On Jul 30, 8:10*am, "john hamilton" wrote:
I'm just about to buy a Sony television for about £500 from ebuyer. *A
friend says that LCD televisions are now very reliable. So is it really
worth paying extra for a five year guarantee?

Comes down to the price of the warranty.
#1 - Is the standard warranty 1yr or 3rd?
#2 - Does anyone do the TV with a discount or free warranty?

In LCD terms 5yrs is quite a long time.
- CFL backlight brightness does fade over time.
- CFL backlight & invertor can and do fail.
- PSUs are another area that can fail

All those items are "discrete parts or repairable". A panel failure
writes the panel off in terms of the replacement costing more than the
TV.

LCD monitor experience is PSUs do fail at about 3yrs and by 5yrs that
rises. You can buy a PSU for about £25-40 or even repair it for less,
but dissassembly is a bit tedious in terms of getting it open,
removing the shielding shells & micro-plugs.

One note with Sony is their parts & repair service.
Sony laptop parts are hard to source and expensive, service from Sony
is hilarious.
Sony CRT parts are readily available, service from Sony is 90-day
warranty & expensive.

Most brands are not too different, but with a product such as a TV it
is likely the PSU, backlight invertor & backlight will be readily
available "in the spares marketplace". An issue will be getting one
fitted, because the local repairers are beginning to packup and it
merges into "central businesses" which can be like outsourced laptop
repairers. Selectron in the USA for example were good at shafting
Customers, IBM & product aesthetics over Thinkpad repairs for a time.
Dell likewise outsourced repairs in the UK and you got light-leaks,
distorted case and so on when it came back.

So if you can follow a (probable) YouTube video on PSU removal &
replacement, or backlight bulb removal & replacement then it may be
worth "self-insuring" and buying with a lower warranty.

I would still check what the standard warranty is, Sony often do 3yr
offers on some TVs at no cost - check around.