Average HDTV Today Made to Last Only a Few Years

[joebob2000]

There is a phase that every product goes through that starts out with cutting edge technology that is poorly understood, moves slowly to better understanding and cost improvement, and finally to technology mastery where the defects and wear components are optimized to result in a long lasting product. Color tube TVs did the exact same thing; back in the early 80s you could get a color tube tv pretty cheap but it was shit for reliability. It might have turned on every time you wanted it to, but the color was subject to rapid decline, the V sync and H sync would need tweaking every few days, and it would develop a terrible high pitched squeal that would soon drive you either deaf, mad, or both.

Soon after tube technology was mastered, the price started flattening out and the reliability spiked. TVs bought in the late 80s and 90s were designed without a lot of the flaws that were found in the first THIRTY YEARS of design. Give LCDs that much time to mature and you will see products that overall last a long time. Anyone who whines about "oh they don't make this like they used to" has no perspective.

That being said, here is my list:
Dell 20" LCD: 7 years and going strong
Samsung 22" LCD: 5 years and going strong
Sharp 46" LCD TV: 4 years and going strong
Philips 40" LCD TV: 2 years and going strong
Visio 28" LCD TV: 2 years and going strong

Samsung 19" trinitron tube monitor: after 6 years of use it still worked great but took up too much space. I had to pay $4 to a local recycling company to get rid of it (offered it for free on CL but had no takers after a month).

 

[digitalgriffin]

[citation][nom]tipoo[/nom]There's a Sony Trinitron from the 1980's that still lives in my parents garage. CRTs were tanks. Our Sony LCD HDTV from 2006 is still doing all right though, and they said we should have expected a bulb replacement but ours hasn't blown yet. Though if the bulb goes, to be honest I would considering just getting another TV instead of a new bulb, since it does lack modern ports, hopefully there will be more advanced smart TVs by then.[/citation]

CRTs do last just about forever if you can ignore they slowly get dimmer over time. (Phos. burns out)

I once had a repair guy tell me my 32" Trinitron Sony (2003) would require 4 new capacitors + 2 Inductors (it blew out the power supply). He said $500. Four hours labor is about $280. I never knew caps/inductors to be that expensive ($220). So I suspect he was just trying to ream me one. Heck, I bought it new for $600. It wasn't worth it.

 

[spoonless eddie]

It is common practice to engineer the life of all system components to match the life of the shortest-lived component. This is called "planned obsolescence." The average life of a TV has always been, up till now, 10 years. My last one lived 20 years.

However, there have been no substantive technological advances in consumer electronics in 20 years. The old stuff still does the job. A telephone that you can fold in half and carry in your pocket is, after all, still just a telephone. FaceBook is crapola. Apple is crapola. Manufacturers have already pushed us as far as they can (and that is very far indeed) with marketing. Now, planned obsolescence is shortening the life of the products.

I see this happening with all tech products, not just TVs. Operating systems are a perfect example. Face it - this junk is just not getting "better and better and better." Once you realize that, you can begin to see the tricks that are used to part you from your money.

 

[rosen380]

*Some* repairmen might 'overestimate' a repair, because you'll probably opt to just spend 2x of the repair amount on a brand new one instead... And for $50 they'll haul away the old one for you [to use as spare parts, but more like put in the $50 worth of parts in their spare time to resell]...

 

[__-_-_-__]

that's why in europe any device has to have at leas 2 years warranty. that's why apple got sued for just providing 1 year warranty everywhere including europe. it's a major violation. also most products commercialized in europe have 1 year warranty in other countries and just 2 in europe. exactly same products. that means manufactures want their products to fail after X time.
Old devices lasted for ages. That's very easy to see in cars. There's old cars with 500k km without problems, doing that with a recent car is impossible.
Maybe next we'll have autodestruction systems -.-

 

[Dogsnake]

My Samsung DLP still perfect after 5-6 years with one lamp replacement. In addition to all that has been said, there is a growing environmental impact as more and more hazardous chemicals used in the sets components reach the landfill level. Also the idea that the natural resources used to make the sets are infinite in supply is a joke. The only benefit to all this is the company makes new sale profits, mostly offshore under paid workers continue to have jobs and the consumer gets a new model every 3-4 years. This is the "Blender Effect". For the last 10 years or more if you had a household small appliance (like a blender) and it needed repair; you bought a new one. Even a replacement pitcher is close to the cost of a new one. Small appliance repair shops have dwindled along with the loss of some very skillful people who repaired these things. The same is happening with electronics repair. It takes intelligence, skillfulness and ingenuity to repair things. This trend also inflicts a human loss as well.

 

[wiyosaya]

And not to mention that TVs these days are obsolete the moment you buy them.

 

[XZaapryca]

Planned obsolescence. They could make light bulbs that last nearly forever, but it would prove to be a poor business model. Capitalism is why we'll never have Star Trek. It's all about dollars instead of humans.

 

[chicofehr]

if they used Japanese gold plated solid capacitors like our expensive mobos then they might last longer. At least I think its those tin can like things they use that are the cause for the failures. Anything that doesn't have solid capacitors are bound to fail. When you hear a popping or high pitch sound on your LCD that is those things dying on you and POP!!! it is dead

 

[Guest]

I have a circa 1998 Sony Wega that has served us quite well over the years and continues to provide a beautiful, vivid, and sharp picture. Because it was the last model just prior to the WEGAs going HiDef, it has been relegated to my daughter's bedroom where it serves nicely as an almost exclusively Disney mini-home theatre for my two youngest girls.

We also have a Panasonic 50" 720p commercial plasma (circa 2004) that, again, provides a vivid, bright, and stunning picture (now in our master). Trouble-free since purchase.

Finally (at least of our notable tvs), we have a 42" Westinghouse LCD (1080p) that I purchased about 5 years ago from Best Buy. Aside from the occiasional need to unplug / re-plug it so that it will turn on, it's been trouble-free too. I currently use it as a monster monitor for my Windows 7 gaming pc in the study.

So, yeah, we've either been really lucky or this 3-4 year lifespan estimate is a bit on the low side.

 

[beppomarx]

I have a Samsung 40" LCD 2007 model (don't know the model # offhand). About a year ago the capacitors in the power supply started to leak so I replaced them all (6 total at what, 40 cents apoece) with higher voltage tolerance pieces and it still works good as new. When I called to order them the supplier said they get a lot of calls like this, for some reason LCD manufacturers could use better caps bit don't. Now if your screen poops the bed that's one thing but my fix cost me all of $8 after shipping to save an (originally) $1200 tv.

 

[WyomingKnott]

[citation][nom]frozonic[/nom]I dont know why this surprises people, this is simple and dirty capitalism, every product is made tobe operational for a few years and good enough too use for an even shorter time[/citation]
Ehh, capitalism used to lead to products that would last for 8, 10, or even 15 years. Because no-one would buy the short-lived ones. Now that we buy less-expensive-to-produce short-lived ones that guarantee another sale in a few years, the manufacturers would have to be crazy to make a durable product.

It's a question us us consumers voting with our figurative pocketbooks.

 

[Onus]

[citation][nom]aoneone[/nom]I am waiting for that day where electronics such as laptops and/or ipads will have an internal countdown timer that 'expires' in such a way that you will have to replace it with a new one or even worse, pay money to extend the timer to make it work again... such a sad world we live in.[/citation]
Welcome to the wonderful world of Cloud computing (a.k.a. "Software As Service") where the idea is to keep people paying, and paying, and paying...

 

[f-14]

[citation][nom]phamhlam[/nom]What makes the TV break? I would like to know. My desktop monitor last 6+ years. I would expect my TV to be able to do that.[/citation]
bad power regulators, bad color projectors, just bad parts because they were the cheapest but would work long enough to make it past the warranty period of 1-2 years.
this has been going on for the last 30 years, why is it being reported?
major manufacturers found when their products last forever not enough sales are made and actually declines as the years go buy with out an innovative must have feature. this is one of the reasons why a bad manufacturer buys up a smaller competitor that makes a superior durability product such as whirlpool buying maytag. there are still maytag washers and dryers refrigerators, microwaves, stoves and ovens from the 1950-1970's working and being used today whereas whirpool found out if they made product with cheap plastic sleeves for bearings and certain highly corrosive metals for switches and plastic knobs that get brittle over time, and lasted only 4-8 years they made more sales (sears kenmore line is mostly whirlpool products rebranded)
do you think this push to HD was for consumer benfit? HD signals have 1/4 the range of the VHF, the tv manufacturers shot themselves in the foot with that lobby effort at the excuse of law enforcement/fire/rescue getting more bandwidth that just coincidentally is being gobbled up by cellular mobile phone market.
the push to HD limited range, which eliminated almost half the market viewers advertisers were reaching which has a huge impact on television broadcasting and programing ( you get what you pay for) and television stations are losing huge amounts of business, hence all the reality (low cost to produce 10 people in a housing living together than put on a show like north and south, battle star galactica old vs. new)
and with cellular phone carriers fighting each other tooth and nail to grab up bandwidth from a recently run out of business broadcasting station and all the low ball offers to buy out television stations in trouble in prime markets in effort to get their bandwidth lics.

after all who will be watching tv on a 55" screen when you can watch it on your mobile phone any where, you can even watch the sporting events you are attending for the instant replays or a better view of a part of the game you are too far away to see as well as what espn is broadcasting. you can even watch it on your phone while at a wedding or dinner date with your girlfriend or wife or while they are shopping.
it's hard to make money selling a product that last 20+ years like they used to with well made parts while competing against portable media.i had bought a 36" boob tube with picture in picture dirt cheap just before the switch to HD was announced and would take place 3 years later. if it wasn't for vhs, dvd, and s video inputs i'd have thrown it off a high way bridge over pass in protest.

 

[sonofliberty08]

[citation][nom]warezme[/nom]So wouldn't that be illegal to know that certain parts are designed in a substandard way to fail? What parts are the ones built this way and who is building them? Seems like consumers would have the right to know go after these manufacturers.[/citation]
the "fruit" brand will do

 

[mrmike_49]

This philosophy WILL bite the cheap manufacturers in the end - read Consumer's Reports to get data on lifetime/breakdowns, only buy good brands in future. Same thing (planned obsolescence) almost killed the American auto industry

 

[taiso]

captain obvious, sir your shipment of fail has arrived...


no really why is this news i thought most of us were aware of this years ago. especially as most of us have been/worked/or stopped going to big box electronic stores. LCDs/LEDs look better/weigh less than their older counterparts. but i was honestly surprised when my 19 inch 4:3 monitor finally went this year. i honestly only expected about 4 years out of it. our old 2001 32 inch trinitron is probably still going strong somewhere in the southeastern US

 

[Zeh]

On TVs aswell? That sucks, but i cant say im surprised.
I can understand this behavior on things such as new cars. They use lightweight materials wherever possible, and reduce the total ammount of metal to reduce cost aswell.

So, they end up with a cheaper car, but that will last less than those classics. Still, this is something they MUST do. You cannot sell an entry-level car that is $1.500,00 more expensive than the competition's, saying yours "should last longer". Nobody would buy it.

More expensive models, tho, are indeed made to last a bit longer. Not sure how much.

 

[Vorador2]

Nor surprised

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

It should be illegal to sell products with programmed obsolescence, but alas, the industry gets away with it.

 

[flyflinger]

This is really driven by consumer buying trends. If the consumers would actually spend extra money for quality products that last, then the manufacturers would make them. But the reality is, most consumers buy the cheapest ones possible or ones with bells and whistles (3D) they will never use (made to same cheap quality). It's the lowest priced model that is going to sell and that means cheaply made to minimum life spec, end of story.