… is a regular tv, not a plasma or other fancy type, would it be better just to junk it and get a new 32" or larger? Seems like there are some low cost non-plasma tvs out there these days, and $175 seems a bit steep, am I right or wrong?
Thanks for any info.
P.S. Mod please move to correct forum if this isn’t it, wasn’t sure if this should be in IMHO or what. Thanks.
They probably aren’t screwing you. You have to figure the cost of the replacement part(s) (probably hard to get) and the labor (proabably $50 an hour or more). Those are just general technician rates for anything like that. It isn’t unreasonable.
Now, I probably wouldn’t get it fixed. Older TV’s are rarely worth fixing. You should be able to replace it easily for a better one for less than $300.
TVs are the unrivaled exmple of something that is cheap to make amd expensive to repair. $ 175. to repair a 32" TV is not that unusual at all and is at the lower end of cost for a large TV repair. .
Well, when I got my 32" TV last year, it was about $700, but mine is an HDTV. Still not plasma od LCD, but it is HD and flatscreen. So I doubt you could get a TV of similar size for clsoe to $175, even if it’s not HD. A quicjk look at Bestbuy.com seems to indicate that a 32" TV (non HD) would be in the $250-$500 range, and for HD, $700-$1000.
$175 is very cheap for a TV reapir.
If it was my decision I would probably spring for a new set. A basic 32" seems to be hovering around $300 right now. You can get a Sharp 32" for about $266.
And a 6 year-old set probably has some wear-and-tear on it. Unless they’re replacing the tube I wouldn’t count on the repair making it “good as new”.
It still will have an aged picture.
Remember that in about a year only digital HD will be transmitted, and the decoder you’ll have to buy is currently $200 at the low end.
Ahh, good point. The set needs to be both “digital ready” (if that is the correct phrasing) and HD capable as well? Sorry is that is an extreme n00b question.
It doesn’t have to be HD capable.
But, if you can find a way to afford it, get an HD TV. Since I got mine, I hardly watch anything that’s only broadcast in SD. I think this year and the next is when HDTV is really going to take off.
Roger that, thanks for the information fellow.
Don’t know if this helps much, but I can relate a tv repair story that happend to my brother about five years ago:
His tv went on the fritz, and he called our uncle, who has been an electrical engineer for about 50 years. His advice was to go ahead and send it into a shop to get an estimate, but before he did, to turn all the heads of the screws so that they were parallel/perpendicular to the set itself, regardless of tightness.
He did so, came back into the shop a few days later, which gave him an estimate of $175. He looked at the back of the set: all the screwheads were STILL parallel/perpendicular to the set. The repairman never even took the back off the set to look at it, and thus had no idea what was wrong with it (otherwise, the screws would have been tightened and no longer aligned). $175 is standard “fix anything” price. My brother took the set home, unfixed.
About six months later, my uncle came through on vacation, spent five minutes with it, found a capacitor (I think) that had burned out, and replaced it. Set works perfectly, cost about $5.
Just food for thought.
As mentioned, DTV != HDTV.
As for tuners, the FCC required that TV manufacturers phase in integrated ATSC tuners into half of all 25-35" TV lines by July 1, 2005. By July 1, 2006, all sets measuring 25" or larger must include digital TV tuning, and by July 1, 2007, all other sets between 13 inches and 24 inches must have ATSC tuners.
Since it’s all but hopeless that broadcasters, manufacturers and consumers will be hit the current analog “drop dead” date of December 31, 2006, there is now momentum in Congress to push it back until 2009. Which gives the OP some breathing room as far as buying a new set. Of course, were it up to me, I’d go with an HDTV; hell, I can barely stand watching SDTV as it is.
If you do decide to buy a new set, make sure that it is an HD set (if that’s what you want). Many of the cheaper LCD TVs are in fact “EDTVs” (Enhanced Definition TVs) that can display 480i and also downsample 720p and 1080i into 480p. It looks better than most old TVs sure, but it ain’t HD.
How does 480i compare to conventional analog TV?
Expensive parts? NIME…
I once had a TV fixed. The problem was a chip (the computer kind).
The repair bill was about $150. $0.53 of that was parts. The rest was labor. They sent the old chip back with the TV. You could see the tool marks from being pulled out with a pair of pliers.
I just bought my gf a new Philips TV for $175 at Bestbuy (37" I believe) and it’s pretty damn sweet. Just something cheap for when we get our place together in a couple of months, but I’ll probably get an LCD or Plasma when that happens (I’ll have my Bestbuy employee discount by then).
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I work at Bestbuy now (I wasn’t working there when I got the Philips though).
Conventional analog TV is 480i. Digital broadcasting means no static and no comb filters needed, so it can look as good as a full-screen DVD does on a standard analog TV with component inputs, but no better.