"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
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"Mark D. Zacharias" wrote in message
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"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
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"hr(bob) " wrote in message
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I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?
Bob Hofmann
Personally Bob, I would go for the Philips, as it's at least likely to
be actually made by them. As Meat says, it's basically a disposable
item, but that doesn't help much when it fails 6 months in ... FWIW,
most of the cheap ones that I see for repair, have very 'marginal' power
supplies in that they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about
2 volts above what they have to work at, and it's often these that fail
inside warranty. A contributory factor in this, I think, is ventilation,
so you might want to consider keeping it out in the open, rather than
tucking it away in a cupboard underneath the TV.
Arfa
Don't encourage Philips - they are the worst. That's my advice anyway.
Mark Z.
Hi Mark
Well, he's actually a bit between a rock and a hard place on this one,
because over here at least, and I guess it's probably the case there as
well, gear marketed under the Memorex name often is Philips inside anyway.
Although Philips stuff may not be the most pleasant to work on, and their
service info sucks, I have found it in general to be quite well built, and
reasonably reliable. Iam interested in what negative experiences you might
have had to make you feel that it is "the worst" ?? Do you feel that the
Memorex would be a better bet? We might be seeing a difference in products
here between the US and UK.
Arfa
Wow, Geoff. I'm not sure I have the mental energy to recount all of my
objections to Philips.
First of all I'm referring to Philips as they present here in the good 'ole
USA. They may be a much different company in your parts. I have seen some
evidence in past exchanges on the newsgroups that they use better quality
CRT's for example in their euro product.
1. Unusual physical manufacturing, often bordering on shoddy, even unsafe.
2. Expensive repair parts, then parts discontinued just about the time you
might need them. Example: I had a customer with an 8000.00 Philips data
projector, 4 years old and needing an LCD panel. Sorry, no longer available.
3. They have the worst phone service EVER.
4. They will not sell manuals etc unless you are one of their authorized
servicers.
5. Generally cannot buy individual mechanical parts for a DVD player for
example, only complete assemblies which cost two or three times (or more)
the retail price of the unit being repaired.
6. They have a well documented problem with paying consumer rebates. You can
spent months chasing your rebate, getting one stall tactic after another.
There was a web site called Planetfeedback.com . I think they have since
changed their name but Google ought to find it. If you query Philips you'll
find they get negative feedback like no other.
I worked on a Honeywell defibrillator made by Philips. The Euro metal fuse
holder contacts were so crusty with black oxidation that they would not even
conduct electricity to the body of the fuse they were in contact with.
Wouldn't want my life depending on that one...
End of rant (for now...)
Mark Z.