Wednesday is Help-a-Newbie-Day: Store vs. Name Brand LCD TVs

Ferris here.

I love my Digistar 40" purchased from Wal-Mart. As expected. regular tv can look crappy, but DVDs via HDMI look awesome! I have had mine for a month, and have examined it thoroughly. Last week I spent 90 minutes at Best Buy examining all of their LCD offerings, and I really can't tell the difference.

Upon examination, though, it appears that the manufacturer of Sony's 40" flat panel is the same as the Digistar that I own. Each employs its own unique look to the pixel elements. Have a really close look sometime, and you'll notice that the Sharp's are like circles, some others look like three rectangles for the RGB ( like ||| ), and Sony's kinda looks like |> which is kinda how the Digistar looks.

1. Model: Digistar LC-4010p

2. Low price and high(er) quality.

3. HDMI input allows for great picture quality. 40 inch screen, with 1366 resolution.

4. Analog regular TV signals look crappy. Compared to other high end flat panels, it appears to be on par, though. This appears to be a disadvantage of larger digital screens, and not this model in particular.

5. What this TV needs: 1080p. More than 1 HDMI input.

6. Features I would like: Allowing you to make your own settings, and save each as its own configuration, instead of the defaults plus the one you can make.

7. HDMI-viewed DVDs are of computer-like picture quality. I was amazed at how vibrent Finding Nemo and Toy Story were. Crisp, pure digital movie viewing.

8. The refresh rate is not published anywhere. I can say that it's not ultra fast.

9. Mine cost me $1080.00 Canadian (Nov/2006) which equates to about $850-$900 US.

10. Purchased at Wal-Mart. No reviews can be found online for this model at this time. It was a good purchase, in my opinion.

To make a cheap store brand:

1. Buy the tail-end stock of 2-year old panels from one of the big manufacturers, i.e., the ones that are out of date, or left over from problematic manufacturing runs

2. Buy up some cheap video chipsets that are no longer leading edge and now available in large quantities at minimum price

3. Hire a cheap Chinese or Taiwanese bulk manufacturer to put them together in a case and slap your brand name on the outside (no need for product testing)

4. Get one of the manufacturer's engineers to write a 5-page manual and pay his sister-in-law who knows some English to translate it

5. Ship to directly to stores in bulk with cutthroat pricing. No need to bother with setting up technical support, repair facilities, stocking parts etc. Just set aside 30% for returns.

The store-brand TVs use cheap, outdated panels. And when you try to retuen the TV if something goes wrong, it'll be a hard.

I scrutenized the makeup of the LCD last week over all the brands at Future Shop and Best Buy. The conculsion, Sharp makes an LCD that uses little circles, and shares that with only a few panel makers. Some make panels that are like standard laptop panels, ||| for each of the colors RGB.

Sony, on the other hand, was the only display I noticed that looked like mine:
|I> for the pixels. It's hard to describe, but it looks like a line, a smaller line, and a greater than, making somewhat of a triangle.

Sony, and my Digistar, are the only two which shared this look in the subpixels.

Looking closely at Star Wars III on the Sony at Best Buy, from a Samsung HDMI player (same as mine) I saw absolutely no difference in image quality. And I am a very pickey techie. I notice EVERYTHING.

Here's what you do if you can afford it on your credit card for a few days: buy one of each LCD that you are considering to purchase. Take them home, set them up. Compare them SIDE-BY-SIDE in your house with YOUR equipment, lighting, etc.

I am very happy with my Digistar, and I'm not usually happy with the low-end stuff. Like I've said, this panel feels right to me. I'm not at all dissatisfied with my purchase. I'm actually very happy, especially when I go to the store, and examine the other 2x priced models.

Another reason I picked the cheaper "store-brand" LCD was because of the price. Even if this set lasts 3-4 years (or 2 for that matter), by then I'll probably be able to buy a new 60" LCD for the difference in price between mine and the major brand names.

I bought a digistar 27 inch widescreen from walmart 1.5 years ago absolutely love it best 700 CND I ever spent. Bought it during the anniversary sale

Although I am not purchasing a store brand, I am going with the 37" minor brand Westinghouse video monitor (no tuner) LVM-37w3. I will replace it in a couple of years, either moving it into my boudior or as a PC monitor, with a bigger set, of higher quality, for the $diff I would otherwise be spending on a BIG name, Sony, Sammy, Pio, Sharp.

BTW, Samsung makes the Sony XBR2 panel (and NEC PC monitors), Sharp makes the bulk of standardized panels, while Westy makes de-interlacing and scaling chips, and only Texas Instruments has DLP chips (although HP builds them under license), and so on...


The choice is either last years' brand name equipment at closeout pricing, or that same manufacturer's parts repackaged as this years' house brand offering. A favorite saying of mine is, "While you don't always get what you pay for, if you don't pay you almost certainly won't get."

JeffLL