Compal electronics acquired the Toshiba TV plant in Poland and a licence to use the Toshiba brand in Europe a year ago. To date, it seems to have sourced most of its Toshiba-branded TVs from Vestel. Now, it has exited Europe and Vestel will take over both the brand licence and factory.
No longer can we say it's not a Vestel if it's made in Poland!
http://www.dailysabah.com/economy/20...pany-in-poland

it is getting to the stage where it will be almost impossible if not impossible to know who makes a brand of TV. I have seen the quality of Vestal Tv sets. Even the company who made the TV I have (Philips) have sold their Tv division to TP Vision, since I got my Tv, who ever they are.

So how do we know if the companies name on the TV set is the one that makes it? sooner or latter I will have to buy a new one, hoping it will be a few more years yet, but when I do, I want to know I am not buying cheap junk and paying a high price for it.

It won't be long before pretty much all brands are actually made by Vestel or one of the other budget brand OEM's that seem to be taking over the TV world.

Hopefully the higher end models will still be made by the likes of Sony and Panasonic but I'm not holding my breath. I have a suspicion that Sony might well do the deed and sell their TV division but that's pure speculation (based on them making no profits )

Then we'll be left with LG and Samsung as the only 'decent' high end makers with everything else coming out of Turkey, China or Poland, all with chunky poorly built remote controls and slightly odd menus.

It might help a choice if we knew where the set was made, if the information is on the box, or made available on line, before we buy

If the general public gave two hoots about quality and who makes their TV then we wouldn't be in this position now.

I guess for most people that's true, it's all about the cheapest price and expecting the highest quality.

There are times when the general public hasn't a clue what's good for them. This is one of those times.

I think the market is moving slightly away from commoditised TVs what with 4K, OLED and smart TVs in abundance these days.

Branding has always been like this. Would you buy Cabdury's chocolate if it was labelled Kraft's chocolate? Or Walker's crisps if it was labelled Lay's crisps?

I thought Sony had already sold their manufacturing plants to someone else a few years ago... Think it was Samsung, or I'm getting my wires crossed...

ETA: Might be getting mixed up with this:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-so...7BP03N20111227

Well actually if you guessed Vestel chances are that you would be right more often that wrong! Most small and cheap end TVs have been made by Vestel or similar companies for some time now. The fact that there are very few actual panel and TV chip manufacturers means that there is not a lot of difference anyhow. Picture quality is really dictated by what type of panel and level of processing chip set used.

Outside of Panasonic, Sony, Samsung and LG large panel TVs, 99% of every other brand or small TV are just badged or bought in complete innards with a bit of user interface software added to give a veil of uniqueness in the menus and EPG presentation.

They are 70% owned by TPV Technology Limited of China, who are the worlds biggest manufacturer of computer monitors.

Certainly re-branding is nothing new whether it's crisps, chocolate or consumer electronics. But whereas Lays chips is the name used in the US and Europe for what we know as Walkers in the UK, with Vestel making a TV that's labelled as Toshiba or Panasonic the buyer may well be forgiven to think it's made by that manufacturer and not expect a Panasonic to be pretty much the same as the Toshiba or Techwood or Finlux. Still it's the way it's all going, same for cars, kitchen appliances, phones, computers, everything I guess.

I now tend to try and avoid anything made by Vestel but its now getting harder and harder to tell whats made by Verstel and whats not.
Most of the cheaper end of TVs and set top boxes that Argos sell are made by Vestel. Just have another companies bag on them like Bush, Goodmans, Toshiba and Hitachi. Sadly even some of the cheaper Panasonic TV are now made by Vestel and Panasonic are ment to be one of the best 5 top companies.
Philips used to be a great company at one time but in the last few years I think Philips has gone downhill a little.
For the likes of TVs I would now say Samsung are now the best. Followed by Sony and maybe Panasonic still.
LG in my view still sit in the lower end of the best TVs.

Darren

Panasonic did have some Vestel sets but appear to have discontinued them now - it was a way of providing an entry level product.

For all the criticism of Vestel, the few bits and pieces I've had of theirs have been absolutely fine - a cheap Digihome badged PVR lasted *far* longer than a Toshiba badged TV Onics unit. In the bedroom have got a Bush LCD / DVD combi which was bought as a £80 refurb over 10 years ago and apart from the occasional software glitch hasn't missed a beat.

You see loads of scrap Vestel TV's

It doesn't help that they have serious design flaws in the PSU's (and aren't the only manufacturer to have had the same flaws!), which probably cause most of the failures.

But as I've pointed out to you many times before - for every Sony or Panasonic set which is sold, there are probably 10 Vestel sets sold - when you consider the sheer breadth of brands under which they are sold.

And being at the cheap end of the market, people will generally not even bother to explore getting it repaired instead choosing to just buy a new set.

Perhaps the one thing Vestel could do would be to move to external power supplies - thus rendering repairs even easier and reducing scrappage.

That's besides the point - HUGE numbers of Vestel sets fail within a fairly short time, many while still under guarantee.

The point isn't the actual 'numbers', it's the percentage of sets sold - and the percentage of failures is MUCH higher for Vestel sets.

If you want a cheap TV though, it's as good as any other - and better than some

I've got two at home - both for free, when people had new sets to replace the faulty Vestel ones.

The two you've got weren't scrap though were they? They were presumably fairly simple and cheap repairs - otherwise you wouldn't have bothered

It's just that people don't bother getting things repaired nowadays, whereas 20 years ago they'd have paid for a repair. Now in part that's due to price deflation in such items - back in the early 90s a 21" Sony or Panasonic set would have set you back at least £350. Today in Argos (using as it was an easy place to get a price from) a 32" Sony will cost you £230.

According to the This Is Money calculator, £350 in 1992 = £678 today.

Exactly

But the customers had bought new sets, and asked me to dispose of the old ones

The point though, is that they do fail pretty regularly, and often due to stupid design errors.

At least you can get circuit diagrams for Vestel, and 'sometimes' can swap boards from other sets - although there's such a huge variety of different chassis' and boards that it's not always possible.

I do not normally buy Cadburys anyway, i was not a lover of it before Kraft took it over, I did buy some today and wish I did not, it is even worse now.

I do not buy Walkers crisps normally either

So if I went for a new Tv best to go for LG then, I do not like Samsung sets, I have not seen one that have impressed me.

do not mean they are any good just because they are large.

My Philips Plasma is still a good TV, the picture is great on it and the sound is amazing, I think mainly due to the fact the speakers have plenty of space inside the cabinet, so it gets good bass, in modern TV sets the case is so thin there is no space for air to move around in them. The main problem with my Philips Plasma is that it uses a bit of juice compared to modern TV sets, but then it is not that much of a problem for me as I only watch for a few hours a week.

It is a shame to see these good names going on cheap tacky TV sets. like when Bush and Goodmans was jucked onto cheap products.