HDTV Best Price Blog

When you buy a cheap Plasma TV or any consumer electronic item you should bear in mind more than just the purchase price, you should also think about the future repair costs and the life expectancy of the TV.

Major brand TVs from manufacturers such as Pioneer, Panasonic, Philips, LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Sharp ,JVC and Hitachi always retail for more than inferior brands of televisions with unheard of brand badges on them. The unbranded cheap TVs from unknown manufacturers look like good value for money when compared to the known brands of televisions. The styling and features may make justifying the difference difficult.

How do the major brands of televisions justify the premium?

It is easy to think that you are paying a premium for the badge on the branded models of TVs, whilst this is to some extent true there are other differences that justify the extra cost of the branded televisions.

Another explanation for cheap unbranded Television brands being cheaper is that they dont operate from costly offices in the UK backed up with warehouses, and staff. They often ship the products directly from the factory in China, Eastern Europe, etc to the retailers warehouse with no or hardly any personnel and premises in the UK. This may seem to be good thing and would help explain the price differential.

The manufacturers of unbranded cheap TVs dont have the same incentive to protect their TVs from being unreliable or poor quality. It doesnt matter to them if the televisions are unreliable or if they last for 4 years or 7years. Ultimately you wont know which factory manufactured the television, so you wont be able to avoid it in the future if you purchase an unreliable Television.

The probability of unbranded Cheap televisions becoming faulty during the first year or later is greater than for branded TVs because they dont boast the same stringent quality control systems.

Cheap TVs dont have the same quality of internal components and circuit design as those in the branded Televisions and as a result the chance of a cheap Television going faulty is greater. This is evident in reliability surveys that the consumer magazine Which has carried out where brands such as Sony and Panasonic consistently out perform other cheaper non brands.

Less likely to be repaired

Spare parts are not as readily accessible on cheap Television brands as they are for the major TV brands. This is often because there arent any parts kept in the UK by the manufacturer for the unbranded cheap televisions unlike the main brand televisions so it takes longer to obtain the parts.

If an repair engineer is struggling to come across the cause of a fault on a main brand Television they can obtain technical help from the technical department of the UK subsiduary. In a number of cases if the repair engineer can’t resolve the fault then the Television manufacturer will even carry out the repair. The unfamiliar cheaper TV brands dont have this type of back up. So not only is it more likely that the unbranded cheap Television will go faulty but when it does it will be more difficult, if not impossible to obtain technical assistance. Furthermore it will in all probability take longer to get a hold the parts. If the problem cant be resolved, due to no technical support, then the unbranded cheap Television is more likely to become unrepairable earlier than the major brand televisions and will need replacing at an earlier time.

It is not unknown when a branded TV has had very poor repair history, for the manufacturer to swap, repair or subsidise the cost of the repair outside of beyond the 12 month guarantee as a good will gesture. It is improbable that this would happen for a cheap Televisions from an unfamiliar brand, which means that you would have to buy a replacement one at an earlier time than if you had bought a recognized brand of TV.

Main brand TVs have superior picture and sound quality.

Another reason for the difference in the price between unknown brands and known main brands is that the main manufacturers invest in research and development to discover methods of advancing existing technology to improve the performance compared to unheard of brands. Quite often the technology and specification of cheaper LCD TVs and cheaper Plasma TVs from unknown brands is at least a year or more behind the technology in the equivalent major brand LCD TVs or Plasma televisions. The consequence of this is that the performance of recognized brands is superior to the cheaper unknown brands. Ultimately magazines such as What Hifi and What Video give the unfamiliar brands of cheap TVs low ratings compared to the branded TVs.

Conclusion

The cheaper brands of televisions arent as reliable and dont boast the same specification and performance as known brands such as Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, JVC, Pioneer, Philip, Hitachi, LG etc. For the small premium that main brand TVs sell for over cheaper unfamiliar and poorly supported cheap Plasma TV brands, it isnt worth buying the cheaper ones for the reason that you will almost certainly pay more in the long run - Especially if you spread the price difference over the life of the Television. In fact in all probability the cheaper televisions are more costly when all factors are considered. So buy a known major brand of television and save money in the long run.

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Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) — Sharp Corp., Japan’s biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display televisions, will post its first loss in more than five decades and cut 1,500 temporary jobs because of falling sales of the devices.

The net loss will probably be 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in the 12 months ending March 31, Osaka-based Sharp said today. The forecast is worse than a 57.1 billion yen loss median of seven analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg in the past four weeks.

Sharp joins Sony Corp., Panasonic Corp. and NEC Corp. in forecasting losses and cutting jobs as the global recession curbs demand for consumer electronics. Global LCD-TV sales will fall 16 percent this year to $64 billion, the first drop in the industry’s history, according to researcher DisplaySearch.

“The forecast reflects the rapidly worsening business environment in the October-December period and the company clearly expects a similar degree of deterioration in the current quarter,” said Yoji Takeda, who manages about $1.1 billion at RBC Investment (Asia) Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The situation may improve a bit in the coming fiscal year, but it’s highly questionable whether Japanese manufacturers like Sharp can make a profit.”

The loss would be Sharp’s first for a fiscal year since the company’s shares were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1956. The company on Oct. 6 projected 60 billion yen net income and posted profit of 101.9 billion yen in the year-earlier period.

LCD-TV Sales

Sharp forecast sales of LCD TVs will fall 10 percent this fiscal year to 730 billion yen even as the number of sets sold increases 21 percent to 10 million.

“The decline in LCD-TV prices was so steep that it pushed our business into the red, and was so sharp that our cost-cutting efforts couldn’t keep pace,” Tetsuo Onishi, a Sharp director in charge of finance and accounting, told reporters in Tokyo.

The deficit includes 50 billion yen in restructuring costs and a one-time charge of 43.3 billion yen to reflect the decline in the value of shareholdings, Sharp said.

Sharp is the largest shareholder of Tokyo-based Pioneer Corp., a flat-panel TV maker, with a 14.3 percent stake. Pioneer shares declined 84 percent in 2008.

Sales will probably decline 15 percent from a year earlier to 2.9 trillion yen, less than the previous projection of 3.42 trillion yen, Sharp said. The operating loss, or revenue minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, may be 30 billion yen, missing the earlier estimate of 130 billion yen profit.

Closing Production Lines

Sharp said in December it will close by September production lines at two plants in western Japan which make LCD panels for use in mobile phones and personal computers. The company on Jan. 29 agreed with Sony to delay forming a planned venture to make LCD panels by about a year to March 2010. The two companies are now in talks to finalize details of the venture, which will be decided by June 30.

Sony, the world’s second-biggest consumer-electronics maker, last month forecast a record operating loss of 260 billion yen and is cutting 16,000 positions by March 2010. Larger rival Panasonic this week projected a 380 billion yen net loss and announced 15,000 jobs will go. NEC, Japan’s largest personal- computer maker, said on Jan. 30 it will eliminate more than 20,000 jobs and expects to post a net loss of 290 billion yen this year.

Olympus Forecasts Loss

Separately Olympus Corp., a Japanese maker of digital cameras and the world’s biggest manufacturer of endoscopes, reversed its full-year forecast to a 45 billion net loss from 19 billion yen profit as digital camera prices drop and the stronger yen erodes overseas earnings.

Sales of digital cameras dropped 26 percent to 172.7 billion yen in the nine months ended Dec. 31 and will probably decline 32 percent to 201 billion yen for the year, the Tokyo based company said. Olympus generated about 63 percent of its sales in the nine-month period. A stronger yen reduces the value of overseas earnings when converted into local currency.

In the three months ended Dec. 31, Sharp posted a net loss of 65.8 billion yen, compared with 29.5 billion yen profit a year earlier, the company said in a separate statement.

Sales in the quarter fell 20 percent to 735.1 billion yen, while operating loss in the three months was 15.8 billion yen, a turnaround from 51.9 billion yen profit a year earlier.

Sharp rose 4.5 percent to close at 742 yen in Tokyo trading before the company’s announcement. The stock dropped 68 percent last year, more than the 54 percent decline by the Topix Electrical Appliances Index.

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