TVs, DVD players, stereo equipment, etc. - who do you like, who do you wind up buying, what do you avoid, etc.?
I’ll buy a Philips product (after researching of course) if it’s in my price range. I’ve had amazing “luck” with their TVs and DVD players, and (knock on silicon) it’s all still working. I always get compliments on the my 47" flat screen’s picture. Personally, I think Sony’s overpriced for what you get.
I dislike Philips because I used to service their stuff back in the 90s and it was mostly snap-together chassis and hot glue. I had to essentially break their stuff open to get at some of the innards. Their technical manuals were substandard, too
One reason Sony is pricier is because it’s made with the service tech in mind. Access plates in the right places, screws instead of welded plastic chassis, top quality circuit boards, test routines programmed into the CPUs, etc.
In cases where a Sony item is too expensive (which is most likely the case with large flat-screens), I’ll fall back on LG and Panasonic.
We have had very good luck with Samsung TV’s, Bose for surround sound systems, Toshiba for laptops.
Samsung and LG for TVs and monitors. The Koreans are at the top of their game, where the Japanese were in the 1980s. I had a problem with my Samsung flat screen, and Samsung sent an in-home service tech to fix it! They have earned my undying loyalty for that.
Yamaha for audio receivers. I own four of them.
Mitsubishi made the best VCRs.
Sony for broadcast monitors, but not their consumer electronics anymore. They still make a nice laptop.
Canon for video cameras, all the way.
Used to always go with Sony. Then we bought a couple of inexpensive Blue Ray DVD players from them, and had some issues. I thought that there quality had gone down. Then we got a new TV, and suddenly the old DVD players seem to work just fine. Turns out it was the cables, not the player itself.
Whoever has the features I want at the lowest price. Haven’t been burned yet.
If they were HDMI cables, not necessarily. The HDMI spec has been updated several times, and BluRay players don’t always play well with every TV. There is usually a USB port on TVs equipped with HDMI inputs that will allow the user to upload a new firmware to the TV to update the HDMI port.
I’ve been doing this for everything except things that Apple makes. Apple is freaking impressive.
Sony for TVs, Canon for cameras.
It’s not electronic, but our Philips vacuum cleaner has not given us a lick of trouble in the 16 years we’ve had it (knock on Formica); our next will be another Philips.
Our washer is electronic, an LG, and it’s great.
Since typically a number of different brands are assembled in the same factory this seems like a good plan. It’s more true for lower priced units, but a lot of the components of even the higher priced models all come from a few suppliers.
Gee I’ve got so little it is hard to say. Hummmm, I am typing on a Dell keyboar, I have a Kingston trackball, Belkin router. Motorola modem, Ott-Lite lamp, etc. My computer is a old case my son handed down with a fairly new PC Chips motherboard, Seagate HD, etc. I also have an EEEPC notebook.
We’ve tended to go with Sony - gotten burned on some electronics from “off” manufacturers (e.g. the cheapie DVD player), and never had a problem with a Sony. The TV in my room right now is a Sony that I bought in 1991 - it’s a 19-incher that was the “big” TV until we finally got a flatscreen last month.
Though, when TV shopping recently, I threw Sony off the list fairly early on because for the same features, they were MUCH pricier than other manufacturers. We wound up with an LG.
I’m an Asus devotee for most computer components. Except for their high end items (which are marketed towards gamers who want something ‘Xtreme’, and tend to be over complicated and break easily), they build good equipment for low prices. The exception is power supplies - Corsair and Seasonic make incredibly reliable PSUs, and the higher price is worth it to avoid getting the rest of your computer burnt out by a failing PSU.
Like others, when in doubt, I buy the Sony.
However when being budget-conscious, which is always, I’m willing to go with a well-established brand with a good reputation like RCA, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, etc…
There are some formerly well-regarded brands that have gone to shit like JVC, Sharp, and Toshiba that I won’t even look at anymore, and of course I’ll skip right over anything made by a company I’ve never heard of that’s priced exceptionally low, e.g. your Coby’s, Apex’s, and the ironically named Durabrand.
Here’s a pretty good guide to popular consumer electronics brands, written by a guy who runs his own electronics repair business. I mostly agree with his assessment of the companies he listed.
For computers: Asus Motherboards; Western Digital HDDs, Crucial memory, Corsair PSUs, Antec cases, APC UPSs, Linksys networking … I think that’s my main go-to vendors. By ‘go-to’ I’ll start and prefer them, but it’s not absolute (e.g. my current box has G.Skill memory; Seagate drives are a close second).
My experience is a combination of reviews and reputation, but the **huuuggge ** factor is personal experience with tech support and returns. A good experience solving a problem or a hassle-free return (especially cross-shipping) ensures a lot of customer loyalty.
It’s a bit fluid, but there it is. I’m not a professional system builder, but I’ve been putting together two or three systems a year since the 80386 days.
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For other equipment, anyone know about Onkyo’s reputation? I have a receiver that went back for warranty repairs once and I just lost a speaker channel. I hate basing an opinion on one item (everyone makes a lemon every once in a while), but it’s pretty frustrating.
Love Samsung’s TV and DVD DLNA client on Internet ready boxes. I have a DLNA server in the house and so make my video content available in every room in which we have a TV.
The only electronics I buy are my computer components. I don’t own a tv (so no vcr/dvd player/game console or any other assorted paraphernalia). I didn’t even have a portable media player before my mom got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas. As a result, I’m not really brand-loyal to anything. I usually just buy whatever component has the best reviews at my price point through Newegg, and the brand is pretty much completely meaningless.
The only thing I can really think of is: I prefer AMD chipsets over Intel, because AMD is the “little guy.”
I worked for a custom computer builder (~600 machines/year) for a while and that’s almost exactly what we used. We charted failure rates obsessively, and you’re right, the ease of working with their returns department is critical. Asus and the two PSU providers stuck out as particularly good, which is why I gave them a mention upthread. I think we mostly used Kingston RAM, but that was more due to a good relationship with the supplier than any particular superiority of the part.
Not counting computers, I try to stick with Panasonic for most home electronics. Their products seem to last forever.