Are unbranded cheap televisions are a false economy?

Before you buy a TV or other consumer electronics item you should consider not only the purchase price of the product but in addition the probability of it going faulty, the life expectancy of the product, and the features and the performance.

Major brand TVs from manufacturers such as Philips, Pioneer, Panasonic, Hitachi, LG, Samsung, Sharp ,JVC and Hitachi always retail for more than inferior brands of televisions with unfamiliar brand badges on them. The unbranded cheap TVs from unknown manufacturers give the impression of being good value for money when compared to the known brands of televisions. The styling and features may possibly make justifying the difference difficult.

How do the major brands of televisions justify the premium?

Obviously when you buy a known brand of Television you are paying a premium for the brand, which you dont do on the unknown brand cheaper televisions. But is this the only difference?

Often the cheaper LCD televisions and the cheaper Plasma TVs are imported into the UK from factories in China and Eastern Europe and are distributed by unknown importers that dont have the infrastructure in the UK that the main Television brands have. This might seem like a good thing since it keeps the costs down.

The manufacturers of unbranded cheap TVs dont have the same incentive to safeguard their televisions from being unreliable or poor quality. It isnt important to them if the TVs are unreliable or if they last for 4 years or 7years. Ultimately you wont be able to find out which factory manufactured the television, as a result you wont be able to avoid it in the future if you purchase an unreliable Television.

Moreover the quality control isnt as stringent which once more means that the possibility of the cheaper TVs going faulty is increased. Therefore the out of box failure rate when new will be higher on cheap TVs than for branded televisions. Cheaper televisions will be more likely to fail within the first 12 months, and beyond, than the more expensive branded Television models.

Main brand manufacturers of TVs produce better designed internal circuits with higher quality components to improve the reliability of the Television. Cheaper televisions from unheard of brands dont need to do this. Surveys that have been done by the magazine Which have found that this is the case and main brands of TVs like Sony and Panasonic repeatedly out perform the cheap TVs from unknown brands.

Less likely to be repaired

Replacement parts are not as readily available on cheap Television brands as they are for the major TV brands. This is often because there arent any parts kept in the UK by the manufacturer for the unbranded cheap TVs unlike the main brand TVs so it takes longer to get hold of the parts.

On a cheap unbranded televisions if it has a fault that is not easy to repair there isnt any, or the equivalent level of technical knowledge to assist the repair as the major Brands of TVs. In the extreme it is much more probable that cheaper TV will not be repairable at all. If the dealer that sold the product is still trading then obviously they are obliged to either repair the product or exchange it for the duration of the guarantee period. Then again if the retailer isnt trading any longer then your guarantee is almost certainly useless since you cant revert back to the manufacturer like you can with the main TV brands.

It is not unknown when a branded Television has had very poor repair history, for the manufacturer to swap, repair or subsidise the price of the repair outside of beyond the 1 year guarantee as a good will gesture. It is unlikely that this would happen for a cheap Televisions from an unheard of brand, which means that you would have to purchase a replacement one at an earlier time than if you had bought a recognized brand of TV.

Main brand TVs have superior picture and sound quality.

An additional reason for the difference in the retail price between unknown brands and known major brands is that the major manufacturers invest in research and development to discover methods of advancing current technology to improve the performance compared to unknown brands. Quite often the technology and specification of cheaper LCD televisions and cheaper Plasma TVs from unfamiliar brands is at least a year or more behind the technology in the equivalent major brand LCD televisions or Plasma televisions. The effect of this is that the performance of known brands is superior to the cheaper unfamiliar brands. Ultimately magazines such as What Hifi and What Video give the unknown brands of cheap TVs low ratings compared to the recognized brands of televisions.

Conclusion

Cheaper brands of televisions experience poorer reliability and dont have the features and performance of the more costly main brand Television manufacturers. Bearing in mind that you often buy a Television to last for 5 years or more, when you share the cost differential by the number of years that you intend to keep the TV for, it is worth paying the extra amount for a branded TV. More often than not the cheaper unbranded TV will prove to be more costly due to poor reliability and the probability that it will have to be replaced earlier. This is forgetting about the superior performance of the major brand televisions. Consequently the unbranded cheap televisions characterize poor value compared to TVs from Sony, Philips, Pioneer, JVC, LG, Toshiba, Panasonic etc.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Share This