Great TV - beware of service plans - short lamp life
Written: Oct 19 '06
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Pros: Great set, easy to setup and lots of connection options.
Cons: Very short 12 month lamp life. Extended service plan companies may provide terrible service.
The Bottom Line: Factor into your costs an average lamp life of 12 months with moderate use. Lamps are expensive so plasma may be a better deal in the long run.
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| cerious's Full Review: Samsung HL-R5078W 50 in. HDTV DLP TV |
Great picture that does well with high definition and standard definition sources. Does very good job of upscaling DVD content and standard broadcasts as well as dealing with action movies and sports.
Controls are well laid out and it is easy to do the online programing. Lots of inputs and outputs for integrating with HDMI sources, stereo amps and speakers.
Lamp life is much shorter than expected. After 12 months of moderate use the lamp needed to be replaced. I made the mistake though of buying an extended service plan from the merchant selling the Samsung and the "24 month" plan turned out to be a plan that extended the 12-month Samsung warranty to 24 months, in effect a 12 month service plan.
NSI contacts a local repair shop and then does nothing to follow up on the repair. It is up to the owner of the TV to chase down the repair shop. My local shop did not get the first fax purportedly sent by NSI so I needed to contact the local service shop and NSI to get the trouble ticket faxed to the shop. After the repair shop sent a fax repair estimate to NSI, NSI 3 days later had still not approved the repair and so the part has not even been ordered, 12 days after the initial call to NSI. Best case it will be 3 weeks from the time of my first call to NSI for service to the day my TV is repaired.
I would never buy a set from a merchant offering only a 3rd party warranty for service and would verify if this was the only option that NSI was not the company involved.
Knowing I will be replacing the lamp every 12 months, my next set will be a plasma screen.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 3674.04
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Epinions.com ID:
cerious
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Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 0 members
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