Most Reliable HDTV Brands.

[Smokey]

PC World magazine did its own poll of readers—16,000 TV owners—to see what they thought when it came to their annual “Reliability and Service” survey. Participants rated each company and its products relative to competitors by nine measures, such as customer satisfaction, quality of phone service, severity of hardware problems, and ease of use.

The big winner? That would be Sony, which scored better than average in the most categories, including the “overall satisfaction with reliability” category—in that one, Sony was only joined by Panasonic and Samsung.

Other brands that scored well in the reliability realm were LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp and Vizio. On the flip side, Westinghouse, Hitachi and Mitsubishi earned “worse” than average overall satisfaction, and Toshiba, Hitachi, JVC and Mitsubishi chalked up multiple “worse” nods.

http://www.electronichouse.com/images/uploads/article_large/sony_reliable_pc_mag.jpg

http://www.pcworld.com/article/154129/sony_hdtvs_rated_most_reliable_by_pc_world_readers .html

[Woochifer]

This sounds more like a knockoff of the JD Power customer satisfaction index than a measure of reliability if PC World includes factors like phone service and ease of use (?!).

[02audionoob]

Much of reliability is luck, though. I once had a Sony television that was a bit of a lemon. It was in the shop a few times.

[Mr Peabody]

Some one paid for that article. I have a Sony that went out about the time the warranty did, one time buying an extended warranty paid off. Also, this Sony's remote sucks, the "mute" is at the top with the "power" button, and the rest of the lay out isn't much better. I also bought a Sony DVD player way back when that was bad and I had to exchange it for a different brand. Pioneer should be on that list of excellent performers. My Toshiba, knock on wood, has been great for 3 years so far, I realize 3 years isn't much on a Tv's life. The remote is very ergonomic and has the first half mute position I've ever seen and it's a great feature. I have been very pleased with my Toshiba and all things being equal would buy a Tosh over Sony any day. I'm sure Pix will be on here bashing them but as stated reliability is luck of the draw and we all have our own experiences I guess. I'm sure some brands have longer runs though of good or bad. Where's Mits on that list? Any way as soon as I see Sony at the top I knew immediately it was made up of fanboys and don't hold water for real life as most of those will soon see who bought their TV based on it.

[pixelthis]

Some one paid for that article. I have a Sony that went out about the time the warranty did, one time buying an extended warranty paid off. Also, this Sony's remote sucks, the "mute" is at the top with the "power" button, and the rest of the lay out isn't much better. I also bought a Sony DVD player way back when that was bad and I had to exchange it for a different brand. Pioneer should be on that list of excellent performers. My Toshiba, knock on wood, has been great for 3 years so far, I realize 3 years isn't much on a Tv's life. The remote is very ergonomic and has the first half mute position I've ever seen and it's a great feature. I have been very pleased with my Toshiba and all things being equal would buy a Tosh over Sony any day. I'm sure Pix will be on here bashing them but as stated reliability is luck of the draw and we all have our own experiences I guess. I'm sure some brands have longer runs though of good or bad. Where's Mits on that list? Any way as soon as I see Sony at the top I knew immediately it was made up of fanboys and don't hold water for real life as most of those will soon see who bought their TV based on it.


Don't shoot the messenger, MR P.
If you are having good luck with your tosh, then good for you, still too early to tell, tho.
See that Vizio did pretty well, probably wont shut up Wooch, tho.
As for Sony, had a lot of their stuff, some good, (the monitors) some bad(the one receiver
I bought). Had four Sony televisions, none failed.
Mom and dad had one, bro had one, no problems, sorry you cant say the same.
What we need is a reliability chart of teh various form factors, plasma, LCD, DLP.
THAT would be interesting indeed.:1:

[Woochifer]

Some one paid for that article. I have a Sony that went out about the time the warranty did, one time buying an extended warranty paid off. Also, this Sony's remote sucks, the "mute" is at the top with the "power" button, and the rest of the lay out isn't much better. I also bought a Sony DVD player way back when that was bad and I had to exchange it for a different brand. Pioneer should be on that list of excellent performers. My Toshiba, knock on wood, has been great for 3 years so far, I realize 3 years isn't much on a Tv's life. The remote is very ergonomic and has the first half mute position I've ever seen and it's a great feature. I have been very pleased with my Toshiba and all things being equal would buy a Tosh over Sony any day. I'm sure Pix will be on here bashing them but as stated reliability is luck of the draw and we all have our own experiences I guess. I'm sure some brands have longer runs though of good or bad. Where's Mits on that list? Any way as soon as I see Sony at the top I knew immediately it was made up of fanboys and don't hold water for real life as most of those will soon see who bought their TV based on it.

In actuality, Sony's TV reliability has been moving up the Consumer Reports rankings as well (which are based strictly on failure rates rather than more nebulous measures like "satisfaction" and "ease of use," and draw from a much larger survey sample). When Sony's HDTV lineup was dominated by RPTVs, their reliability rankings were below average.

Sony's reliability ranking has moved up as more of their product lineup evolved to LCD flat panels. Of course, one thing to keep in mind is that Sony's LCD TVs are made in factories that they jointly own with Samsung, with Samsung doing the R&D on the LCD panel itself. Samsung has much greater manufacturing capacity, because they are also the world's largest supplier of LCD panels to the OEM market.

Also, the product reliability for a particular company can vary by product lineup. For example, the reliability of their PS3 is the best among the video game consoles. Their computers and digital cameras also rate very highly. However, their receivers have a long track record of reliability issues, and the problems went from bad to worse when they went to digital amplification a couple of years ago.

If you look at the chart, Mitsubishi is at the bottom.

[Mr Peabody]

I should have bought a Sony digital camera then. I bought an Olympus that messed up in about 5 months and they refuse to honor the warranty. But that's another thread.

Granted my Sony HDTV was probably one of the very last tube sets made by them. I bought it the minute i saw the picture. That was back when Plasma was about $10k average and largest LCD was 42" and very expensive.

My mom just bought a Samsung 22" for her bedroom for $319.00. I couldn't believe it. A year ago I bought my daughter one for Christmas, only a 19", it cost me about $450.00.

What happened to Mits? My mom has a 55? RPHDTV and it's hanging in there. They must have tried farming out the manufacturing. Mits is one company I am surprised to see have reliability problems. I liked their bright display way back when but my wife said she could see grain. That's how I ended up with a Pioneer, no regrets on that. I sold that Pioneer to my brother-in-law to get my Tosh. The Pioneer is still playing great and must be getting close t 15 years old.

[Woochifer]

My mom just bought a Samsung 22" for her bedroom for $319.00. I couldn't believe it. A year ago I bought my daughter one for Christmas, only a 19", it cost me about $450.00.

What happened to Mits? My mom has a 55? RPHDTV and it's hanging in there. They must have tried farming out the manufacturing.

They didn't, and that's part of the problem because they stood still while the rest of the industry passed them by. They outsource their flat panel TVs, but kept their RPTV manufacturing capacity intact and most of their product lineup remains RPTVs.

One issue with Mitsubishi I think is how complicated they've made their RPTV sets to keep them competitive in a market increasingly dominated by flat panels. They've gone to 3-chip DLP designs, LED backlighting, and their newest LaserVue models incorporate three-laser backlighting.


Mits is one company I am surprised to see have reliability problems. I liked their bright display way back when but my wife said she could see grain. That's how I ended up with a Pioneer, no regrets on that. I sold that Pioneer to my brother-in-law to get my Tosh. The Pioneer is still playing great and must be getting close t 15 years old.

Pio's plasmas have had excellent reliability for years, while Mitsubishi has had issues for years. Mitsubishi correctly anticipated the market trends when they were the first major manufacturer to abandon tube TVs and focus on the higher margin big screen market. They dominated the market for years, but their market share has slipped as they never became a major player in the flat panel market.

Pioneer diverged from Mitsubishi when they became the first major manufacturer to abandon RPTV in order to focus strictly on flat panels. Mitsubishi very well might be the last company to keep the RPTV segment alive.

[pixelthis]

My SD 60" Mitsu was a delight, also the last SD set I owned. Made in Mexico,
and big enough to live in, really.
Its not just TV sets, Mitsu is having QC problems across the board, sad to see.
My Mitsu SVHS was great, with real smooth mechanism.
When it BROKE I took the lid off, the entire drive mechs were covered in GREASE,
kinda like putting sawdust in an automatic transmisson,:1: