I am a disabled person and spend 90 percent of my life at home. For better or worse, I spend a fair amount of time watching TV. Because this is takes up much of my time I wanted to get a high quality flat panel TV. Our family room is on a corner of our house and two entire walls of the room are covered with windows. During the day, even with the blinds drawn, there is a lot of light entering the room on two sides. I knew that any TV I purchased had to have a matte finish screen to cut down on the reflections.
Normally I'm one of those guys that does lots of research before making a big ticket purchase. I check out Consumer Reports, look into various product reviews and see what users have to say at sites like epinions. While at Fry's, my wife and I decided to look at Flat Panel TVs. We found a Mitsubishi model with a matte screen and a good picture (LT-46144). Doing all that research can get a bit old, so I thought I'd pass this time. Mitsubishi is supposed to be an upscale brand and I trustingly purchased the TV based on name reputation, as opposed to product research. I hedged my bet by purchasing an extended warranty.
Within a few months, I started to have dark lines going down both sides of the screen. Not good. I flexed the muscles of the extended warranty and scheduled a service call. While I'm waiting, I decided to do a bit of web searching to see what was up with these lines. Imagine my surprise when Mitsubishi customers were having lots of problems with lines on their flat panels. I contacted the service company and asked if they had fixed the problem with a revised screen. He assured me that they had resolved the problem and would install a different screen. But as I expected, when the service folks arrived at my house, they installed the exact same part number screen that they took out. What is the point in that when they know the screen is defective.
As expected, a few months later the lines returned. Shame on Mitsubishi and the service company for putting the same defective screen in my TV. I had no intentions of letting them install another bogus screen of the same part number. The lines would just return in a few months. I contacted Fry's to request the TV be exchanged out right this time. I told them I was having a problem with lines on the screen and they replied "Oh, it must be a Mitsubishi". They were well aware of the problem and said that Mitsubishi was doing a recall on these TVs.
I contacted Mitsubishi and they said they would upgrade the TV for me (a LT-46151). I informed them that I must have a matte finish screen, but amazingly, no one in customer service could tell me if the new screen was gloss or matte. Poor training that they don't know their own products. I continued to push and a few days later I was told that Mitsubishi only makes gloss screens now. That would be a disaster of screen glare in my family room.
I contacted Fry's again, asking if they would be willing to take the new Mitsubishi in exchange for credit towards some other brand of matte screen TV. Fry's agreed to this if Mitsubishi would ship the TV directly to them. I was very encouraged by this and contacted Mitsubishi to have the TV sent to them. Mitsubishi refused, saying they will only ship to the TV owner. Dumped on again.
Now, I'm caught in a catch-22. Either I keep my piece of garbage original Mitsubishi TV with all the lines or I exchange for a new gloss screen Mitsubishi TV. Keeping the old one would have been a bad decision, so I elected to accept the new gloss screen, hoping the reflections would be tolerable.
After the new LT-46151 arrived and was installed, it was a disaster. The glare is horrific. Any time during the day the picture has nasty glare when viewing straight on. If I try to view from a side angle the glare is so bad that the picture is un-viewable. I spent $2000 and have a TV that is barely visible during the day time (when I do most of my viewing). It was very discouraging and disappointing.
Mitsubishi called back to see how happy I would be with the new TV and I told them my frustrations. Their response was pretty much "You signed for the new TV, so too bad". They just didn't care that they had delivered an un-useable TV to my house. I asked them to escalate this to see if they could work something out with Fry's to get me a credit towards some other matte screen TV. Their response was "We don't do that any more".
Bottom line, Mitsubishi was knowingly selling defective flat panel TVs. The techs knew about this problem, and many users on the web had shared their experience with this "lines on screen" problem. Yet Mitsubishi and their retailers continued to sell this defective product. Shame on you Mitsubishi. Since Mitsubishi no longer manufactures matte finish screens The gloss screens on their new models is terrible if you have any ambient light in your viewing room. I can't expect them to directly furnish me with a matte finish screen TV. However, there is no good reason they could not work out a deal with Fry's to make an exchange. They have done this sort of exchange in the past and it is simply a management decision not do this again. This had a simple solution, but Mitsubishi management had no interest in solving this problem. Shame on you Mitsubishi.
Right now I just feel like I've been taken advantage of. Because of my health, I can't continue burning energy fighting the crooks and clowns at Mitsubishi. I've got two choices now. I can just keep the TV and try to ignore the glare (I'm trying this right now, but it's a bit tough after spending two-grand on a TV and not being able to see the screen during the day). Or, I can dump this TV on craigslist (I'd be quite lucky to get even half of the retail price since it is technically a used TV without a transferable warranty), Then turn around and pay full price for a new matte screen TV. Financially, I don't think I can swing that (and it frosts me even being put in this position).
While I sort out my options, I wanted to share my experience with others that may be shopping for a flat panel Mitsubishi TV. Mitsubishi were knowingly selling or allowing the sales of known defective TVs. They had it within their power to work out a simple deal with Fry's (Fry's had already said this was acceptable), but they were unwilling to make the phone call. My $2000 grand padded their bottom line for a while. I would encourage others shopping for a flat panel TV to not use their money to subsidize this sort of corrupt and lazy customer service from Mitsubishi.
For that matter, I just can see buying anything from Mitsubishi, be it an automobile, fork lift, or air conditioner. Their Glossy TV screens are useless anyway.
Please learn from my mistakes. Do your homework ahead of time and let your hard earned money go to another company that makes quality products and will deal with you honestly.
I just hope I can get Fry's to transfer the 5 year extended maintenance contract to the new TV. If they don't, I'm out another couple hundred dollars and my new TV will not even have an extended warranty. I'm just feeling so hosed.
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Mitsubishi LT-46151 46-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with Integrated Sound Projector, Black.
