Are Discount HDTVs Really a Good Deal?

May 9, 2008 – 11:42 am, posted by Shannon

I recently read about a disturbing new trend in HDTVs that I hope will be changed sometime soon. Apparently, a woman that was trying to save a little money on her HDTV purchase decided to buy a TruTech High Def TV rather than spend money on a higher end namebrand model. You really can’t blame her for trying to be a smart shopper. After all, if the TV looked good in the store and the price was right, why wouldn’t she make the purchase?

Well, only a month after her one year warranty was over, the LCD screen went completely black. So, she called Target, which was where she purchased the television, and the store told her there was nothing they could do for her because the warranty was up. She then did a little research online and learned that TruTech is Target’s in-house brand. She became frustrated when she did more research, but couldn’t find a way to get in touch with anyone about fixing the television. She did, however, find plenty of other people online that were complaining about their TruTech televisions as well.

Finally, the woman called television repair shop. Amazingly, the repair shop said they couldn’t fix the television because it was an off-brand. Apparently, television shops aren’t able to repair off-brand televisions at all because, in an effort to keep their prices lows, they won’t provide television repair shops with instructions or parts for repairing the televisions. So, in essence, you get no support when you purchase one of these discount televisions.

So, what does Target have to say about its television? Well, all the company can say is that customers are welcome to purchase an extended warranty. Of course, by the time you do that, you won’t be getting any real savings. If you don’t get the warranty and you do manage to find a way to ship it off to the manufacturer for repairs, you are looking at paying a couple hundred dollars in shipping costs along.

The moral of the story? Most experts recommend sticking with televisions such as Sony, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Toshiba, Sanyo, Philips, Hitachi, and Sharp because all of them have a solid system of customer support in place.



  1. One Response to “Are Discount HDTVs Really a Good Deal?”

  2. Unfortunatley, this same problem plagues even the major brands as well. My first HDTV was a Sharp Aquos LC-32D6U and I payed a premium price for the TV because it was a major brand.

    13 Months after I purchased it, the sound suddenly stopped working on occasion. I did not buy the extended warranty, since I had never previously owned a TV that lasted for less than 5 years. Well, about 2 weeks after the sound issues began, the TV simply stopped working all together.

    When I did a search on what the problem may be, I found that that model TV had a very serious problem, and had an extremely high failure rate in the 13-18 month range (conveniently after the factory warranty became expired). Needless to say, the repair would cost about $500 dollars, which is slightly less than most new 32″-37″ LCD TV’s cost currently.

    The real lesson is, buy the extended warranty.

    By draiken78 on May 9, 2008

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