tv bust..replacement offered.. but

quinns2003

hi guys... my parents bought a hitachi 1080p tv (42") price £485 from argos 8 mths ago. 2 weeks ago it broke down and they came and picked it up and have sent it back saying unrepairable and to take it back for a replacement.. so at argos they tell the parents that that model was on special offer when they bought it and have none left so they offerd them a replacement or money back.. now the only tv they had was this http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5295504/c_1/1%7Ccat_14419512%7CTelevisions%7C14419667/c_2/2%7Ccat_14419667%7C40+and+42+inch+LCD+TVs%7C14419676/Trail/searchtext%3EALBA.htm
is there much diff between hitachi and alba ?
so my mum not having a clue took the tv offered and had to pay an extra £15 price diff.. i think i would of had the refund and shopped around but what do you techie guys who know abit more about tv's think of that model or should she just take it back and shop around... cheers guys

patman99

Alba are made by the same company that makes Bush', 'Onn', 'Fergerson' etc.
Basically, they re-use all the bits from faulty batches of TVs that the likes of Comet & Currys off-load once they have sold enough to make a profit.
So in theory, an 'Alba' may contain an LG screen with a Sony tuner.

In reality, they are just a cheap throw-away telly, and nowhere near to the qaulity of the Hitachi.

aliEnRIK

Hitachi dont make their own tvs anymore so they too could be anything rebadged

new_man

its worth spending a little more and getting a sony or another good make

quinns2003

thx for replies... ive told them to take it back and get their money back.. just looking around last night in currys and on-line with john lewis there is a samsung 42" plasma for £499 which is way better than the alba and also with john lewis u get the 5 yrs free warranty

quinns2003

so if anyone does know of any deals on tv's give me the heads up... thx
around the £500 and 42"

patman99

Not quite sure if plasma sets are HD.
BTW, there are only 5 companies in the world that make the actual lcd panels.

Samsung are a good quality set. See if John Lewis are available on cash-back sites, or if there are any voucher codes for them.

Dime_Bar

patman99 wrote: »

Alba are made by the same company that makes Bush', 'Onn', 'Fergerson' etc.
Basically, they re-use all the bits from faulty batches of TVs that the likes of Comet & Currys off-load once they have sold enough to make a profit.
So in theory, an 'Alba' may contain an LG screen with a Sony tuner.

In reality, they are just a cheap throw-away telly, and nowhere near to the qaulity of the Hitachi.

Have you got proof of that?

Alba (and Bush) trademarks are owned by Argos and are used to own brand others goods, however untill Patman can provide proof then I would take his comments regarding them being made from faulty batches with a pinch of salt.

As for the quality of the TV, obviously the quality of the product your parents had previously was not up to much, as as mentioned most TV brands do not produce there own TV as a whole, the important thing is are your parents happy with the quality of the picture? and the length of waranty?

Dime_Bar

quinns2003 wrote: »

thx for replies... ive told them to take it back and get their money back.. just looking around last night in currys and on-line with john lewis there is a samsung 42" plasma for £499 which is way better than the alba and also with john lewis u get the 5 yrs free warranty

Just beware if they wanted 1080p that samsung is not.

patman99

Phillips do a good full-HD set for under £500 (local independant dealer price), sound is a bit lacking in depth though.

patman99

RE; #8.

If Bush and Alba are trademarks of Argos, how come they are sold in my local Co-op and Sainsburys?.

As for proof, how about and interesting chat with one of the service managers at Philips that a learned freind of mine had after he had just rejected his third set.
He questioned this guy about the quality of the end-product having had 3 sets replaced by Comet within 9 weeks. He was told that 'All the big stores pre-order large batches of any new products long before their launch. Only trouble is, they want them in-store on the official luanch day. Sometimes we don't have time to fully-test each set as we have a deadline to meet. If they start to get a returns rate over 10%, they tend to sell enough tvs to make a good profit, then off-load the rest to Beon who then strip them down, bin the components with know problems, then re-build them as Alba,Bush, Ferguson, Goodmans and any number of other shops own-brands.'

So, basically speaking, you could walk in to a Sainsburys, buy a Bush tv, take-off the back, and find you have Philips lcd panel (made usually by Fuji) linked to a tuner from a toshiba.

I have a 'Goodmans' set that was sold as a base model with no teletext, I found purely by accident that it uses a Tatung tuner, and does have teletext built-in (the spec sheet also says is doesn't), so by trying a different remote, I've unlocked features that according to the maker don't exist.

I am quite surprised that Hitatchi no longer make their own sets, especially when you consider they are one of only 5 LCD panel makers in the world.