How are LG Electronics products? (i.e. - refrigerators) (1 Viewer)

I plan on purchasing a townhome or condo very soon, and I'm doing some research on appliances. I have my heart set on a stainless steel or titanium refrigerator, but the only one that falls within my budget is one from LG Electronics. I know LG is relatively new to the US, but I'm finding it hard to find some reviews of their refrigerators. Does anybody have any experience with an LG fridge?

Or better yet, any recommendations on brands to stick with when furnishing my new place?

I've only owned an LG phone but it never gave me a problem. You may want to see if you have a local Sears Scratch and Dent store. Lots of times the scratch or dent is on the side that would face a cabinet and you would never see it. I think you can go to sears.com and look for local stores.

LG is definitely nothing new. Ever hear for the company Lucky-Goldstar? Same company.

I don't know anything about their refridgerators, specifically, but I can tell you I've never been fond of any of their other electronics.

yeah there's a sears outlet (scratch and dent) store in Santa Ana, on warner near main street

=)

I personally would avoid LG. I know you've got your heart set on that stainless steel look, but have you ever lived with it? They always look dirty. They pick up fingerprints like nothing else and the minute after you clean them they look bad again. People I know who own them hate them. Black looks nice too.

LG makes the HD DirecTV boxes for Zenith and Sony (they are the same thing).

I *think* that LG was a company that manufactured alot of products for other companies and have now started marketing their own. I haven't had any problem with any LG branded or LG manufactured product. I had the Zenith HD satellite box and I have an LG phone.

I've seen the stainless steel LG fridge you are talking about. It's very nice.

Another thing about LG appliances, good luck finding parts suppliers.

Great, thanks for the replys guys. Thank you Khoa, for the tip about the scratch and dent store; I'll definitely look into that.

In the 6/21/04 edition of BusinessWeek, LG is rated #1 in the Info Tech 100.

Their revenues are 30 Billion dollars, only about 1.5 billion behind Intel. So, they are a major player.

LG is a big brand name here in Kuwait, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy one. People just haven't heard of it in the US.

Lucky Goldstar must have come a loooooooooong long way to be rated #1 in anything.

it used to be the KMart brand before they changed their name.

I understand that they may be better than before, but I still wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

And Honda's used to be a name to be avoided because of its notoriety for excessive rust.

South Korean chaebol's (huge companies) have come a long way since the '80's. Much like LG, Samsung was once a wannabe player - now they're one of the major forces in electronics, vying with Sony for the top spot for quality and innovation in the consumer's mind.

While I personally don't know much about LG's QC and innovation today, many of you may be more familiar with their logo, where the "L" and "G" are positioned in the shape of a face.

The Next Big Player?

Walking through Best Buy this past weekend, I saw that LG has a stainless steel fridge with an LCD TV build into the door. Nice, but I'm holding out for one with surround sound.

As mentioned, LG, is a not very new name for Lucky Goldstar, a Korean chaebol (the closest thing here would be a conglomerate). It was formed from two smaller chaebols, Lucky (Electronics) and Goldstar (Chemicals—I think). But they manufacture lots and lots of things.

The consumer electronics division (or whatever the term) used to be pretty well known for their ability to reverse engineer other companies’ (particularly Japanese) products and then manufacture and sell them more cheaply. This put them in the same niche as one of the major Korean competitors, Samsung.

However then are now (as is Samsung) bringing new products to the market that are not based on reverse engineering other products. To the point that they are now the OEM for many prestigious companies (Shawn mentioned Sony HD boxes). I’m pretty sure that Zenith is owned by LG and has been for a while.

If I were advising on major appliances, I would suggest considering function before looks. Get a refrigerator that is energy efficient, quite (very important for me), has an ice-maker that does not break down, etc. Then think about the looks.

I have no direct knowledge of their major appliances, but the consumer electronics are pretty much middle of the road, at good prices.

I had a Goldstar vcr that refused to die. It really was pretty crappy.. everytime I would stop a tape in the middle of a movie it would leave a "pop" sound in the audio.

But, I will say this: that vcr kept on going with the same level of crappiness for over 10 years.

So at least they're consistent.

i own the lg fridge. it works great. keeps everything evenly cold (no freezing near the back of the fridge, etc.) there are no fingerprints either. it has some sort of matte finish, so you can't even tell.

but, for me it was a no-brainer since i used my bb discount.

i didn't realize lg was part of goldstar. that's just scary. but i *do* know that lg is one of the biggest companies in the world. i don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.

i would have no problem recommending them.

edit - if you're curious, this is the model i have.

When my wife became interested in buying a new washing machine and dryer, I found a message board, believe it or not, where that's what they discuss, like they do home theater gear here. LG, at least at the time, was easily the favorite. I don't know whether they modded the equipment like some here do, but I learned more about washing clothes there and what makes a good washing machine than I ever knew before. Still, LG was very lauded. I'll see if I can find the link.

There are a number of LG appliances on display in my office building right now. They look pretty impressive, especially the refrigerator with the LCD TV screen in the door. I can't speak to their quality, but I would expect to see a lot more LG products around in the next few years.

Here's the link. You might go there and post. Apparently, they do other appliances, although their main thang is them washing machines.

I've had one of those LG-built Sony HD receivers for a year now, and love it. There's a whole forum over at AVS devoted to HD hardware and the LG built boxes are pretty well regarded, especially for local ota digital tv reception. I know mine picks up a lot more local digitals and has far fewer dropouts than my previous Hughes-built box. They're currently working on a new chip that will virtually eliminate local digital dropouts caused by multipath interference.

LG did buy Zenith a few years back, and Zenith pretty much invented the ATSC system prior to that buyout so LG has a sort of leg up on the other mfgs.

My new Zenith DVB-318 upconverting via component dvd player is an LG product and I'm quite happy with it too. They're just now introducing a new line of dlp rptvs.

Wow, I completely forgot about this thread. Many interesting comments, and I ended up with a side by side refrigerator made by Roper, which is owned by Whirlpool. I did a lot of digging, and found that I could have Whirlpool quality for much less, and would only have to sacrifice some of the extras I wouldn't have needed anyway.