LCD's - Panasonic vs Samsung

wrote in message
s.com...
I am biased, obviously, but I see it all the time and quite
interestingly, people seem to enjoy telling me how badly they have
been treated by the big stores. I cant really understand this one. I
think I would tend to keep quiet about it if I had been to one of
them, received less than perfect advice or service and still bought
from them.


Perhaps that's because they see the failure as the stores fault and not
their own for making the wrong decision about where to buy. And they think
that by subsequently blackening the store/your competitor they are
demonstrating to you how much wiser they are now and perhaps you will be
more favourably disposed to give them a good deal/service.

Roger R

Perhaps that's because they see the failure as the stores fault and not
their own for making the wrong decision about where to buy. And they think
that by subsequently blackening the store/your competitor they are
demonstrating to you how much wiser they are now and perhaps you will be
more favourably disposed to give them a good deal/service.

Roger R

I hope we would anyway. Really I think it is all about being as honest
as possible when asked for an opinion or to give a demo. I have even
been known to send a prospective customer to a competitor for a
particular piece of equipment if I feel it would suit them better than
something we sell. At least it builds up trust and we will probably
see them again later for something else or to do an installatioin.
I would say though, that a big problem for the independant dealer
trying to give the best service and advice, is the customer who uses a
great deal of our time and facilities and then goes elsewhere to buy.
This is always likely to happen but it has already lead to the demise
of the majority of small dealers and just perpetuates the domination
of the chain stores. One wonders what happens when the last small
dealers close down and there is no one left to sort out and connect up
the haphazard mess of equipment that many people seem to collect.

Talking about the poor quality feeds which many stores have to their
demo TV's:
I wandered into Commet in a nearby town around Christmas 18 months
ago. On one side of an isle they had a collection of "HD Ready" LCD
and plasma TV's and on the other side they had the rest of the LCD's
and plasma's.
All of the sets on the "HD" side were fed from an HD source via
component cables and were showing recent HD football (Great quality,
of course).
The "non HD" isle were showing an old football match which was
obviously recorded in VHS quality (Definitely on tape or copied from
tape) and all of the sets were connected with RF aerial cables ONLY!
I am sure this must have come very close to mis-selling. I stayed
around for a bit and listened to customers and it was obvious that
none of them had the slightest idea about anything but what they saw
on the screen. The salesman seemed pretty busy demonstrating the
difference in quality.

A lot of what you guys say - the way chain stores rig their demos, the
ridiculous price of extras, etc - is fair comment, but in the end there
is no substitute for the customer being well informed.

From the customer's point of view, however, it's very difficult to get hold
of the relevant information. As I have recently shown in another thread ...
http://tinyurl.com/27ajfd
... standing in for ...
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.te...b22a5b9d5794ce
.... even making a rational choice of a new kettle is more complex than might
at first appear, and in that thread the group seemed to agree with me that
information posted on a manufacturer's website is just plain wrong, in that
it runs contrary to the laws of physics!

Within the last year or so, I've also looked at a replacement midi stereo
for my bedroom/office, and a replacement soundcard for my PC, and not a
single one of the units I looked at had technical specifications such as
Frequency Response, Signal-To-Noise Ratio, or Total Harmonic Distortion,
anywhere in the accompanying literature, though a few were available on
websites, and I obtained one or two more by emailing manufacturers. AFAICR,
such a situation would have been unthinkable in my youth, and at very least
I simply wouldn't have bought anything where such specifications were not
given.

When you consider the above, and also consider some of the pseudo-science
that has been put forward to bolster entrenched thinking, even in
uk.tech.digital-tv, a technical ng where one has a right to expect
independent rationality, then I regret I wouldn't trust even an
'independent' 'expert'.

Hence my advice aimed at giving the OP some independent means of directly
comparing sets, though I accept that it's true that:

1) Between stores, different DVD players, and the way they are connected
to the TVs - RGB/CV/RF - are also implicitly being compared.

2) It's becoming obsolete to use DVDs for such a comparison because they
are SD. However, I'm not sure how many suitable HD format disks the average
punter could obtain for such a comparison, and how many stores could mount a
demo with the particular one of competing formats a customer might bring in,
while DVDs are at any rate commonly available and still a better source than
most SD broadcast feeds (though the shots of the Namib desert in the last
Natural World "Desert Lions" were breathtaking, even on five year old SD
equipment - Panasonic 22" LCD fed via RGB from a Dreambox satellite
decoder).

I dread anything going wrong these days. Design, looks, and hype triumph
over fact and functionality at every turn, and finding an adequate
replacement for the simplest thing has become an obstacle course. I can't
even get jeans that fit me because of my height. I had to wait to go into
town for other reasons to get a refill for a decent biro. I had to buy a
replacement battery for my mobile on-line, because all the local stores want
to do is sell you a new one with a call package.

(-: Wanders of into the sunset muttering something in a pseudo-Yorkshire
brogue to the effect: "Eee! When I were a young 'un ..." :-)

wrote in message
oups.com...


"Roger R" wrote in message
...

I dread anything going wrong these days. Design, looks, and hype triumph
over fact and functionality at every turn, and finding an adequate
replacement for the simplest thing has become an obstacle course. I can't
even get jeans that fit me because of my height. I had to wait to go into
town for other reasons to get a refill for a decent biro. I had to buy a
replacement battery for my mobile on-line, because all the local stores want
to do is sell you a new one with a call package.

(-: Wanders of into the sunset muttering something in a pseudo-Yorkshire
brogue to the effect: "Eee! When I were a young 'un ..." :-)

Well its what the public wants.. low prices and sod any after sales and
service!....

How many times do you get the request "where can I get a whatever at the
lowest possible PRICE" ?....
--
Tony Sayer

In message , tony sayer
wrote


Well its what the public wants.. low prices and sod any after sales and
service!....

What after sales service would you need with consumer products if you
were just replacing the older version with something newer?


--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

On Thu, 31 May 2007 22:38:54 +0100, membership
wrote:

In article ,
Roger R wrote:

"Graham C" wrote in message
news

I know many years ago Plessey sold reject 2 watt audio amplifier chips
to Sinclair who resold them as 5 watt amplifiers with a mark up of
around 2000% knowing that probably half would be returned as 'unfit
for the purpose of'.

I always understood that the 5W Sinclair amp/chip was made for them by
Texas Instruments who refused to put their name on them. I don't think
"unfit for purpose" existed at the time of Sinclair.

I still have a few of these left - they were of two types one had two
metal tabs to which the heatsink would be attached. The other had a
2BA bolt sticking out of it for the same purpose. They were
definitely Plessey as my mate gave them to me - he left Sinclair's
employment and went on to work for Plessey in Swindon.

The Plessey spec was something like :
0.3 % THD at 1 W,
2.5% THD at 2 W,
hence you can guess the distortion at 5 watts !

Re 'unfit for the purpose of' he told me that the biggest problem in
working for Sinclair in Cambridge, was getting through the front door
in the morning. If the post had already been you couldn't open the
front door owing to the huge mound of returns on the other side.

G.

In article , Alan
writes
In message , tony sayer
wrote


Well its what the public wants.. low prices and sod any after sales and
service!....

What after sales service would you need with consumer products if you
were just replacing the older version with something newer?



Don't suppose you would but don't expect much in the way of good advice
when your buying it..


--
Tony Sayer

In message , tony sayer
wrote
In article , Alan
writes

Don't suppose you would but don't expect much in the way of good advice
when your buying it..

Who needs the advice of shop salespeople? They will only attempt to flog
you the items with the greatest profit margin and then an unnecessary
extended warranty.

The only advantage shopping in a local store is that you can get the
goods immediately without having to wait for delivery.

--
Alan
news2006 {at} amac {dot} f2s {dot} com

In article , Alan
writes
In message , tony sayer
wrote
In article , Alan
writes

Don't suppose you would but don't expect much in the way of good advice
when your buying it..

Who needs the advice of shop salespeople? They will only attempt to flog
you the items with the greatest profit margin and then an unnecessary
extended warranty.

The only advantage shopping in a local store is that you can get the
goods immediately without having to wait for delivery.


Well years ago when I was in the TV trade I reckon that overall pictures
were much better then what they are today, as you had a trained engineer
who knew what the picture was supposed to look like and we insisted that
an efficient aerial be used and overall standards were higher.

And today **** poor set up TV's showing nothing like they can do!.

Two of our neighbours using indoor aerials with very mixed results and
the widescreen that the other has all over the place!....
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , Alan
writes
In message , tony sayer
wrote
In article , Alan
writes

Don't suppose you would but don't expect much in the way of good advice
when your buying it..

Who needs the advice of shop salespeople? They will only attempt to flog
you the items with the greatest profit margin and then an unnecessary
extended warranty.

The only advantage shopping in a local store is that you can get the
goods immediately without having to wait for delivery.


Well years ago when I was in the TV trade I reckon that overall pictures
were much better then what they are today, as you had a trained engineer
who knew what the picture was supposed to look like and we insisted that
an efficient aerial be used and overall standards were higher.

And today **** poor set up TV's showing nothing like they can do!.

Two of our neighbours using indoor aerials with very mixed results and
the widescreen that the other has all over the place!....

and I just found SWMBO watching dttv with the picture in 4:3 mode. She
said she hadn't noticed ;-(

--
From KT24 - in "Leafy Surrey"

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11