(From SmartHouse News)
Panasonic's 50" plasma judged to be the best TV overall. And don't bother paying for an extended warranty on modern TVs - you won't need it. (Good news for B&O plasmas with Pana screens in them.)
The Best & Worst TVs Identified: Consumer Report
David Richards - Tuesday, 6 November 2007
When
it comes to flat screen TV reliability Hitachi is the worst LCD TV and
Philips the worst plasma TV. Panasonic's 50" plasma is the best TV
overall, according to an Annual Product Reliability Survey conducted by
US organisation Consumer Reports.
document.getElementById('tblArticleAd').style.display = document.getElementById('spnArticleAd').innerHTML.length==0 ? "none" : "block";
They also reported that LCD and plasma TVs
require few repairs during the first three years of use, and buyers
would be wasting their money if they bought extended warranties on the
highly reliable flat panel screens.
The consumer review firm's
Annual Product Reliability Survey, found that flat panel sets overall
had a 3% repair rate. Rear-projection TVs, on the other hand, were found to be much more repair prone than its two rivals.
Panasonic's 50-inch plasma
model was named Consumer Reports' best flat-panel TV ever tested.
Overall, Panasonic liquid crystal display and plasma sets had a 2%
average repair rate.
Among LCDs,
Dell which recently stopped selling its own brand of TVs, and Hitachi
were among the less reliable brands, as were Philips plasma TVs. Aside
from Panasonic, other brands with low repair rates included Sony, Samsung, Toshiba and JVC in LCDs; and Pioneer and Samsung in plasmas.
Among
the tiny percentage of sets with problems, most repairs were free,
presumably because they were covered by the manufacturer's standard
warranty. The respondents to CR's survey who paid for repairs spent an
average of $264 on LCD sets and $395 on plasmas. "This new reliability
data reinforces Consumer Reports long-standing advice that consumers
skip the extended warranty when buying a flat-panel TV," CR said in a
statement.
Among rear-projection TV vendors, Toshiba had the
most repair-prone sets that were based on digital light processing
technology. Hitachi had the worst record for repairs on sets based on
LCD technology.
The report found about a quarter of the repairs
involved replacing the bulb, with many failures occurring early in a
set's life and covered by the standard warranty. Respondents who paid
for repairs spent $300 on average. Rear-projection sets overall had an
average 18% repair rate.
Despite the relatively high repair
rate, CR still advised consumers not to buy the often expensive
extended warranty and service contracts. Nevertheless, consumers who
insist on buying an extended warranty for a rear-projection set should
consider one if they want to buy a repair-prone TV because of its low
price.
In addition, an extended warrant might be considered if
the person plans to use the TV for 5,000 hours within the time covered
by an extended warranty and it covers bulb replacement. Many bulbs have
a life expectancy of 5,000 hours.
Finally, the warranty should
not cost more than the $200 to $300 it costs for a new bulb or 15% of
the TV's price, whichever is less.
Meanwhile, CR also found
that prices for high-definition TVs are expected to drop about 30% on
average this year than in the 2006 peak period. Plasma TV prices are
expected to shrink the most, with 42-inch models falling below $2,000
by the end of the year, and some 50-inch models selling for less than
$1,500.
Flat-panel high-definition TVs were at the top of
people's wish list for Christmas, according to a recent national survey
by the Solutions Research Group. Second was a Windows-based notebook,
followed by a digital camera.