Circuit City ESA Brandname a problem if repair ever needed?

[jeff]

<<Melbourne, Australia - couple of months ago I bought a 21" "Sonwa" -
Chinese
brand X - dead flat screen, stereo sound, s-video input. Perfect picture.
Bought it for $199, but now being sold for $150. That's $150 Australian.
That's probably less than $100 US.

Good for consumers, but bad for workers in the electronic and computer
industries. I would say it is also bad for our economies...>>

And if the devices fail quickly and get thrown in a land fill it may be bad
for the environment.

What made you sell the "brand x" after only a couple of months?

J.

 

[James Sweet]

<<Melbourne, Australia - couple of months ago I bought a 21" "Sonwa" -
Chinese
brand X - dead flat screen, stereo sound, s-video input. Perfect picture.
Bought it for $199, but now being sold for $150. That's $150 Australian.
That's probably less than $100 US.

Good for consumers, but bad for workers in the electronic and computer
industries. I would say it is also bad for our economies...>>

And if the devices fail quickly and get thrown in a land fill it may be bad
for the environment.

What made you sell the "brand x" after only a couple of months?

J.

I think he meant they've dropped to $150 in stores, not that he's selling
his.

 

[James Sweet]

Jeff,

According to "Choice", who collect figures on failure rates of various
appliances, there is usually hardly any difference in the failure
rates for cheaper versus dearer items. Typically 98% of dearer items
may be trouble free in the first year versus 96-7% for cheaper items.
Since the price differential may be huge, you would often be better
buying two of the cheap ones!

I've bought many cheaper items over a lot of years, since I mostly buy
pretty much on price. Nearly all these things have worked fine for
many, many years.

As for the alleged 20% failure rate in the first year of use for cheap
stuff posited by another poster? Fantasy. People have to give one year
warranties these days, and they just won't stock things that are big
trouble for them re returns.

Ross

That was based on my own experience, we've purchased a large number (several
hundred) TV's and VCR's over the last few years where I work, and while
they're quite heavily used, quite a few of them, likely closer to 10% did
fail early on. They had warrantees but the problem is they make you pay
return shipping so in the end people usually just junk it and buy a new one
rather than search for a suitable shipping container, pay to send it back,
and then wait for the replacement.

 

[Andy Cuffe]

Andy, how is the colour affected by the extra time the beam has to
travel at the edges compared to the center? Is there a compensation
for this and does it even need to be corrected for?

A*s*i*m*o*v

It's not affected at all. Geometry and convergence are big problems,
but the yoke takes care of most of that. Of course on these cheap
flat CRTs it's not an issue because they are as curved as a regular
CRT on the inside.
Andy Cuffe
[email protected]

 

[jeff]

<<It's not affected at all. Geometry and convergence are big problems,
but the yoke takes care of most of that. Of course on these cheap
flat CRTs it's not an issue because they are as curved as a regular
CRT on the inside. >>

As best I can tell by looking closely from the outside, the CRT appears to
be *almost* flat but I do agree it seems to have a *slight* curve. In other
words, as best I can tell, the surface of the CRT does not seem to be nearly
as curved as a "classic" standard CRT.

J.

 

[James Sweet]

<<It's not affected at all. Geometry and convergence are big problems,
but the yoke takes care of most of that. Of course on these cheap
flat CRTs it's not an issue because they are as curved as a regular
CRT on the inside. >>

As best I can tell by looking closely from the outside, the CRT appears to
be *almost* flat but I do agree it seems to have a *slight* curve. In other
words, as best I can tell, the surface of the CRT does not seem to be nearly
as curved as a "classic" standard CRT.

J.

It really depends on the tube, some are quite flat, some are just as curved
as any other modern CRT. They're not as bad as the old 80's tubes, but more
like the "reduced curvature" ones that came out in the mid-late 80's, which
for some reason were advertised as "flat, square" tubes regardless of the
fact that they were obviously not flat.