Modern Sanyo any good?

[heathkit tv]

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/busin...-in-april-2012

[radiotvnut]

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.

[heathkit tv]

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?

[radiotvnut]

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.

[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.

[VintageJoe]

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.

[heathkit tv]

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.

[classictv80s]

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.

[heathkit tv]

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.

[kx250rider]

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

[rcaman]

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

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by rcaman

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".

[heathkit tv]

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.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by heathkit tv

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.
jr

[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.