The lifetime of a television set?

[mel]

Re: The lifetime of a television set?

I notice that the high definition TVs we have today don't last as long as the good old fashioned cathode ray tube TVs. TVs I owned:

1973 - Sears 13 inch black and white TV.... worked to around 1985 and only broke because power cable that was hard wired into the set got loose and could not be easily fixed.

1984 to 1999 - Hitachi 19 inch color TV - This sucker lasted a long time. Pure basic TV with two dials and no remote (VHF and UHF). Given that over the air reception was lousy in my area during analog TV days, I got cable. When that happened in 1984 basic cable was like about $15 a month with 30 channels. Over time Oceanic added more channels, many which I did not like, and jacked up the prices.

1999 to 2011 - Panasonic 19 inch color TV: Got this one immediately after the Hitachi died so I could continue watching Babylon 5 and Star Trek. Cable TV rates continued to climb... $33, $45, $69, $70... ouch.

2011 - Panasonic died and I haven't bought a TV since. I also dumped the expensive (I hate paying for channels I don't watch) cable and have been internet only for the most time.

From 2008 to 2015 or so I did have a small flatscreen 7 inch TV that I used for over the air viewing with a digital adapter hooked up. I got rid of it this year after doing a massive clean up of my place. So now I am internet only and view TV content with computers only.

I do however think about getting a new flatscreen HiDefinition TV but am leary of the durability of new sets. Most of my CRT TVs have lasted more than 10 years.

[scrivener]

Re: The lifetime of a television set?

The first set I purchased new was a 19" LXI set I bought at Sears in Hilo in 1994. It was about $200, fifty bucks cheaper than a nearly identical model that came with a remote. Yes, until last January, I have never owned a TV with a remote. I always just used the VCR (later, the TiVo) controller as the remote, using the VCR and TiVo tuners instead of the TV's tuner. I'm still using it, although it's really been unwatchable for the past year. So that makes it 21 years.

A year and a half ago, I bought a 32" Samsung at Costco. It's still in the box for some reason.

[helen]

In the 34 years I have been more or less on my own I had 4 television sets.

1. 1981 to 1985 - 9 inch black & white set from JC Pennys
2. 1985 to 1998 - Sears 13 inch color TV
3. 1998 to 2009 - 19 inch color TV set
4. 2009 to 2016 - 19 inch Magnavox

The first set was working fine but when I was able to afford a color TV in 1985 I purchased the 2nd set for $250 and dumped the first set after there were no takers for it.

That 2nd set lasted pretty long, other than the fact in its final days it displayed things kind of darkly, didn't noticed it that much as watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager the backgrounds were dark to being with. It is only when I played the movie Top Gun I sort of remembered at the beginning the movie took place in daylight and not really in dusk like conditions (expect when the Tomcats landed).

Set #3 belonged to Albert and I was holding it (and using it) until he got back on his feet (which he did), at that point I purchased set #4, which kind of stopped working about a month ago (June 2016). Managed to give the set to a TV repair place to dump since I was thinking of getting a bigger TV set for my place anyway.

I haven't gotten a new TV set yet, but I kind of thinking that 7 years is kind of long for electronics to last now a days? I don't expect things to last forever.

This thread is about comparing other peoples experiences with the lifetime of their television sets. How many years have your current television set being operating?

Picked up a Magnavox 19" LCD (model #: 19MF338B) from Sam's Club about 2 weeks ago for around $240 (which includes tax). It's does not do HD tho. I don't think my place could not support a TV bigger than 22 to 24 inches.