Which TV brand would you buy without warranty?

nice to see Sharp is winning by 100% margin

The real question is, why buy warranty?

I worked in electronics retail (that place we all know) and most tv's snap within a few days, so you're covered with the return policy.

Don't get me started on the profit these companies make selling warranty. You don't want to know.

Cold

He's not talking about extended warranties, he's asking which brand you would purchase without a manufacturer's warranty.

I would never buy a TV without a manufacturer warranty. In fact, I don't think I would buy ANY electronic device without a manufacturer warranty. If a manufacturer doesn't want to stand behind the quality of their product, I don't want to deal with that company.

I think it's just his roundabout way of asking which TV is the most reliable. I really doubt if actual availability of a warranty has much to do with it.

I also agree with you.

While Panasonic is the most reliable brand, I voted for Sharp instead because their power supplies run cooler than Panasonic, so fewer defects during warranty.

CR.org rates the Panasonics best for reliability, at just 2% repairs and serious problems.

Sony and Sharp are at 3%, LG at 4%, and Samsung at 5%.

These numbers are for LCD only, not plasma.

My 2006-era Sharp LCD is still running fine. (LC-37D5U) My company bought one that year, too, and it's still working as well. I've purchased 4 more since, (one for work) and all are still going strong. The last was a 32" for the kids room purchased last year.

If I had the cash I'd by a 70" Sharp (or Elite) for the family room without hesitation.

Actually, they have already started outsourcing on some models, mostly for lower-end models. This year, Panasonic's new 32" LCD TC-L32C5 is being outsourced to a Chinese TV manufacturer, not sure who. Sharp is worse, in fact, now all LCD models and smaller LED models are made by Foxconn Hon Hai in China, and Foxconn already purchased $1.6 billion stake with Sharp. Toshiba is the worst of the worst, and 95% of all TVs they sell right now are outsourced to Compal in China.

I have both a Panasonic plasma and a Sharp LCD. No real problems with the either one so far but my extended warranties are already up on both, so knock on wood. The Sharp LCD exhibits really annoying banding though, but I just learned to deal with it since I can see it on most LCD sets.

weird i see on average around 300 people browsing this section and only 29 votes.

Both Panasonic and Sharp have learned what Toshiba is doing in terms of outsourcing, and they finally entered the outsourcing game 23 years later. They now realize that outsourcing is the only way to stay profitable and be in business.

Toshiba was the inventor and originator of electronic outsourcing that started way back in 1988, when Toshiba transferred production of their mono VHS VCR models to Samsung in South Korea, while retained production of their Hi-Fi stereo VHS VCR models in Japan. At that time, Samsung was considered to be a cheap labor company with low quality products.

Today, now most companies outsource, and in the next 10-20 years, we may not see anymore original manufacturers. More manufacturers are selling their own factories to a company in China, jobs shifting to China, and etc.

Everyone I knew who has owned a Toshiba LCD has had troubles and failures. The lower toshiba price sucks you in, so you get burned once and than you spend afew dollars more on better brands. Sure there are some winners, but most toshiba lcds turn out tobe duds for the masses who shop by price.. Just check out CL there is a much higher % of toshiba LCDs sold for parts/as-is.

Can you mention what Toshiba models they were? Most Toshiba flat-panel TVs sold were NOT made by Toshiba, so that's why they were having problems. Toshiba only makes the high-end, expensive models, no more than four models per year. Toshiba's low prices suck you in because they are outsourced with cheaper labor, and so they break. And the good, brand name and previous experience encourage consumers to put them in their shopping carts, only to be fooled at the end.

The 50-year consumer electronics average reliability curve, since 1960, shows that Toshiba is actually rated second (#2) most-reliable OEM electronic manufacturer in the world. Outsourced models are NOT factored in data. This data was provided by Consumer Reports and Electronics Magazine since the last 50 years, based on total number of owners reported a problem. They are ranked in order.

1. Panasonic/Quasar
2. Toshiba
3. Sharp
4. Sanyo/Fisher
5. Shintom
6. Sony
7. NEC/Fujitsu
8. Funai//Symphonic/Emerson/Magnavox/Sylvania
9. JVC
10. Hitachi
11. Orion/Sansui/Emerson/Toshiba
12. Zenith
13. Samsung
14. GoVideo/CineVision
15. RCA
16. LG/GoldStar/Zenith
17. Curtis Mathes
18. Mitsubishi/MGA
19. Phlips/Philco/Magnavox/Sylvania
20. Daewoo
21. RCA/GE/ProScan/Thomson (the worst)

Toshiba is still a very reliable brand if the products are manufactured and designed by Toshiba themselves, but they are getting harder to find every year.

Data going back 50 years doesn't help much now- RCA of course is alive in name only, and LG owns what's left of Zenith. Zenith had the best TVs for a while, but the one I bought in the 90s was junk! (It had dot-crawl from hell!)

There should be a re-set of this reliability ranking at least back to the point when CRTs stopped being made.

I believe it does really help in terms of purchasing, and it gives a good idea where companies are heading right now. Consumers can lower their risk by purchasing one of the top ten most reliable brands/manufacturers in the world, assuming the products they buy were not outsourced to another manufacturer.

RCA is now owned by TCL Corporation, a Chinese consumer electronics company, after TCL purchased the RCA brand from Thomson in 2007. All RCA TVs sold today are made by TCL. I have heard many good stories with TCL on reliability, actually, and RCA is expected to move up its reliability score in the next 10-20 years.

Zenith had the best TVs back then up until 1988 when things really go downhill, and Zenith's reliability score gradually dropped in the 50-year average curve. Zenith quit producing CRT picture tube screens in 1988, and purchased the picture tubes from GoldStar (LG today) instead. That GoldStar picture tubes had really short lifespan and were really troublesome, and many loyal Zenith buyers were angry. LG/GoldStar is considered to be one of the least-reliable electronic brands in the world, according to the 50 year average curve.

On the other, if I look at the 10-year average reliability curve, which I haven't published it out yet, since 2000, LG/GoldStar products, surprisingly, have been slightly more reliable than Samsung lately. LG/GoldStar's reliability rating is expected to improve and score higher than Samsung within the next 10-20 years, which will be the new 70-year average curve, assuming LG can continue to offer products that are more reliable than Samsung.

That's right. TCL is a cheap labor Chinese electronic company, so don't expect great picture quality but only improved reliability.


Correct. GoldStar VCRs, along with Zenith VCRs (all made by GoldStar), were the most troublesome VCRs during the 90s. Zenith's score was always rated at the very bottom of the VCR reliability chart for 10 years, according to Consumer Reports, and it was factored in LG/GoldStar's 50-year reliability average curve, since it was the original OEM manufacturer.


GoldStar/Zenith TVs usually work fine for a few years from new, and then the picture tubes started to go bad after 4-5 years of operation. They get really blurry, picture discolored, out of sync, no picture, and etc. Many loyal, Zenith TV owners still could not believe, even today, that the picture tubes needed to be replaced every 4-5 years, versus 20-30 years in their old Zenith TVs.

That's how Zenith went bankrupt, because Zenith mistakenly selected GoldStar as the supplier of picture tubes, and they were mostly defective. Zenith also had the option to choose Panasonic picture tubes, which were far more reliable, but they declined it. Had Zenith selected Panasonic picture tubes in the first place, Zenith company may still survive today.

Hey, I got it right. I picked Sony because when you google electronic entertainment, Sony comes up first.

I have a Olivia 32 that keeps going after 12 years.I have a cheep Polaroid 19 in for 10 years.37 in Toshiba for 8 years(monitor only).Sharp 46 8 years(a couple of dead pixels normal according to sharp)Samsung 40 in 81F local dimming led(one of the first) 3.5 years. the samsung had the mother board replaced last month on x-warranty and at last a 55 LG LV 9500 less than a year.

You need an option for: None of the above.

There is no option for Vizio either, but I guess that makes sense given the subject of the thread.

I voted for Sony. I have had many Sony products over the years and they have lasted without a glitch or breakdown during those years. Sony products are built to last case in point I have had my Sony HDTV for about 2 plus years and zero issues and its still running strong knock on wood. That being said that everyone should have an extended warranty due to the fact that anything can happen and its always nice to have a warranty to cover your back because you never know because as I said things do happen. I trust in Sony and their products which is why I am a big supporter of them and their products.

My friend's had 2 Vizios for more than 4 years and they're still working. That was partly why I decided to get a Vizio, but I can't recommend it now since it's been having frame rate problems ever since the last firmware update (see my thread on the subject.)

I think JVC used to manufacture Zenith's VCRs- I have a Zenith VHS Hi-Fi that I got in 1987, and it still works great! Didn't really follow what Zenith was doing around that time but sounds like they put themselves out of business.

I've thought it would be great if a line of TVs could be manufactured in the US by people who would also actually be USING them and would have some motivation to actually build them with quality in mind. I'd pay a premium price for something like that.

That's correct. JVC manufactured VHS VCRs for Zenith from 1984 to 1990, and they were pretty reliable. Zenith switched to GoldStar in 1991, and that's where reliability really went downhill. GoldStar actually made Zenith go bankrupt, due to faulty products they provided, and GoldStar purchased the whole Zenith company in 1995, and changed the company's name to LG Electronics.

had my sharp for going on 6 years...no troubles, would do it again, in fact I'm getting ready to buy another one

Toshiba (Compal), which makes 95% of TVs for Toshiba right now, is rated twentieth (#20) most reliable manufacturer in the world, which is considered as below-average.