Night before last we settled in to watch our last show of the evening. When we do that my friend watches the TV in the livingroom and I watch the one in my bedroom, both which are fed the signal from the big dish. When he gets tired he'll cut that one off and go to sleep and I either continue watching mine or change the channel until I am through watching for the night.
We both had just settled in and a couple minutes later the livingroom TV went off. Since it was a show he had wanted to watch I yelled in there and asked if he had changed his mind and he said he hadn't turned it off. While he was going for the remote, it came back on, then a few seconds went off. It came on again for a bit longer, then off...then on, and kept repeating with no consistency of the on or off times (sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds). If you pushed the power on the remote it would come on, then at a random time shut off... then randomly come back on again. If it was on and you pushed either the volume or channel up/down buttons it would turn off, if it was on and you pushed any of those buttons it would turn off. He finally gave up and turned it off, but as he dozed off the TV stated turning itself off and on again
We finally unplugged it for the night.
Yesterday morning I plugged it in and found it was still doing it. I had to go re-up my car insurance so I decided I'd replace the TV on the same trip. I knew my friend was bummed about the TV, but I didn't tell him I was replacing it and left him here after showing him how to watch DVDs on the laptop.
The biggest concern for the replacement was space. There is only one spot in the livingroom/kitchen area of this trailer where a TV
can go and the 14" (RCA flatscreen) that we had was practically
made to fit in the space (anything sticking too far out will be hit by bedroom door). I had cleverly managed to run the satellites (receivers are under the sink
) without drilling holes so trust me, if there were any way to bring the 32" from inside the house I would have long ago
The TV/Appliance place near my insurance company only had a few off-brand small TVs for more than I would pay for name brand of the same size at Wal-Mart, so I decided to go there. They were out of the flat-screen RCAs and had a 13" I didn't like that took up about the same space so I wandered over to the LCD TV area. In the smaller sizes they had Polaroid, one other big brand... I can't remember and Emerson. Once I realized that a 20" LCD (which would sit further back) would fit in the space it was just a matter of picking which one I was leaving with.
I liked the Polaroid 20" because the speakers were underneath but it's picture was crappy (dark/fuzzy) especially attention drawn to sitting next to the Emerson. The Emerson picture was many times brighter and clearer than the big brands and you could still see it from a side view unlike the others. Easy choice.
My friend was thrilled that he's not stuck watching DVDs on the laptop
instead of surfing the couple thousand channels he's gotten spoiled on and it will make a nice bedroom TV when I get back up in the house
Before I brought it in I tripped him out when I walked in, got the other TV without saying a word and went outside (leaving the door open so he could see) and chucked it in the garbage can
For a budget LCD I give it glowing reviews. If you're looking for one you should add it to your "check out" list