Jeff,

According to "Choice", who collect figures on failure rates of various
appliances, there is usually hardly any difference in the failure
rates for cheaper versus dearer items. Typically 98% of dearer items
may be trouble free in the first year versus 96-7% for cheaper items.
Since the price differential may be huge, you would often be better
buying two of the cheap ones!

I've bought many cheaper items over a lot of years, since I mostly buy
pretty much on price. Nearly all these things have worked fine for
many, many years.

As for the alleged 20% failure rate in the first year of use for cheap
stuff posited by another poster? Fantasy. People have to give one year
warranties these days, and they just won't stock things that are big
trouble for them re returns.

Ross


On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 21:14:25 GMT, "jeff"
wrote:

It's very common for cheaper TVs to have a CRT like this. It's
basically just a standard CRT with extra glass to make the outside
flat. The thicker glass makes the picture look worse and the set
heavier, but people want flat screens... Even CRTs that appear
totally flat are actually slightly curved on the inside.

Andy Cuffe

Thanks for the reply. This isn't a standard CRT. It certainly is flatter
than a standard CRT, but it's just that it appears to be curved slightly on
the inside and have subtle imperfections in the shape. I guess for $99
(regularly $139) I should not be complaining.

By the way, how long can I reasonably expect this TV to last, that is, how
many thousand hours is the expected lifespan of an inexpensive flat-screen
CRT TV manufactured by Funai?

Thanks,

J.



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