PLEASE Don't Buy This!
Written: Mar 26 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fairly easy to use menu, Quick Timer Set
Cons: Buttons fall off, Tapes get jammed, Hard to deal with Warranty
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| savagefamily's Full Review: JVC HR-A35 VHS VCR |
I got this VCR for Christmas 1998, and I thought it was the greatest thing in the world for about 2 weeks. That's when I found out the truth about just how bad this piece of equipment is!
I'll start by saying that the functions are fairly easy to program, after you read the manual, and it's got a great feature where you can set it to record the same program daily, weekly or monthly, and it only takes the push of 5 buttons to easily have the timer set. (I prefer this over the VCR+ mode, which it also has.)
The menus are a bit confusing at first (for example, the main menu has Channel Set, Inital Set and Functions. It's hard to tell which one will set your clock without reading the manual or trying all the possibilities.) but I'm used to it now. Really this isn't where the problem lies.
About 2 weeks after I got it, the Stop button on the machine popped in and fell inside. This is also the only way to eject the tape, so now we take a flashlight and a small wooden skewer and poke the little plastic post inside that the stop button used to hit. And since then, we've also lost the Channel down button and the Menu button. I swear I never did anything to abuse this machine, just a few weeks of normal use (Okay, maybe a little more than normal since I got my movie club card, but nothing that should cause buttons to litterly fall off!)
I tried calling the manufacturer because it was still under warranty, but I was told since I recieved it as a gift, the warranty wasn't any good for me. That I would have to send it back to whoever gave it to me (my step-brother-in-law in San Diego) and have him take it to a local repair shop that was part of their warranty policy. Now this just sounds crazy to me sending it through the mail and asking him to pay for it, and we'll pay him back? So I forgot that idea, and I still use the remote for the menu and channel buttons, but I'm rather unhappy about the whole stick-in-the-machine-to-eject deal.
So if this isn't bad enough, I few months later, one of the pieces floating around in there gets stuck in the mechanism that ejects the tape, so every time I eject, the tape comes up halfway and gets stuck, makes a horrible grinding noise for about 30 seconds and then sucks itself back in and turns off. Then it won't even turn on again without unplugging it for a half hour or so until the temporary memory wears off. We finally resorted to getting some big tweezers and yanking the tape out ourselves when it would try to come up. At least it never ate any rentals, but it did get one of my tapes. (nothing important, just some TV shows I like)
Eventually, this problem stopped, and for about 2 months now, it's been working just fine.
It makes me wonder if the manufactuers make them this flimsy on purpose so you'll have to buy a new more expensive model or spend money at one of their authorized fix-it shops. Or is technology really so bad that $139 can't make a VCR that stays together for more than a month!
So, I'd advise that you DO NOT purchase this machine. I only keep it because it was a gift, but I would never sit still if I had invested my own money into this piece of junk. And you shouldn't either!
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
savagefamily
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Location: San Francisco, Ca
Reviews written: 102
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
I'm a mom, and donor recruiter for a Blood Bank in San Francisco.
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