plasma vs lcd , not whats best , whats more reliable ??

[admin_exported]

theres been lots of talk on here lately about certain lcd tvs suffering from problems , having been reading this forum for 8 months im sure the amount of people reporting plasma issues are far less , reviewers seem to find less problems with plasmas too as far as i can see .

now i know naming the winner in the age old plasma vs lcd debate is impossible , as people generally have their own preferance either way , and , you like what you like , but , is it fair to say that plasma technology is more reliable ?? it certainly seems that way to this laymans eyes .

any thoughts ?

 

[bretty]

I can only give you my experience, which is nearly three trouble free years viewing with a 50" Samsung plasma. But, then, I've also had three years, with no problems from the cheap-as-chips Technika (Tesco) 37" LCD thats up in the bedroom.

That was helpful, wasn't it!?

Seriously, though, I think you don't need to be overly concerned with the reliability of either technology. With electronics, there's always a chance you'll get a duffer that'll develop a fault, but the chances are slim.

 

[ElectroMan]

bretty:
Seriously, though, I think you don't need to be overly concerned with the reliability of either technology. With electronics, there's always a chance you'll get a duffer that'll develop a fault, but the chances are slim.

You're probably right, but my experience has been (in vague chronological order):

Philips £2000 32" CRT widescreen (best TV according to reviews at the time), developed intermittent picture faults (white diagonal lines, red diagonal lines) that seemed to clear up when the weather improved (!), but then the whole picture went red (luckily, it was rented)

Philips VCR - excellent, until it failed after about 2 years, and too expensive to get repaired

Philips 24" CRT widescreen - totally failed after just over a year, and uneconomical to repair (luckily, one of the few times I took out an extended warranty, which meant a better replacement without any hassle)

Sharp stereo cassette deck - worked for about 10 minutes then started smoking!

Apricot PC - hard drive failed after a few days (replaced without question by PC World, by a Compaq)

PC I won in a computer magazine competion - they had to replace it as it failed after a couple of weeks

Zip removable hard drive system - very unreliable

Apple G4 Powermac - the top of the range model, failed after about 4 years

Apple G3 iBook - bought refurbished from the Apple store (looked perfect) - failed after about 2 years

LaCie 19" CRT monitor (the best, according to Apple mags) - failed just after the 3 year warranty was up - and LaCie won't repair anything outside of the warranty period, even if you offer to pay them!

Formac external Firewire hard drive - failed within a couple of days

Panasonic DVD/HD recorder -hard drive failed after a couple of years

and this is not counting the calculators, electronic watches etc that have failed. About the only things that I've never had any problems with are cameras, including ones packed with electronics.

I'm glad I got that off my chest.

 

[bretty]

Man, what have you done to **** off the big guy upstairs!? That's some relentless bad luck, my friend!

I've had faults before, for example my old 50" Toshiba rear projection had a couple of picture loss problems over the 5 years I had it, my Sony dvd player wouldn't spit out discs and my Rotel CDP had it's problems (but it's 10 years old, so it's allowed to be a bit grumpy!). However, all these problems were minor, cheap fixes. I've never had anything die on me.

 

[matthewpiano]

We get very few Sony LCDs back with faults. The odd set suffers premature issues and we've replaced a few panels and the odd power transformer here and there under the 5 year warranty, but in comparison to the number of sets sold the numbers are miniscule. The biggest issues we've had have been bulb failures on rear projection sets and as they are quite expensive to replace and not covered under warranty this doesn't equate to the very happy customers. Its been 2 years since we sold the last RP model and I was glad to see the back of them.

From talking to colleagues throughout the business I gather that the Pioneer plasmas are proving to be similarly reliable due to a superb level of build quality and engineering.

I think its less about the technology and more about how well engineered the product is.he bigge