Wharfedale LCD42F1080P

This is being sold in Argos for £499 - is it any good?
My TV went "bang" last month and i'm using my bedroom TV in my Living Room at the moment - is this a good model or should i wait until after Christmas for the sales and get a better brand

Thanks

It's just a cheap and nasty brand, usually bought from Vestel.

Here we go again.... somebody asks whether a set is any good and since it is an unbranded Alba / Beko / Vestel set Mr Goodwin goes for the standard 'It's just a cheap and nasty brand, usually bought from Vestel. '

The simple truth is with TVs as with pretty much everything else in life, you get what you pay for.

If ultimate performance in picture and sound quality are you're aims and money's no object then inevitably you will end up looking at a Panasonic / Sony / Toshiba / Samsung.

If the reality is you want a large tv at the lowest price, then you'll end up with an unbranded set- most of which are probably related to each other.

As I said elsewhere, there must be absolutely hundreds of the Vestel clones out there in use simply because they are cheap sets, that doesn't necessarily make them bad sets. And I've yet to see any evidence that they are inherently less reliable than the big brands - when you factor in the volumes sold.

OK, the picture and sound won't be of Sony / Panasonic quality, but then again neither is the price. And when you've got it home and are using it, you won't have a Sony / Panasonic etc next to it to compare it with.

Nor is buying a Sony or Panasonic a guarantee of absolute reliability. My main set is a 24" Panasonic set (5 years old, 1 repair) whereas I also have a Matsui 14" (DSG own brand so probably a Vestel) which is 15 years old has never failed.

It really is a case of 'you pays your money and makes your choice.'

my friend bought the 32" wharfdale one from argos for 300 quid and is well happy, the picture is really good from what ive seen. Ive got a 37"hitachi lcd which comes under the vestel umbrella and am really happy with it.

What's your problem! - someone asks about a specific set, and what I posted is 100% correct - would you prefer me to post "AlanO says these sets are wonderful, being cheap is no detriment to either performance or reliability, and they come with AlanO's personal guarantee!" (none of which has the slightest vestage of truth in it).

The badging of cheap crap is intended to mislead the customer, personally I consider the customer has a right to know what they are buying! - obviously you think the customer should just be conned into buying something they didn't realise.

[quote=Nigel Goodwin;19377633]What's your problem! - someone asks about a specific set, and what I posted is [b]100% correct

Really ? Let's take a look at that

Cheap - yep it's a cheap set

and nasty brand - well the askOxford.com website says nasty is: "adjective (nastier, nastiest) 1 unpleasant, disgusting, or repugnant. 2 spiteful, violent, or bad-tempered. 3 likely to cause or having caused harm; dangerous or serious: a nasty bang on the head. "

Not sure that really applies to a tv or a brand ?

'usually bought from Vestel.' - I'll let you have that since Vestel are one of the largest OEM manufacturers.

So you're 66% right.

What I dislike is every time somebody asks about a Vestel based set you're knee-jerk reaction is, words to the effect of, 'it's crap'.

Do you own a Vestel set ? Have you used one lately ?

A better answer to the original poster would have been it's a £ 500 42" LCD - it's not going to be as good as a Sony / Panasonic / Toshiba etc. But then again you won't find a brand new Sony / Panasonic / Tosh for that price - as you well know.

A quick look on Richer Sounds website showed that the cheapest 42" set they have on offer is an LG at £700 - about 40% more expensive. So the decision is then whether it's worth paying out an extra £ 200 or buying a smaller - probably 32" set.

As for your comment: "AlanO says these sets are wonderful, being cheap is no detriment to either performance or reliability, and they come with AlanO's personal guarantee!" You do spout some balderdash don't you ?

What I actually said - if you'd bother to read it PROPERLY was " The simple truth is with TVs as with pretty much everything else in life, you get what you pay for.

If ultimate performance in picture and sound quality are you're aims and money's no object then inevitably you will end up looking at a Panasonic / Sony / Toshiba / Samsung.

If the reality is you want a large tv at the lowest price, then you'll end up with an unbranded set- most of which are probably related to each other."

I'd have said that was pretty clear that in terms of picture and sound quality price and brand clearly are a factor, but if price is your key motive then you will, inevitably, make some compromises along the way.

I did not personally guarantee any set - nor would I. Every set can and indeed does fail. The manufacturer who first achieves 100% reliability will have something to shout about.

However, you have not, in any of the posts I've seen you submit, provide any, publicly available, evidence that proportionate to their price difference, a Vestel (or any other OEM set for that matter) is inherently less reliable.

Instead we get your opinion being presented as fact. And from personal experience, I'd have to say of my two sets it's the old Vestel that's been reliable and the Pana which has been a disappointment.

And there is another poster who's quite happy with his Hitachi set (which may well be a Vestel set) and his mate is happy with his Wharfedale.

There's nothing wrong with offering advice when people ask it, but do it constructively - explain why you believe he should look to spend more, what spending more will achieve - then the poster can make an informed decision.

On your last point - a large number of customers are buying on price, they are not sensitive to the badge on their TV and they don't care out of which factory it came. Those that do care, will do their research and make decisions accordingly. I don't think customers should "just be conned into buying something they didn't realise" - nor do I see any evidence of that happening ? Again, you might like to provide some facts to back up your, often flawed, opinions.

Try talking to any TV service engineer, or any extended warranty company - the un-reliability of Vestel products is well known in the TV trade, and statistically logged by the extended warranty companies.

I don't own a Vestel set, but I do repair the small number of CRT ones we've sold (Sharp and Hitachi) - so I'm familiar with the design, performance, and quality of construction of Vestel CRT sets. To be honest, the 'real' Sharp CRT sets were so bad, the Vestel was actually an improvement as far as reliability went!.

Luckily we've not sold many cheap LCD/Plasma sets - certainly only in single figures, and I couldn't tell you if they were Vestel or not.

But I am part of a countrywide association of engineers, so I'm fully aware of the high failure rate of the Vestel made LCD's.

I agree it's MY opinion, but it's a professional opinion of a highly respected service engineer, but it's based on wide experience by hundreds of service engineers all over the country as well as my own.

But surely it's all relative ? If 10 times as many Vestel sets are sold than say Toshiba's then if you see 10 times as many up for repair, then the reliability is no different ?

This is the point I'm making, you may see alot of Vestels in for repair, but unless you know how many were sold, in proportion to a single branded set, then you've no way of knowing whether or not they are generally less reliable.

Bearing in mind virtually all the major supermarket and high street chain own brand sets are likely to have a Vestel model in them, it seems probable - given the number of people I see queuing to buy them in Tesco, Lidl, Argos etc by volume they actually sell more TVs than any of the major brands. The difference is Sony will sell one model, the equivalent Vestel will sell under many guises.

The quantities of Vestels sold is, as you say, huge - but in percentage terms the failure rate is still MUCH higher than more expensive sets.

As you say, it's up to the individual how much he wants to spend (for example I bought an Onn - Vestel - Freeview box, purely on price). But £20 for a Freeview box isn't much to throw away, spending £400 on a TV which may very well have a short life span, is quite a lot!.