Philips Exits Consumer Electronics - Page 2

That's a blanket statement and I'm not a fool. If I was going to buy something and it came down to 2 similar items and 1 was a Sony and 1 was a Vizio I would not hesitate to get the Vizio because of quality concerns if that's what you're asking. Sony builds just as much crap as anyone else.

You mean like their Qualia 006? I still bang my head against the wall...

I own 2 Vizio TVs, well I recently sold one..Won a Panasonic 47" LED at a company picnic raffle . They are great for what they are a cheap value product. I got them both at Wal-Mart! . I had one in the bedroom and one in the family room. I dont watch much but casual tv on either set. I use the theater room for that! Plus I don't get all in fuss when my daughter (3 at the time) decides to color with her crayons and a couple pencils on the screen. I was impressed at the protective layer. She actually penetrated it with a pencil stab but no damage to the screen beneath it. All is well the TV works and the pictures washed off with ease.

I guess my point is there is a place for most products in the market or they wouldn't be there.

Any day of the week.

If money were no object, there are a few models from other brands I might choose over the Vizio, but Sony isn't one of them. In their consumer products, there just isn't enough value to justifiy the price. They simply aren't doing things any better than anyone else.

Sony used to be a go to company in the pro TV world for me, but with tapeless HD, I'm partial to Panasonic P Card cameras.

Groundbreaking RX1, RX100, NEX-6 cameras...PSVita, soon to be announced PS4, 4K TV's/ projectors, MP3 with FLAC support etc etc...
yep, they sure are lagging behind the competition!

Will existing Philips product warranty be honored by Philips or transferred to Funai?

Yes, actually, they are.

In the pro world, a lot of operations that used to have the Sony logo on everything except switchers and audio boards now are going to other brands for those items. Even Grass Valley, which used to be a no-brainer where switchers are concerned, is losing to Ignite and Tricaster systems, especially for smaller shows and operations. Calrec still has a pretty good hold on the audio end, but those all-in-one boxes are taking a bite out of them a bit, too.

In the consumer world, the X-Box has been eating the PS3's lunch. On the audio end, Apple is still the winner - and priving that people don't give a damn about FLAC.

4K? Everyone is doing 4K - and many are doing it better. Panasonic had far more compelling product offerings in that regard.

Sony's problem is, they keep trying to convince the public that a narrow, niche format is the way to go instead of universal ones and the public hasn't bit on it. They keep trying to create standards we don't need all in the name of trying to own something. Then, they have to play catch up to standardize when their product fails to catch on.

Sony only seems to find real success when they work as part of a consortium, such as with the CD or Blu-ray. When they work alone, they end up with betamax, mini disc, microMV, memory stick and other formats that simply don't offer what the majority of the public wants. I think the latest example will be their new 4K content server that will be relegated to early adopter status once someone other than Sony jumps in with a proper disc format.

I think now days, whatever Sony doesn't support is the right way to go.

It's sad, too, because that name used to mean something...kind of like Volvo, before the Chinese bought them.
Edited by NetworkTV - 2/3/13 at 8:14am

Even with their kludginess and reliability issues on occasion I've loved my Philips region-free DVD and BR players. Can't say this is surprising news though, the competition is too hot.

Good riddance, it was all junk anyway.

To bad Vizio and Samsung couldnt go right with them.

I;ve had plenty of translucent mirror Canon and Nikon cameras in the film days, so that idea was not completely new. How much of their still camera expertise came from Minolta or Konica?

The wife and I love our Philips DiamondClean toothbrush....heck just after using for a few days all my coffee stains were loooong gooooone. I can't wait to use my DiamondClean while watching my new Sony flat screen. BTW the Philips DiamondClean is a #1 recommended by me. Get one people your tooth will be happy.

Could not miss this conversation
I am from Europe and can talk about what is here

One of my first really good monitors was Philips - before that one I had many different others

My brother had purchased one of the first 200Hz Philips flat screen 16:9 TV quite close after I had mine Sony 4:3 – and I was always jealous to see Philips great performance.
Quite many of my best friend had Philips TVs and the picture quality was always supper as well as the quality of the tuner. I believe at that time Philips tuners were the best ones in its class.

Unfortunately this became a bit differently lately. Having pressure from outside and outsourcing the assembly played bad tricks to the quality and consumer loyalty.
This had just helped margin erosion, completed by tight competition from Samsung, LG, Panasonic and few other players, the tax policy in NL and overall economical situation...
All that made this segment not profitable enough. As Philips has many divisions, if I am not mistaking it was about 7 few years ago, the Consumer Electronics was one of the worst ones from the margin prospective.

It is not a surprise that it was sold to clean-up the portfolio. look on lighting - ban on classical bulbs becomes a golden stream for Philips as one of two biggest player on LED market (almost a monopoly )

I guess there could be some internal room for improvement, but due to absolutely different business model nature of all these divisions mass scale did not work there.

What I can definitely say, the buildings, occupied by CE division, were renovated - they are all 100+ years old, area cleaned, and it became one of the most lovely places to leave next to Philips headquarters ;-)
http://criticaldistance.blogspot.de/2012/04/living-inside-radio-factory-eindhoven.html

I guess Philips trademark will disappear from CE devices quite quickly as it has happened with IBM deal with Lenovo.

Btw, the "DiamondClean" should belong to the Healthcare division, hence should not be affected

Philips still is in the CE business in North America. I thought they exited the markets in the middle of the 2000's?

I remember when 68cm was large in my neighborhood and 80 cm was huge!