richermo answers:

First you should go to a store like Best Buy, Circuit City, or even Costco to see what TV you like best for the prices they’re offering. Watch the TVs (they should all have the same programming on) and see which picture you like best. Ask the sales people questions about the different specs you see listed (resolution, progressive or interlaced scanning, 60 or 120-Hz video refresh rate, contrast ratio, etc.) and ask why some models are more expensive than others. That way you’ll know why the TVs are priced the way they are and which features are important to you (would you want to spend an extra $300 on a TV because it has a feature that you wouldn’t use or don’t notice in the picture?). Write down the model numbers of the ones you like.

Then check prices on the internet. I recommend buying on-line, because not only can you sometimes get a better price, but you might avoid sales tax and shipping.

You can use whatever shopping bot you want to search on the item and see which on-line stores offer the item at what price. But, when you see the prices and the stores offering them for a certain model, go to www.resellerratings.com/store/ and enter the name of the store in the upper right corner of the page to get a list of consumer ratings for that store. This site only has ratings from actual customers. They don’t let stores enter their own bogus positive ratings (if you try to rate a company, they require an invoice number and contact info for the store, so they can verify that you’re actually a customer).

If the store doesn’t come up as part of the search, it hasn’t been rated yet and may not be worth the risk of going through them. But, if the searched store does come up, you’ll get a bunch of customer reviews – positive and negative – that will help you decide if you should take the risk with this on-line store.

I bought a 42″ Sony LCD HDTV a couple years ago and the lowest price at the time was about $1650. When I looked up the store selling it at that price, most of the reviews told about how they pressure you to get the $300 – $500 extended warranty. And, when you don’t get that, they charge your credit card, but tell you that your item is on backorder. Most people said they just cancelled the order after 3 months or whatever, because of being in backorder limbo for months.

I did find a store selling the TV for $1850. It was at egghead.com, which is a very reputable on-line store. They charged me California sales tax, because the TV was coming from a warehouse in Los Angeles. But, shipping was free. And, the TV arrived safe and sound within 2 days.

richermo answers:

Sometimes, when companies test their products they often test a single product from a group of them like for every 50 TVs they test 1 or 2, for every 100 VCRs they test 3, it goes by lots… So, sometimes is hard to predict whether something will stop working or not

I’ve never had any problems with electronics except for Costco. I got a voicerecorder and it didn’t work after a while… I returned it the next day and I got a new one… Which I broke by accident… But that’s not the point…

I think there’s only two things you can do, call a technician or buy a new set… I know, it’s not a nice answer but there’s nothing else that can be done