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LCD BUYERS BEWARE!
by brick53 - 1/19/06 5:31 PMHaving purchased two large screen LCD TVs (23"+)in the last 2 years I have learned first hand about the quality. In a nutshell. DO NOT BUY ONE. Extended warranties do not cover replacement of the lamp (the thing which produces the picture) more than once ONLY. While most LCDs boast a MTBF (mean time between failure)of 60,000 hrs.(6 years). The lamp (aka. backlight) is only good for maybe 4,000 hrs. at best. So your new $2,000 LCD TV with an extended warranty ends up with a lifespan of barely one year. As mentioned earlier I've had two and both lasted no longer than one year. Of course if you don't use it much it might last 60,000 hrs. I however, being an invalid, used mine alot.
Don't believe me? Check out the amendments to most extended warranties pertaining to LCD TVs and ask why they are singled out for only a one time lamp replacement.
Are you talking about FLAT SCREEN LCD's or....
by Riverledge - 1/19/06 6:50 PM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53Rear projection LCD's sets? Haven't seen many complaints about flat screens.
river.
FLAT SCREEN LCD's
by brick53 - 1/20/06 9:04 AM In reply to: Are you talking about FLAT SCREEN LCD's or.... by RiverledgeFLAT SCREEN LCD's
(NT) Did you change the bulb?
by johnhunter44 - 1/20/06 9:25 AM In reply to: FLAT SCREEN LCD's by brick53This is for LCD flat pannel TVs and LCD PC monitors.
by jcrobso - 1/20/06 11:01 AM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53About a year ago I spent sometime trying to find out about backlamp life for LCD flat pannels,, there is VERY LITTLE info out there, no one wants to talk about it.
How long they last,,,what costs to replace them,, nothing,,,, could I find.
It's one thing if the back lamps go out on a $250 PC monitor. But on $2000 LCD TV????
I ran into a old workd buddy of mine who now is a Panasonic Rep, I ask him the questions, how long and who much??? He shook his head, said they don't know!!!
This completly ruled out getting ANY LCD flatpannel TV for me.
One Dell rep posted a couple of months ago claming 60,000 hours,,,But then he worked for Dell.
I belive you are correct on the 4000 hour figure.
At least with RP DLP,LCD and LCoS sets YOU can EASLY replace the lamp.
So if you have an extended warreny on a LCD FP make sure you get the lamps replaced before the warrenty expires. John
TV settings affect lifespan?
by Dan Filice - 1/20/06 11:15 AM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53I noticed that on my Sony 23" LCD, there are settings to adjust how bright the screen is. My Sony has "Vivid" (default and what the sets have on the sales floor so they look bright), "Normal" and "Pro" (which have lower lumens). My owners manual mentioned the 60,000 lamp life based on Normal or Pro settings and only 40,000 hours when set to Vivid. I would venture to say that most people prefer the very brightest setting on their TVs, which, if doing a set-up using the AVIA or the Video Essentials DVDs, the lower brightness settings are probably the better for viewing and lifespan of the bulb.
has this happened to anyone else
by ebaAay - 1/21/06 6:13 AM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53can anyone else back up this, i am planning to buy an lcd myself, never heard of such a thing
theres always more to the story
by masterying01 - 1/21/06 12:47 PM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53if its that bad, what is the brand so other people can be warned to stay away from it? most manufactorers warrenties are 1 year parts and 1 year labor....although there are exceptions(like it doesnt cover wear and tear). extended warrenties DO cover wear and tear which sounds like thats what your situation is. usually, it says in there "if we are unable to fix it, or it will cost too much money to fix the defective product, we will replace it with one of equal or lesser value."
so it does cover a one time lamp replacement....what happened with the replacement? you didnt mention anything about it.
theres always more to a "horror" story.
LCD BUYERS BEWARE! My Last Input On This
by brick53 - 1/21/06 6:22 PM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53I shared from my own personal experienes of owning high quality HDTV LCDs. Buy one if you wish. I never will until a better solution is found than using HIGHLY TOXIC and HIGH VOLTAGE Mercury vapor lamps.
Of course I had the lamps replaced and then got rid of both LCD TVs.
The LCDs were always set on what is called the COOL setting (lowest intensity).
I,m not posting to single out any one company which is why I gave no mention of any company. I will say they have been well known for decades and I own other products of their making. An LCD is an LCD regardless.
Now it is true one can replace the lamps on their own. I would advise not to, unless you become very aquainted with what you are doing. Even unplugged a high voltage can still be retained and if you accidently rupture the mercury vapor lamp serious health problems or even death can be the result from either. These are not procedures the average consumer can nor should undertake. If it were a simple procedure no more complicated than replacing a light bulb all manuals would include the replacement procedures and an easy access panel to the bulb would have been engineered into the design. e.g. (open a panel pull old one out and insert new one in)
Perhaps this is exacly what they need to do.
Until then, I,m putting my money into the Direct View CRT. I have a ten year old **** 13" color CRT which ran 24 hrs. a day and continues to do so. In fact I have never had any problem with any CRT TV.
I disagree..
by srinathalapati - 1/22/06 6:17 AM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! My Last Input On This by brick53I disagree. If what you are saying is true, all the LCD panels on the market should have these similar problems including the PC monitors. I own an 19'' LCD monitor for my PC for 3 years now and I didn't run into any problems. I am sure most people own LCD panels now a days. Consumer Reports also keeps track of frequency of repairs and its not reported there either.
Of course there is always a risk of something going bad. These are after all electronics. This is why you should buy what you can afford. My rule of thumb has always been this: I don't buy something that I can't afford to replace it when in fact it does go bad.
LCD technology is not new. It's been around for a while. BTW I neither work for any company that makes LCD panels/components nor own any stock 
Just my 2 cents.
Best Buy LCD Contract
by plcard - 11/11/06 3:19 AM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53We purchased a LCD rear projection HD TV from Best Buy. My contract does call for the replacement of the everything. It must depend on where and when you purchased your product.
We bought our TV last Christmas (2005) as a present for ourselves. We understood that all stations would be required to be HD in 2006. Less than two weeks following the purchase, it was announced that Congress increased the deadline for two or three years, I don't recall which.
We were told the life of our LCD (which we love and honestly cannot see that much difference between LCD & Plasma except the cost)was about 5 years. So beware. If you are shopping for a LCD or Plasma and don't have money to burn, you might want to wait. We have Cox Cable, and you can count on one hand, and not need all the fingers, the HD channels we watch. We cannot even get our local station, because of a cost battle between Cox and the station owners. Just beware!
Now my question. When they say the life of the screen is 3, 4, or 5 years, are they saying the quality will start to diminish, or is it totally history?
Patrick in Pensacola
i think you are right
by mbcnet - 3/13/08 6:55 PM In reply to: LCD BUYERS BEWARE! by brick53guys.. this looks like a bad joke but its true.
I bought a phillips 42" plasma tv and after 1 year and some months backlight died. Costs to fix were extremely high so I just replaced.
later I bought a 17" lcd panel from samsucks, guess what? after a 1 year and 3 months backlight died and once again I had to buy another one. Wait! This is not the end I also bought a samsung hdd and it failed after 1 month, its not related to panels but I'd like to include.
Well, the plasma tv was on all the time like 10 hours a day at least, same situation of my monitor. Now do the math, average of 10h/day on. 1 year and half = around 4k hours or close to that. brick53, I c you are right or we are uber godlike unlucky.
From now I'll only buy samsung products if its under 1 dollar.
And No, it's not a power supply problem, not to say the tv and the pc monitor were in different houses miles away from each other.
besides my old school stuff(tvs and crt monitors) works like a charm, I hope companies create products with decent durability in future, for now sucks a lot!!.
I'm sorry to say but if you use a lcd panel a lot.. prepare yourself to replace it every year... luck you if u stay more than a year with one.
me -> head shot -> samsung
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