Hi All,

The Prosessor on my 36" Toshiba tube tv is just about to
go for the second time...(what a waste of money that was)
And it was an award winner for picture and sound....but sadly not build reliability!!

So I am looking at 32" & 37" Lcd's
Just wondering if anyone can offer advice on which one to buy....Obviously I dont want to pay too much (on a tight budget).
I was looking at the Hannspree sets and the reveiws seem very positive for a cheap end LCD.......anyone have any comments on this?....

you get what you pay for!

Get down to Sainsbury's today. Their Sony LCD's are reduced by at least £200: the same goes for Tesco and Asda. Trouble is, no backup should you need it.
Richer Sounds Boxing Day Sale offers:- Sony 32" £399, Toshiba 32" £399, Hitachi 37" £499, Philips 37" £499.
We bought a "Grundig" made in China for Beko at Tesco at a very budget price, fine - so far!
Last edited by clive4 : 21-12-2007 at 09:50

Depends how much you want to spend really.

You will get better picture (and maybe sound) with the more expensive brands (Panasonic / Sharp / Samsung / Sony / Toshiba) but you will have to pay the price for that.

At the budget end the sets are probably fairly similar and are likely to have come out of one of a small handful of factories. If you are buying at the budget end you may wish to consider the support you'll get if you have problems i.e. Return to base type warranties at your cost for a 37" TV is likely to be expensive, whereas at least the likes of Currys / Comet / Argos / John Lewis are likely to have on-site warranty arrangements.

Its funny when you make a dig at Toshiba's reliability, as I remeber in the 1990's a t.v. engineer said the inside joke was "Hey mate got a Toshiba, not for long you aint" taking a pop at a 1980's ad campaign slogan. I have always been put off by this but wondered if things had changed, I doubt not, sorry to hear of your miss fortune, getting a tube replaced costs a good packet too, I take it you wont be looking at the Regaza range then!

Actually Grundig is owned by ALBA corp (You know Bush,Goodmans & all that!) but Beko some times make units for them in Turkey, Beko's base for their operations with LCD's being made there for a rabble of "Grey market" nobodys "Technosuperwoodornyphonics" and the like, but if the box says made in China it was made by Alba themselves, oh and Beko is yet another third party that has made uints and badged them for Hitachi, you got to hand it to them very Japanese, Hitachi when was the last time you made some thing in Japan?

Not quite true, the Grundig name is currently owned by a consortium consisting of Alba and Beko, Alba itself is just an old british 'badge' and doesn't have any manufacturing capability itself (it stood for A. J. Balcombe - not sure of the spelling though).

Its funny that Alba brand the worst of their stuff with the Alba badge, with the slighty better stuff getting badged with "Goodmans" etc. They reported worse than expected sales for the last quarter, maybe the "masses" are catching on, I had a "Bush" vcr & it had 6 heads & a rock solid pause & frame advance aswell as picture though.

Just going back to Toshiba's reliability on their LCDs, any above 20" (20" and below are Vestel/Beko sourced and quite unreliable!) are VERY reliable, certainly upto the same standards as Sony and Panasonic.

I've known of a couple of panel failures and that's about it.

You misunderstand the results Alba posted. Their sales are not sales out to consumers. Instead they are sales to the retailers / resellers e.g. DSG, Tesco, Argos, Amazon et al.

And if you check any of the above you'll find they have ranges of products using the Polaroid / Matsui / Technika / Wharfedale / Mikomi / a.n.other brand which supplanted the place held by Alba. In many cases probably by buying direct from the factory rather than having a third party company (Alba) doing this for them. The number of entry price TVs being sold is probably unchanged, the difference is how the retailers are buying them.

I heard there were staff cuts at one of there plants, which I don't like to hear about, (Used to work for Compaq, until they "Joint" up with H.P.) Thing is though, I don't think paying "only" a few hundred pounds for a t.v. means It should be made out of such poor components!

Given that Alba Group doesn't have any UK manufacturing for it's TV / DVD range, and hasn't for a number of years it's probably more a case of over-capacity among the factories in the far east. So what should happen ? The factories just stay open producing sets which won't be bought ?

Incidentally, if you check Alba's webpage carefully you'll also see they de-merged a significant chunk of their business (home products e.g. Kettles, Microwaves etc) recently as well. It's possible there were job losses as a result of that as well. Again, this was probably done because the area was either a - underperforming or b - not relevant to the company going forward. No reason to keep it then.

I spent the summer in Turkey and there were loads of Beko appliances around - i was suprised as i have a beko fridge and freezer and they were dirt cheap and have never given me any problems. I thought they were an inferior brand but not from my experience.

Any tv can give you a problem even a Sony. If OP hasn't been put off Toshiba for life Richer sounds have 32" Toshiba for £350 in Sale, a Sony for £399, and a 37" Hitachi for £499. If you have a living room big enough they also have 42" phillips for £599 (if you want to take a risk), and a Hitachi 42" 1080p for £699.

Before you ask no I don't work for them just saw advert and thought if only I had the cash....

Beko are one of the three HUGE electrical manufacturers in Turkey, they make cookers for almost all the different brands in the UK - basically they just have different shape knobs!

Beko are probably the best of the three, and one of the 'better' low end manufacturers.

But seem to remember that whilst Beko took on Vestel white goods brands they off-loaded their TV interests to Vestel?

Also I am not confident that Vestel are still manufacturing AV in Turkey any more but are using Chinese manufacturing.

I don't know, but I've never seen a Beko with a Vestel chassis in it - but Beko chassis's appear in a number of other 'makes' (like LG).