TV BRANDS NOT WORTH BUYING IN OUR OPINION ARE:

Curtis
Dynex
Element
Emerson (owned by Funai)
Funai
Hisense (Chinese state-owned enterprise)*
Infocus
Insignia
LG (less than 50 inch not worth repairing) formerly Goldstar of Korea
Magnavox (licensed to and manufactured by Funai)
Olevia (bankrupt in 2009 - assets sold to Funai)
Proscan
RCA (manufactured in China by ON Corporation of Korea)
Sceptre
Seiki
Sharp (sold to Hisence of China in 2015 for North American market - Mexico factory)*
TCL Corp. (Chinese electronics company that Samsung outsources modules to)
Viewsonic
Viore
Vizio (less than 50 inch not worth repairing) Read More: It's Watching You
Read More: Vizio Disposable HDTV Sellers
Westinghouse (Westinghouse Digital LLC) Owned by Chi Mei Corporation of Taiwan
Zenith (acquired by LG of Korea in 1995)

These TVs are made of cheap materials internally and do not last very long in our opinion. The average life is 2.5 years. Many new parts needed to repair these brands are not available from the manufacturer or parts distributors. Some of them are manufactured by another company entirely and sold under the trade name usually of an old or inferior design. Vizio would be a good example of this practice in our opinion. The American brands on the list were bought-out decades ago by foreign companies.

In general, Japanese TVs are of the highest quality today, last longer, are certainly worth repairing, but cost more. Korean TVs come in a distant second in quality to the Japanese TVs, and the Chinese brands are of the lowest quality in our opinion. Unfortunately for consumers, the most popular sold televisions are Korean or built with Korean and Chinese components; Samsung, Vizio, and LG due to their low price.

Hopefully, consumers will eventually realize "you only get what you pay for" and start purchasing quality televisions again. You would be much better off buying a used Panasonic plasma television than buying any of the new TVs on the list above. The 2 remaining Japanese TV brands sold in North America are Panasonic and Sony, which are the only quality TVs left with the exception of their bottom of the line models typically found at Walmart and other big box stores.



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