Thoughts on Polaroid LCD at Circuit City?

hemiram

hemiram

Full Audioholic
Yeah. There are people who think that 3 years of good performance for $1000 is a good deal, but I am not one of them. For that kind of money, I expect at least 15 years!
I got lucky with TVs in the past, I got 24 years out of my 19" Mitsubishi, 25 and still counting with my 27" Mitsubishi (It is getting pretty green these days though), and I got over 20 from a 25" Sharp that died a premature death from a lightning hit that toasted the tuner.

I paid $199 for the 19" Mitsu, and almost $1000 for the 27". It was an expensive set, like almost all Mitsu stuff is. I never had to repair any of the above TVs, so I sure got my money's worth out of them. If my Sharp LC37D40U can make it half as long, I'll be happy, thrilled actually.
 
hemiram

hemiram

Full Audioholic
I had a neighbor whose wife totally controlled the house, and she didn't like A/C, so they were sweating all summer, she didn't think color TV's were "perfected" yet (This was into the late 60's), so they had a bad looking, slightly blurry, black and white console set that gave me a headache watching it. They came over one night, not long after we had just bought our new RCA 23" set to replace the older one that moved to my parent's bedroom after the GE B&W set died. The neighbor woman complained that the colors were wrong (They were damn good, actually), and that "Our TV looks better". The hubby, buzzed on beer, looked at her like she was insane. Her being insane was a matter of opinion, but she would have gotten my vote.

A week or so later, her mom had a stroke, and she went back to wherever she came from to take care of her, etc. The neighbor calls up my dad, who sold TV's, and said, "If you can get me the best 23" you've got, by Friday, I want it!". He got it the next day, and was thrilled. When the Mrs came back, she went ballistic, called my dad and demanded he take it back, and give her back her old TV, in the dumpster or in the back of the garbage truck at that point. My dad told her he sold it to "Tom", and Tom would have to return it, but her TV was gone anyway.

We could hear them yelling and screaming at each other all day, but they kept the set, and when her mom died a few months later, and she went back home again for the funeral, etc, a truck appeared from one of the local heating and cooling contractors, and A/C was soon installed. Anytime she left, he just did whatever he wanted to, or bought whatever he wanted, and took the heat when she came back. He found out a few years later that I was selling stereo compnents, and plopped a thou on a nice Kenwood receiver, a Dual 1229 turntable, with a Shure V15X cartridge, a Technics cassette deck, and a pair of speakers, I can't remember what they were, smaller booksheves of some kind when she went to Florida for some reason for a week.

When she came back home, I was about to get into my car, when she appeared in my garage, and started yelling at me. I had no use for her really, and when she demanded I take it all back, I said, "There's a 25% restocking fee for non-defective items!". I thought she was about to hit me, but she stomped back home, where she screamed at him all day. He really loved that stereo. Every year, he had me put a new stylus in, even if it didn't need it, and I had to do it with her glaring at me the whole time. Most of the time, the old one was fine, and I put it in my V15 and used it until the next free one came along.

I'm kind of glad that he outlived her by almost 25 years now, and go remarried to a non witch wife, who takes good care of him, and doesn't scream at him. The Kenwood receiver still works, and so does the 1229.
 
stratman

stratman

Audioholic Ninja
You know what they say "when the cat's away...........;):D
 
M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
A well made CRT can be virtually indestructable.

I got lucky with TVs in the past, I got 24 years out of my 19" Mitsubishi, 25 and still counting with my 27" Mitsubishi (It is getting pretty green these days though), and I got over 20 from a 25" Sharp that died a premature death from a lightning hit that toasted the tuner.

I paid $199 for the 19" Mitsu, and almost $1000 for the 27". It was an expensive set, like almost all Mitsu stuff is. I never had to repair any of the above TVs, so I sure got my money's worth out of them. If my Sharp LC37D40U can make it half as long, I'll be happy, thrilled actually.
I've got A 1990 27" Mitsu that's still going strong and a 1998 32" Proscan that (thankfully) has had no problems either. Both of which are CRT's and, curiously enough, both cost $500. The older sets were replaced for lack of features, not performance.

Sumptin' tells me that this new tech won't be able to claim the same longevity. ...all in the name of progress.
 
Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
One thing that's changed is that there is no longer a really easy way to tweak the color levels on CRT sets. When my 30 year old 19" Sanyo started to get a little blue all I had to do was flip the switch on the back to put it in service mode which gave me a single horizontal line. Then I simply had to turn the red, green, and blue adjustment knobs with a screwdriver and the TV was virtually new again. It's still going strong.

I assume that those adjustments (and probably more) are available in on-screen service menus in more modern TVs but they don't make them easily accessable anymore. They'd rather you went and bought a new set.
 
hemiram

hemiram

Full Audioholic
On my Mitsubshi, the blue and red guns are almost all the way up, and the green is down to just the point where it comes up at all. I have a friend who has a Vectorscope and all that stuff, and it doesn't even get close on the red and blue, they are very weak. Green is about the right intensity at the point I started out on (we marked it)

People with white hair have a moldy green tint to them. It's at the point now that goodwill will be getting it soon. I hardly watch it, for obvious reasons. I can't say that it wasn't a great TV though, thousands of hours on it over the years. When my mother was sick and living with me, it was almost on 24/7 for years.
 
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M

markw

Audioholic Overlord
Hey now!

People with white hair have a moldy green tint to them.
I've got white hair and my pallor is only slightly grey, not green and I'm, certainly not moldy! Now, my mother, OTOH... :D

Seriously, after every power outage I have to readjust the colors vis the standard color/tint/brightnress/contrast controls and I somehow always wind up with a pleasing balance without having to touch the guns themselves.

I'm hoping to get as much life outta these as I can. I don't need a 16:9 screen for everything and 4:3 screens seem to becoming more and more scarce as time goes on.
 
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hemiram

hemiram

Full Audioholic
If I had a big room, I would probably be thinking about getting a 32" SD TV and putting it under my LCD that's on the wall, just for watching some things that really look bad when they get "stretched". Some place had a decent looking 27" TV for a really cheap price. It wasn't one of the mystery brands, but I can't remember what it was.

If it was made by Philips, I would pass though, I haven't owned a TV they made, or had a friend who had one, where it didn't die young, or have to have major repairs right after the warranty ran out. One friend had to have his fixed time after time for the same issue, and then when it happened after the warranty ran out, Phillips basically told him too bad. That was the end of that TV, a Sony 32" replaced it soon after that, and he paid to fix the Philips one last time, and got less than two months out of it as a bedroom set. I helped him carry it out for the trash pickers to get the next time the trash went out. It was gone in minutes.Too bad, it had a great pic on it, just like the Philips LCD that another friend bought at Sam's Club recently. It's down for repairs too, less than 3 months old. It had a red line running down the screen in two places, after it locked up and had to be reset. When it worked though, it did look great. That Ambilight is one of the dopiest ideas I've ever seen though.
 
J

Joe Schmoe

Audioholic Ninja
If it was made by Philips, I would pass though, I haven't owned a TV they made, or had a friend who had one, where it didn't die young, or have to have major repairs right after the warranty ran out.
Strange. I have always found Philips TVs to be extremely reliable. They are all that I or anyone in my family have bought for as long as I can remember.
A friend of mine is still watching a 27" Philips that I gave him 12 years ago, after I had already used it for 10 years!
 
Hi Ho

Hi Ho

Audioholic Samurai
The store/service center I work at will not sell or work on Phillips products because they were by far the most unreliable product they had every dealt with.
 
Q

quiksr20

Junior Audioholic
Wow, Glad I came accross this post. I always had a feeling there was a reason for those LCD's being so cheap just wasnt so easy to figure out. They usually dont look half bad in the store.
 
patnshan

patnshan

Senior Audioholic
Just got a vizio 32 as a bedroom TV. I read that article linked to above and there are some errors (or it has changed since then). CNET also has an interview posted with Vizio's owner. Vizio has a one year in home warranty and a zero dead pixel policy.

The picture is outstanding, the build quality seems excellent. It is amazing for the $539 I paid for it, and I am still ahead if I have to buy another one down the road.

Pat
 
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