Japanese Electronics Better?

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2Fast4U

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My father in law was telling me on Easter how his 2 year old 47" LCD Sammy tv went out on him and he had to have someone in to repair it. This is comical since this TV is in a guest room and used next to never. What's even worse is this Sammy tv was a replacement for a 47" toshiba LCD that what in the same room and went out as well after about 1.5 years.
Is this the era of cheap/inferior/[censored] made throw away electronics?
 
Originally Posted By: 2Fast4U

Is this the era of cheap/inferior/[censored] made throw away electronics?

Yes. And they're all made in China, often at the same factory. They just slap on a different logo.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
I would much rather buy a Japanese built product than a Chinese one.


I'd agree with you on that. Japanese took these companies and business from US. Now, the favor is being returned to them in China taking away all this work/business from Japan. This is the same way jobs go. Japan or India takes jobs away from US and then China takes away from them.
 
Since two TVs went out in such short amounts of time, have you suspected something is wrong with the electricity going to them?
 
Originally Posted By: asiancivicmaniac
Since two TVs went out in such short amounts of time, have you suspected something is wrong with the electricity going to them?


+1 or could be environmental. Samsung and Toshiba make quality products.
 
I think you still get good quality with Sony, but you pay for it. LG, a Korean company, seems to be a good value. Both of our LCD tvs are LG adn we are very happy with them. One three years old, one a year and a half. LG makes the screens for Toshiba, and to a slightly lesser quality than their own.

The killer for tvs, and all electronics really, is heat. If a LCD tv is against the wall it isn't getting much air. And they get really hot (especially the non LED based ones). We have one of ours on a dresser (the older one), and one mounted to a wall but it is in a corner on a swivel mount so there is plenty of room for the hot air near the tv to be moved to different areas of the room.
 
I finbd it hard to believe that these TVs go bad in such short time routinely. Once in a while, sure, but this is odd.

If the lifetimes were this poor, these TVs would not exist in the marketplace. THey are far too $$$ to last that short.
 
More expensive electronics are better, regardless of where they are made.

I think you can tell the difference in component selection and design of the higher end units vs lower end ones, and usually the lower end ones are made in China, but higher end ones are still made in Japan. It is not really the labor that's the problem, but more about the original design and parts selection.

For TV, most likely the Chinese capacitors on the lower end power supplies sourced from Chinese sub assembly or factories.
 
Originally Posted By: PandaBear
More expensive electronics are better, regardless of where they are made.

I think you can tell the difference in component selection and design of the higher end units vs lower end ones, and usually the lower end ones are made in China, but higher end ones are still made in Japan. It is not really the labor that's the problem, but more about the original design and parts selection.

For TV, most likely the Chinese capacitors on the lower end power supplies sourced from Chinese sub assembly or factories.


I'd bet this as well. The factory probably saved 85 cents on capacitors compared to a good japanese brand, and that'll make for a $200+ repair. Did this job on my dual BenQ monitors. Replaced them with Japanese capacitors and they'be been fine ever since. Both died within several months of one another. both out of warranty.
 
good luck finding a tv made in japan. but normally those made in Mexico or Korea are better than those made in China. for the last several years there has been a HUGE rash of inferior electroloytic capacitors coming out of china. I've "lost" 2 video cards and a dvd player to those...
 
Originally Posted By: 2Fast4U
My father in law was telling me on Easter how his 2 year old 47" LCD Sammy tv went out on him and he had to have someone in to repair it. This is comical since this TV is in a guest room and used next to never. What's even worse is this Sammy tv was a replacement for a 47" toshiba LCD that what in the same room and went out as well after about 1.5 years.
Is this the era of cheap/inferior/[censored] made throw away electronics?


Sammy is not Japanese. Sammy, Toshiba, LG, all make great TV's.

Originally Posted By: wallyuwl
I think you still get good quality with Sony, but you pay for it. LG, a Korean company, seems to be a good value. Both of our LCD tvs are LG adn we are very happy with them. One three years old, one a year and a half. LG makes the screens for Toshiba, and to a slightly lesser quality than their own.

The killer for tvs, and all electronics really, is heat. If a LCD tv is against the wall it isn't getting much air. And they get really hot (especially the non LED based ones). We have one of ours on a dresser (the older one), and one mounted to a wall but it is in a corner on a swivel mount so there is plenty of room for the hot air near the tv to be moved to different areas of the room.


Sony also use some of Samsung's technology in their TV's.
 
Im partial to LG stuff myself. I've had my 47"plasma for over two years with no problems. I often use it as my gaming display. I also have a LG blu-ray player as well.
 
Had problems with Panasonics in about that same time frame.

Convergence amplifiers (rear projection) die like clockwork.

Power supplies (plasma)

My parents had a 19" color Panasonic from the very early '70s. It still worked when I left home in 1987. Something happened to Panasonic in between then and now. Something bad.

We've had our Toshiba Regza 42" for about 4 or 5 years now. Usually the Panasonic problems arise long before then.

Ironically, we got the Toshiba because it was priced less than LG and significantly less than Sony and the dread Panasonics
 
It is true that the lower end brands and bottom TVs of most of the major brands are not as good. Why? they are outsourced to contract makers and use the lower quality components.

the Japanese brands (Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, Hitachi) tend to make better stuff than the brands that are no-name. Samsung and LG/Goldstar are going through spats of quality issues, but generally are pretty good.

The panels in these TVs beyond the bottom models are all made by Samsung, LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, Chimei, and Panasonic.

Some are lower grade selects for low end models and off brands, but any midprice or higher TV will have good panels even if the brand is a competitor to the panel maker. The midprice or better also have better electronics than cheap models of the same brand. The panel is likely identical.
 
Originally Posted By: Jim 5
I'd bet this as well. The factory probably saved 85 cents on capacitors compared to a good japanese brand, and that'll make for a $200+ repair. Did this job on my dual BenQ monitors. Replaced them with Japanese capacitors and they'be been fine ever since. Both died within several months of one another. both out of warranty.


I have a Polaroid that needs 1 hour of warm up before the TV decoder would start working. In the end I bought a used Tivo as a TV tuner box to work around it.
 
Regarding LCD TVs, there are two major sources for the (quality) panels themselves. Samsung and LG. Most of the (quality) major players in the industry buy their panels from one of those two companies.

Samsung and LG use their own "top tier" panels in their sets. Other manufacturers can buy various tiers (quality, resolution, construction features etc) of panels from LG and Samsung.

Sony doesn't make its own panels but it has a supplier that builds its panels to Sony's specs.

With other brands its a dice roll as to what panel they use. Vizio sources its panels from China most of the time though sometimes according to what I've been able to find out does source its panels from the lower tiers LG offers. Westinghouse, Sylvania etc buy from whoever has the lowest bid for the specs they are looking for.

LCD TVs in general will either fail quickly or last a long time when it comes to the actual screen. It no different than in the bad old days of laptops where you might get a perfect screen that lasts forever or you might end up with a monitor that had a stuck pixel right out of the box.

They've gotten down the manufacturing techniques for smaller size LCDs (laptop sized) where stuck/dead pixels are not an problem anymore. The larger panels, they still have occasional issues with.
 
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