Modern Sanyo any good?

[Findm-Keepm]

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,

[Bill R]

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.

[heathkit tv]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

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.
jr

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

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

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!

[AndyMack]

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.

[heathkit tv]

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)

[Hemingray]

Originally Posted by bgadow

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.

[heathkit tv]

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.

[rcaman]

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

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by rcaman

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,

[radiotvnut]

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.

[freakaftr8]

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.