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rtings just posted a video today about how LCD televisions with thin bezels WILL develop problems. They went out of their way to say this is NOT because the te

rtings just posted a video today about how LCD televisions with thin bezels WILL develop problems. They went out of their way to say this is NOT because the televisions are inexpensive. It is a design decision. Samsung response was basically a non answer. These companies don’t care about the longevity of their products. They will happily sell whatever sells the best. And if televisions break every three years, that’s good for business I guess? https://youtu.be/wiO4b37RsIk?si=tci4FpUQDX_-qe38 https://youtu.be/wiO4b37RsIk?si=tci4FpUQDX_-qe38

taeric 2y ago
I'm torn. Yes, this should be focused on. Ideally, things get better. But things are better. Sure televisions have a shorter life span. They are also absurdly cheaper than they have ever been. To not ack that the lower cost options are, at large, what we are complaining about hits me the wrong way.
- fortylove 2y ago
  The environmental impact of producing a product that needs frequent replacement should not be ignored. Especially when it's proven to be avoidable.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    There is an easy, proven way to make it count: include it into the price.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - taeric 2y ago
    You would be shocked to know that the environmental impact per TV has also dropped. Significantly. There was a lot that went into early televisions.
- BobAliceInATree 2y ago
  Actually, the thins screens are higher cost because they are more expensive to make. So it’s not the case that cheaper ones break sooner.
  - taeric 2y ago
    They are higher cost than what? My point was that televisions, as a category, have absolutely plummeted in costs. It is laughable how much they have fallen. When we moved into our first house, we kept a few nice CRTs because we thought they would make good extras for the house. By the time we admitted that they were silly, a replacement panel was barely $100 and nobody was accepting the CRT for resale. I would be interested in knowing how much harder it is to recycle these new panels. And what the environmental impact of producing them is. I would not be at all shocked to know that the effort that goes into making them lowers both of those metrics. I would be shocked if it is dramatic.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > I would be interested in knowing how much harder it is to recycle these new panels. I actually had a hard time finding a place to actually take my last LCD TV for recycling. It was 55", but the local recycler only took LCDs up to 50" in size. They suggested going to Best Buy or other places as they took TVs up to I think 70" or something. But the people at the Best Buy nearby didn't understand me wanting to recycle the TV, they kept asking why I didn't just throw it in the trash. They ultimately wanted to charge me something like $40 to take the TV for recycling.
      - taeric 2y ago
        This is the exact run-around we got for our 27" CRT. I think they were charging more to take it for recycling, oddly. Flat didn't accept it for landfill.
- cubefox 2y ago
  > They are also absurdly cheaper than they have ever been. Are they cheaper or just larger?
  - Slyfox33 2y ago
    They are absolutely cheaper. You can get a pretty decent 48 inch TV for ~$200.
    - cubefox 2y ago
      For that price you could also get a CRT TV.
      - echoangle 2y ago
        The point was: they are cheaper per size. You can either get LCD TVs at the price of a CRT that are much larger than a CRT of the same price, or a LCD TV at the size of a CRT which is much cheaper than the same-sized CRT.
        amlib 2y ago
        If CRTs kept being manufactured and evolving, maybe they would be more competitive on price compared to today's cheap LCDs.
        thfuran 2y ago
        There's no world in which Walmart is selling cheap 70" CRTs.
        taeric 2y ago
        You can get a 70 inch TV for $400 at Walmart today. My last CRT was a 27" and I payed $1,000. They are absolutely cheaper. Edit: To be clear, I'm agreeing with parent post here. It is mind blowing how cheap televisions have become.
Daz1 2y ago
"And if televisions break every three years, that’s good for business I guess?" Only if consumers have a preference for TVs with short lifespans, which they don't.
- askvictor 2y ago
  But they do have a preference for cheap things, and don't think about the lifespan
- TheHumanist 2y ago
  Of course not, but I don't believe most people I am friends with (or family) spend time really looking into products before they buy. Maybe a car or something? But a TV? When you can get them for $200-$300 at Walmart? Unlikely, unfortunately. So, that business model still works. I realize my very small social bubble is not remotely large enough for an actual population sample, but I feel like it's just common sense. Things like Temu exist because this is a very common way of thinking.
  - Daz1 2y ago
    All you need to do is look at Samsungs abysmal reputation for refrigerators to see my point in action.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    Pretty much everybody replacing a TV that only lasted three years will choose a different brand next time. Making things that don't last is a good way to destroy the value of a brand
    - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
      Unless the new one is cheaper and bigger. It's a TV, not a dishwasher.
      - BobAliceInATree 2y ago
        But you just get the equally cheap & bigger TV from a different brand.
craz8 2y ago
I have a $4500 LG OLED thin TV that is 2 years old and broken The screen has had lines for a while, annoying, but not critical. Now there’s a power issue where it powers off in a few minutes Now, this is out of warranty, and, it turns out, the 2 LG repair locations in the Seattle area no longer do TVs LG know this is a problem - they are currently sending parts, and there’s a West Coast LG repair guy who will come and fix it when the parts arrive A 4K $4k TV that isn’t that old and is almost un repairable is crazy Anything with some exotic screen is going to cost more money and be harder to fix - pay for the extended warranty! Note - my credit card has automatic extended warranty, but I need a quote for fixing the item, and there are absolutely no authorized repair people within 500 miles of Seattle to even get that!
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  There's no hiding the need for companies to condition consumers to understand that purchasing a top-shelf item is not supposed to be about investing in long-lasting quality any more. That's so 20th century. To consume as directed you need to enjoy the most luxurious product you can get for your top-dollar, if you can afford it, with confidence that the features are at least on par with the modern bargain alternatives. That's a fairly definite bar when it comes to disposability/non-repairability, but engineering-to-specifications can adapt by being informed from experience with lesser models. Don't worry, they really are intended to last as long as the cheapest crummiest models on the average.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  Adjusted for inflation, I once spent nearly that much on a big (for the time), nice 1080P LCD TV. I paid extra for an extended warranty. After a couple of years the power supply started to fail, and the company that sold me the warranty had gone bankrupt. You're not describing a new problem, I don't think. (Next, can we talk about the reliability of exotic cars?)
  - JoeAltmaier 2y ago
    Ha! I paid for one on a pickup truck. When it needed something, I sent in the 12 documents required to make a claim. They returned it, with a letter saying 'you forgot the thirteenth double-secret document we didn't say you needed to send'. I gave up.
tjoff 2y ago
Edge-lit is first and foremost a cost-cutting design. It allowed the thin-craze to advance significantly but edge-lit is also used where thinness isn't prioritized. Because it is primarily the cheapest design they've been able to come up with. So I'm not quite sure about the comment that "it is not because the televisions are inexpensive". The problem seems to be heat, and edge-lit concentrates heat along the (small) light source. Better materials, bigger heatsinks etc. can combat this but since cost was the driving factor that negates the entire existence of the edge-lit display. And I'm not sure about thin bezels? They are talking about thickness, no?

taeric 2y ago

I'm torn. Yes, this should be focused on. Ideally, things get better. But things are better. Sure televisions have a shorter life span. They are also absurdly cheaper than they have ever been. To not ack that the lower cost options are, at large, what we are complaining about hits me the wrong way.

fortylove 2y ago
The environmental impact of producing a product that needs frequent replacement should not be ignored. Especially when it's proven to be avoidable.
- nine_k 2y ago
  There is an easy, proven way to make it count: include it into the price.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- taeric 2y ago
  You would be shocked to know that the environmental impact per TV has also dropped. Significantly. There was a lot that went into early televisions.
BobAliceInATree 2y ago
Actually, the thins screens are higher cost because they are more expensive to make. So it’s not the case that cheaper ones break sooner.
- taeric 2y ago
  They are higher cost than what? My point was that televisions, as a category, have absolutely plummeted in costs. It is laughable how much they have fallen. When we moved into our first house, we kept a few nice CRTs because we thought they would make good extras for the house. By the time we admitted that they were silly, a replacement panel was barely $100 and nobody was accepting the CRT for resale. I would be interested in knowing how much harder it is to recycle these new panels. And what the environmental impact of producing them is. I would not be at all shocked to know that the effort that goes into making them lowers both of those metrics. I would be shocked if it is dramatic.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > I would be interested in knowing how much harder it is to recycle these new panels. I actually had a hard time finding a place to actually take my last LCD TV for recycling. It was 55", but the local recycler only took LCDs up to 50" in size. They suggested going to Best Buy or other places as they took TVs up to I think 70" or something. But the people at the Best Buy nearby didn't understand me wanting to recycle the TV, they kept asking why I didn't just throw it in the trash. They ultimately wanted to charge me something like $40 to take the TV for recycling.
    - taeric 2y ago
      This is the exact run-around we got for our 27" CRT. I think they were charging more to take it for recycling, oddly. Flat didn't accept it for landfill.
cubefox 2y ago
> They are also absurdly cheaper than they have ever been. Are they cheaper or just larger?
- Slyfox33 2y ago
  They are absolutely cheaper. You can get a pretty decent 48 inch TV for ~$200.
  - cubefox 2y ago
    For that price you could also get a CRT TV.
    - echoangle 2y ago
      The point was: they are cheaper per size. You can either get LCD TVs at the price of a CRT that are much larger than a CRT of the same price, or a LCD TV at the size of a CRT which is much cheaper than the same-sized CRT.
      - amlib 2y ago
        If CRTs kept being manufactured and evolving, maybe they would be more competitive on price compared to today's cheap LCDs.
        thfuran 2y ago
        There's no world in which Walmart is selling cheap 70" CRTs.
        taeric 2y ago
        You can get a 70 inch TV for $400 at Walmart today. My last CRT was a 27" and I payed $1,000. They are absolutely cheaper. Edit: To be clear, I'm agreeing with parent post here. It is mind blowing how cheap televisions have become.

Daz1 2y ago

"And if televisions break every three years, that’s good for business I guess?" Only if consumers have a preference for TVs with short lifespans, which they don't.

askvictor 2y ago
But they do have a preference for cheap things, and don't think about the lifespan
TheHumanist 2y ago
Of course not, but I don't believe most people I am friends with (or family) spend time really looking into products before they buy. Maybe a car or something? But a TV? When you can get them for $200-$300 at Walmart? Unlikely, unfortunately. So, that business model still works. I realize my very small social bubble is not remotely large enough for an actual population sample, but I feel like it's just common sense. Things like Temu exist because this is a very common way of thinking.
- Daz1 2y ago
  All you need to do is look at Samsungs abysmal reputation for refrigerators to see my point in action.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  Pretty much everybody replacing a TV that only lasted three years will choose a different brand next time. Making things that don't last is a good way to destroy the value of a brand
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
    Unless the new one is cheaper and bigger. It's a TV, not a dishwasher.
    - BobAliceInATree 2y ago
      But you just get the equally cheap & bigger TV from a different brand.

craz8 2y ago

I have a $4500 LG OLED thin TV that is 2 years old and broken The screen has had lines for a while, annoying, but not critical. Now there’s a power issue where it powers off in a few minutes Now, this is out of warranty, and, it turns out, the 2 LG repair locations in the Seattle area no longer do TVs LG know this is a problem - they are currently sending parts, and there’s a West Coast LG repair guy who will come and fix it when the parts arrive A 4K $4k TV that isn’t that old and is almost un repairable is crazy Anything with some exotic screen is going to cost more money and be harder to fix - pay for the extended warranty! Note - my credit card has automatic extended warranty, but I need a quote for fixing the item, and there are absolutely no authorized repair people within 500 miles of Seattle to even get that!

fuzzfactor 2y ago
There's no hiding the need for companies to condition consumers to understand that purchasing a top-shelf item is not supposed to be about investing in long-lasting quality any more. That's so 20th century. To consume as directed you need to enjoy the most luxurious product you can get for your top-dollar, if you can afford it, with confidence that the features are at least on par with the modern bargain alternatives. That's a fairly definite bar when it comes to disposability/non-repairability, but engineering-to-specifications can adapt by being informed from experience with lesser models. Don't worry, they really are intended to last as long as the cheapest crummiest models on the average.
ssl-3 2y ago
Adjusted for inflation, I once spent nearly that much on a big (for the time), nice 1080P LCD TV. I paid extra for an extended warranty. After a couple of years the power supply started to fail, and the company that sold me the warranty had gone bankrupt. You're not describing a new problem, I don't think. (Next, can we talk about the reliability of exotic cars?)
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  Ha! I paid for one on a pickup truck. When it needed something, I sent in the 12 documents required to make a claim. They returned it, with a letter saying 'you forgot the thirteenth double-secret document we didn't say you needed to send'. I gave up.

tjoff 2y ago

Edge-lit is first and foremost a cost-cutting design. It allowed the thin-craze to advance significantly but edge-lit is also used where thinness isn't prioritized. Because it is primarily the cheapest design they've been able to come up with. So I'm not quite sure about the comment that "it is not because the televisions are inexpensive". The problem seems to be heat, and edge-lit concentrates heat along the (small) light source. Better materials, bigger heatsinks etc. can combat this but since cost was the driving factor that negates the entire existence of the edge-lit display. And I'm not sure about thin bezels? They are talking about thickness, no?