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COPYRIGHT 2002 Australian Consumers' Association
IN A NUTSHELL
* Price isn't a good indicator of performance--cheaper models ranked close to both top and bottom of our test results, while the most expensive TV in the test was towards the bottom.
* You can't guarantee good performance nowadays by buying a well-known TV brand. Some of the better-known brands didn't rate particularly well.
The cricket season's on us again, and your old TV's seen better days. It's time to invest in a new set that'll be sharp enough to make you the ultimate lounge room umpire. But which models will give you the best picture and clearest sound to help you make that vital LBW decision?
We tested eleven 68 cm flat-screen TVs--68 cm being a very popular size and flat-screen a growing market segment. The point of a flat screen is that you get fewer reflections from windows, room lighting and so on, and they allow a wider viewing angle--you can sit further to the side of the screen and not see a distorted picture.
These models aren't cheap (all those tested were close to $1100 and more) and there were major differences between some in the three main areas of the test: picture quality, sound quality and ease of use. These are big, bulky TVs, and they're heavy you'll most likely need two people to carry one. It's also important to consider the size of the room you plan to put it in. A guide for a good viewing distance is around five times the screen size: in this case, about 3.5 metres. If you sit too close, the picture can appear rough; too far away and you won't see the finer images.
HOW RELIABLE HAVE SUBSCRIBERS FOUND THEM?
We asked a group of subscribers whether their TV had needed repair over the previous 12 months, and whether they'd buy the same brand again. The graphs below show the results for TVs of all sizes, but the size of the TV doesn't seem to make a difference to reliability.
Analysis was limited to brands with more than 100 responses (the exact number is in brackets) and with at least 10 sets bought in each of the previous eight years.
Percentage not needing repair (Differences of more than 6% are meaningful) Panasonic/National (4334) 97 Sony (4546) 96 Sharp (1761) 94 Hitachi (285) 93 NEC (1795) 93 Sanyo (871) 93 JVC (418) 92 Mitsubishi (1029) 91 Philips (2034) 90 Samsung (1044) 88 LG/Goldstar (361) 87 Paisonic (506) 87 Akai (1345) 85 Toshiba (190) 85 AWA (260) 83 Blaupunkt (163) 83 Teac (1039) 80
Just 8% of TVs had needed repair in the previous 12 months, with...
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