3year old plasma tv - should we buy it 2nd hand?

angelfire

Hello, I'm wondering if any techies on here might be able to advise me - my partner has been offered a 42inch panasonic plasma tv for £400 - the guy who's selling it only tends to buy the best stuff and is only selling it as he's getting a HD ready tv.

What we need to know is whether these things have a 'shelf life'? We've heard that the plasma screens only tend to last so long - is this correct? and if so, is it worth paying £400 for a 3 year old model?

We weren't necessarily looking for a tv, even though we would like one (the one we have is a standard black tv set around 7 years old!) , but if were' going to spend the money we want to make sure it's not on a white elephant...having said that, the guy who's selling it (my boyfriend's boss), has said he'll give us our money back if it breaks soon after we buy it.....

any help, advice would be greatly appreciated!

Angel x

DrBenway

the question is not how old the tv is but how much has it been used.

a friend of mine had a plasma that went after less than 3 years and the repair men asked how much it was used and sighed when he replied "Oh. About 12-15 hours a day".

everythingblogcast

I wouldn't buy it. because you dont really know the history of the item.

Little_John

Your right about the bloke buying decent kit as Panasonic make decent plasma screens.

But like the other replies, plasma screens have a life and once that up its time for the bin. I would never buy a 2nd user plasma.

Aiadi

But Panasonic should be fine even if it has been constantly on for three years provided that it wasn't dropped or something. They are really very reliable.

Little_John

Its nothing to do with reliability, plasma has a problem that it is a gas and the gas is used up over the life of the screen. when the gas has gone the screen stops working. It was said the life of a plasma was said to be 5 years based on a few hours a day of use. up the daily useage and the life span drops.

Aiadi

Little_John wrote:

Its nothing to do with reliability, plasma has a problem that it is a gas and the gas is used up over the life of the screen. when the gas has gone the screen stops working. It was said the life of a plasma was said to be 5 years based on a few hours a day of use. up the daily useage and the life span drops.

I am sorry but you are mistaken here. You could be right for the very cheapy ones you get from Woolworths but not for a leading brand. They last 12-55 years depending on usage. See here:
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/plasmatv-lifespan.html

No one in their right mind would buy a TV that lasts for 5 years and goverments would collapse if that was the case.......

angelfire

Well hello again and thankyou to everyone for your replies. :beer:

We do know the full history of this tv as it belongs to my boyfriend's boss whom only 'buys the best'. On balance, were' currently watching a 7 year old crt set - £400 quid would not buy us very much in the way of LCD (not for a good make anyway), so we've decided to buy this plasma...

nealgs

it should be possible to get the number of hours the screen has been turned on for - you would need to get the model number first.

As mentioned the Plasma screens have what they call a Half life, which is the time taken for the brighness of the screen to reach half of what it is from new, this figure varies from maker to maker, with figures between 30000 and 60000hrs.

So for example - 8hrs a day, the plasma should be good for 10yrs for a 30000hr unit, to 20yrs for a 60000hr unit.

Worth seeing if there is any remaining warranty on the unit (if as you say, he only buys the best, then at the time of purchase, Plasma's were relatively new items and hence people were intent on getting extended warranties 3+ yrs on them)

That's what we did when we purchased ours, about 3yrs ago too.

regards
Gary