What's a decent TV for $200?

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: MWink
Just don't get a Panasonic. Their newer products are complete junk. I have a 1 year old Panasonic 20" TV and I'm expecting it to die any day. The worst part is I found out it's not just defective but other people with the same model have the same problems. I also bought a Panasonic VCR and it was so horrible I just couldn't stand it and had to return it. Their quality has gone down greatly in the last few years.

Thanks for the tip. I looked at a couple Panasonics today and they looked OK, but nothing outstanding.

 

[flot]

I have had really good luck with Sharp TVs and other cheap electronics from them.

They are the only instance that I can think of where heavier isn't better. (which is my normal rule of thumb for consumer electronics) For whatever reason, I've bought 3 or 4 sharp TVs, they were all surprisingly light for their size, they were cheap compared to competitors, and they did the job very well.

Picture quality is decent, not astounding - not very flat - but in general bang-for-the-buck I found them to be a great deal. It's been about 4 years though since the last one I bought, so things could have changed... but as far as I know those TVs are all still working. (as well as a cheap VCR, and a cheap camcorder)

 

[Yzzim]

I saw a Samsung TV at outpost.com but people have said that their orders have been canceled due to no longer having it.

While I Best Buy I noticed this Toshiba TV. It's only a 20" TV but OMG does it look nice!! There was a Sony Wega (I think it was Wega, had "Trinitron" on the top) right next to it and the pictures were identical. The Toshiba has more inputs (which I want) plus it was $20 cheaper.

Total price was $279.99 but damn did it look nice.

I did check out that Panasonic TV (linked above) at Sears and I thought it was decent at best. This Toshiba I'm looking at would blow that Panasonic away, even though it is 7" bigger.

What do you guys think?

 

[Yzzim]

Does Sam's Club still require membership? Paying $20-$30 for a membership which I'll only use once is kind of a waste and kills the deal

 

[Yzzim]

hump

 

[Byte]

I think its true with the new panasonic stuff. I got this new 27" for around $215 with svideo in front and rear inputs galore. But the image is crappy, colors are crappy, just crappy in general with my digital cable. I have a really old Panasonic Prism which is really nice though. Even the Quasars seem nicer (the cheaper division of Panasonic).

Its really hard to compare TVs in stores, you have to take it home and really site there to notice stuff. Like Envision monitors from CompUSA, they are cheap and crappy looking but when i took one home, WOW it blew all my Sony Monitors away. Crazy!