We bought this TV at Circuit City to replace the 26+ year old 9" Sony in our kitchen. The Sony worked flawlessly over the years, but after 26 years of use finally took its toll and the old TV just died one day. Since the Sony was deeper that its height or width, we decided to opt for something a bit more modern and stylish, instead of throwing good money away getting it fixed.

We stopped at a few of the "big box" chain stores to shop around. Best Buy didn't have much selection in this price range, and they wouldn't match lower prices. So we went across the street to Circuit City, which had helpful staff and would price match, but was in the middle of a store remodel. Since we were in a hurry, we figured for $250 the Polaroid FLM-1514 would be an OK replacement. It was a modern looking, 15" flat panel LCD television, and it was HD ready.

The bottom line is: we were very, very wrong!

The picture looked pretty decent in the store. With all the noise from the store remodel going on, it was hard to get a good idea of how it really sounded. Big mistake!

In the store, all the TVs are driven off a high definition video feed optimized to providing a really sharp picture on just about any product out there. The Polaroid definitely looked crisper than the lower resolution Sharp TV right next to it. The Polaroid was a true "high definition" screen - 1024 by 1268 pixels, whereas the Sharp model was only 640 by 480. Of course, the fallacy of our logic was that the cable feed at home, provided by Charter Cable, wasn't even providing enough resolution to take advantage of the Sharp's relatively low resolution screen.

At home, the picture on the Polaroid FLM-1514 looked OK, but nothing spectacular. Of course, compared to the 26 year old 9" Sony picture we were used to, the new TV did look a bit better. Not 26 years and almost double the screen size better, but it was still better. The biggest problem was the sound. It was muffled, not clear, and in general mediocre compared to the old Sony. After 2 weeks of listening to this tinny "low-fi" sound coming out of our new flat screen TV, I figured enough is enough.

Before I decided to take the TV back, I did a little research on the Internet. Apparently, we got one of the good units. A lot of other reviews said the TV died within 2 weeks. The bottom line was essentially "you get what you pay for" -- and there's nothing cheaper than this fine unit.

Fortunately, we only had the set for just over 2 weeks, and Circuit City has a 30 day return policy for small TVs. After standing in the return line at the store for half an hour, I got to the head of the line. The cashier helping me scanned my receipt, asked if I wanted a refund or store credit (refund, obviously), and went on to tell me the cheap Polaroid TVs are basically junk.

If you're looking for a relatively small, inexpensive TV, you can't do much worse than the 15" Polaroid FLM-15114. My advice to you is to either spend the extra $100 or so to get a decent TV, or hit a Salvation Army thrift store and see if they have any old Sony TVs for $20 or so!

I eventually went to Costco and got a 20" Toshiba LCD TV (the smallest size television Costco carried) for just over $500. At double the price of the Polaroid, it was certainly more than double the quality of television.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 250