he says that a good portion of funai items will fail within the year and they are running about a 20% return in 30 days after purchase.sets will work approx 1 hour and cease!i have a few funai dvd players and they are 2-3 years old and seem to work fine.also a couple of tvs that plug along and they are almost ten years old.even so,not a name i can be comfortable with.remember the days of zenith and rca?i quess we will never see that kind od quality again.

[Celt]

I have no idea who actually made the JVC 27" set I have in the front room, but so far its been a good set. For all I know, it could have been made by Funai or Gold Star.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by MRX37

Okay... brand new Funai here. Starting the stopwatch and powering it up...

Mmm hmm, so far so good...

Oop! There it went! 52 seconds! Hm, their quality must be improving...

Seriously, I have yet to find one Funai that works.

Give me a break on your falsetto story. I will never consider Funai as the worst of the worst manufacturer. Why don't you try the Chinese brands, like Haier, Apex, Polaroid, Coby, Sansean, and use the stopwatch?

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by Celt

I have no idea who actually made the JVC 27" set I have in the front room, but so far its been a good set. For all I know, it could have been made by Funai or Gold Star.

All JVC CRT TVs have been made by JVC since the beginning (except some 13" sets and combinations).

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by AAA3330

Don't know exactly what this company's deal is or whether they used to make a quality product. Could be quality control, cheap parts, poor assembly techniques.

It's cheap parts that Funai used that dropped more than 90% in their quality since the 80s.

[Eric H]

This thread has now outlived many Funai products.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Symphonic, Sylvania, and Emerson are actually Funai. I do know that Magnavox DVD players, DVD/VCR combos, and DTV converters are Funai built. I'm not 100% sure; but, I think some Magnavox TV's are Funai built. The later model Philco branded DTV converter boxes are made by Funai as well as later Sanyo VCR's. Also, many of wal-mart's Durabrand TV's are built by Funai.

Not all Philips/Magnavox products are made by Funai. Funai will only make Philips/Magnavox products for Wal-Mart/Sams Club stores only. If you go to Target, some Philips/Magnavox products, including DVD players, are made by Philips themselves. The Philips-made one is better made. It's worth going to Target.

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

As far as other brands of VCR's and DVD/VCR combos, if it's in an all plastic case and weighs less than 3 lbs., it's made by Funai.

You'll be surprised to know that ALL Toshiba DVD/VCR combo players/recorders are now made by Funai with starting price at $94.99.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by waltchan

Give me a break on your falsetto story. I will never consider Funai as the worst of the worst manufacturer. Why don't you try the Chinese brands, like Haier, Apex, Polaroid, Coby, Sansean, and use the stopwatch?

I still haven't found a working Funai. Just ones that won't power up.

Found working RCA's, working Zenith's (pre 1990's), Panasonics, Toshiba's, various other brands of TV's that either worked, or weren't too hard to get working, and I did actually find a working Coby boom box once.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by waltchan

Give me a break on your falsetto story. I will never consider Funai as the worst of the worst manufacturer. Why don't you try the Chinese brands, like Haier, Apex, Polaroid, Coby, Sansean, and use the stopwatch?

And don't leave Lennox Sound, Westinghouse, and Vizio off the list. Aren't the Westinghouse and Vizio brands made in China?

The local Winn-Dixie grocery store used to sell Haier TV's. A friend of mine got 4 or 5 that were customer returns from the store manager. The only one I was able to fix was a 13" set. There was a damaged trace where the AC cord attaches to the PC board. The picture wasn't that great even after I fixed it.

My Brother-in-law has a 24" Apex set that he bought in 2003. I think he paid $129 for it. Much to my surprise, it's still going. I think his is about the longest running, without a problem, Apex TV that I've seen. OTOH, a friend had a similar set that just died when it was only a few months old. The store wouldn't honor the warranty and said he'd have to ship it back to the factory for service. He ended up getting me to fix it and the problem turned out to be a shorted diode in the 130 V B+ line. He was not happy about this, saying "my grandmother had a big Zenith that lasted 25 years before it died". I reminded him that the Zenith was a much better built set and it cost more than $129.99. Also, I just came into an Apex DTV converter. It's performance is worse than the Funai built Magnavox.

[jedo1507r]

I can vouch for a Coby DVD player being a perfect trash heap topper. I tried to fix one that was given to me by a friend of mine and when I opened the unit, the hair-thin wires separated from the joints and are almost impossible to resolder. The laser voltage pots are in a bad spot, the machine's housing is equally all-plastic. It became fast friends with the contents of my trash bag. By the way, this paragraph has outlasted a typical Coby DVD player.

Compare that junker to any Funai-made DVD player (and only the company's DVD players). The Funai is a better value for its reliability and durability amongst its class. Heck, even a Venturer-made DVD player is a smarter choice than a Coby.

[radiotvnut]

Yeah, my Brother-in-law also had a Coby DVD player that crapped out after about 5 movies. He couldn't understand why it died so fast since he paid the high price of $24.99 for the thing. He's one of those guys that always searches out the lowest possible price and then complains when the item dies in short order.

I've replaced shorted rectifier diodes and bloated caps in DVD players. Other than that, I've not had much luck repairing them.

[jedo1507r]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Yeah, my Brother-in-law also had a Coby DVD player that crapped out after about 5 movies. He couldn't understand why it died so fast since he paid the high price of $24.99 for the thing. He's one of those guys that always searches out the lowest possible price and then complains when the item dies in short order.

I've replaced shorted rectifier diodes and bloated caps in DVD players. Other than that, I've not had much luck repairing them.

Yikes! $25? That's drugstore prices! Around here, a typical Coby (GPX, Curtis, or other low-end brands) ranges $14 to $20 at a discount/electronics store worth their salt. Yes, those undercut many of our local thrifts' prices, which often have the same models.

I have worked with a Durabrand-badged Venturer STS75E HTIB, adjusting the laser pots (which are clearly marked CD and DVD at an easily accessible location, ) and got it working well, even changed the region code--which happened to automatically enable VCD playback, which is very unusual to me. The downside, Dolby Pro-Logic processing cannot be switched off, a serious PITA when you just want to use it with only TV speakers, and a lot of suspicious caps throughout the unit.

Any of you remember the Koss/Oritron players? Worse than Apex, but not as bad as Coby.

[radiotvnut]

My cousin just bought a Funai built Magnavox DVD player at wal-mart for, I think, $29.99 + tax. At one point, one of the local electronics stores was advertising DVD players for $17. No brand name was given.

Currently, I have an Apex DVD player. I got it, a sharp VCR, and a lawnmower all for $75 when my neighbor passed away. The only time I've fired up the DVD player was to make sure it worked. At this time, I don't even own any DVD's. The Sharp VCR works fine. I use it everyday to record shows off of RTN.

[Robert Grant]

My Sylvania 6427GFF (Funai but not PRC) still going strong, heavy use since 12/26/2005 (I know, that's not saying much for it).
Hope it never dies - color gamut in DTV is beautiful, but I am not optimistic it will last as long as my older sets have.
One more note - in the time I bought it, many were saying that the Funai models were being returned far less often than some of their competitors of the day.