Mitsubishi VS-50111 (1 Viewer)

[Dan Joy]

My friend wants to purchase a 43-50" HDTV and is tilting towards the 4:3 route. He can get a new Mitsubishi VS-50111 for 1600.00 out the door. Any suggestions or others to include at this price range. Also, adding 229.00 for 5year ext warranty?

 

[Jim FC]

The Mitsu is a great choice. It has a couple stretch modes which allow you to eliminate the grey bars on a 16:9 HDTV signal; one of the only TVs I've seen that does this. Buy the warranty if it's in-home service (most are) and if it includes a tune-up or calibration of the TV. A service plan which if offers you something of value even if the TV doesn't break (most don't break, bu they can be as expensive as hell to fix if they do) is probably worth it on a rear-projection TV.

 

[BruceSpielbauer]

If your friend is set on a 4 X 3, this is a good choice, in my opinion.

Also, that price on a 5 year warranty is pretty good. I was able to get mine down to $199, but this is about as low as I have seem posted.

GENERALLY, I advise against the extended warranties. The problems are actually rare, most show up out of the box, a few more within the first 30 days, and most of the remaining ones show up before the standard warranty expires. And, they do exclude some things. The math always shows they are a bad deal, economically. And, they are most often purchased on items which are essentially "throw away," anyway... (VCRs, DVD players, boom boxes, etc.) That said, one of the very few exceptions I would make would be on a RPTV, I made an exception simply because many of the repairs can be "big ticket" repairs. If you can get a 5 year for around $225, I would do this.

And, I would check to make certain it is "in-home," but I have yet to see any on RPTVs that were not. I would NOT concern myself with annual "calibrations" or "checkups." If you are willing to read and research just a bit, you can do better than the service techs, who tend to be VERY poorly trained for this sort of thing. I have seen many posts from users who claimed the service tech who showed up for these "annual calibrations" actually did more harm than good (screwing up carefully set convergence, turning SVM back on, turning the contrast back up to 100%, etc.)

-Bruce in Chi-Town

 

[Dan Joy]

Thanks Bruce and Jim. Hey Bruce, How is old Chicago, I was born on south side and really miss it!