My rear projector TV has been stuffed for 2 months. Fortunately, I got an extended warranty for 5 years when I bought the TV. Unfortunately, the extended warranty wasn’t with Panasonic but another insurance company. To keep a long story short, it’s been 2 months, and the repairer is only coming this Thursday to repair the TV. Wasn’t so much the fault of the extended warranty Oamps, but the repairer they sent took his time.

What do you do in situations like this? You could yell and give the repairer a hard time, and chances are he’ll bump you to the bottom of the list. He said he will come and repair the rear pro on-site this Thursday, so before I expose the repair shop on the internet for their poor service, let’s see how it’ll go. Apparently the picture tube is stuffed, and all he has to do is replace it. Why it would take this long to have the part ordered in is anyone’s guess.

But back to my recent Samsung LA32M61B LCD tv purchase. I bought an XBox 360 when it was launched in Australia. Since the rear pro was stuffed, I wasn’t able to play it properly and lost interest. I only played the XBox for 3 hours after I had it for 4 weeks.

Then I saw some games being demo-ed on an LCD screen and I knew I had to get one. The Panasonic is HDTV ready, but wasn’t able to display the games at 1080i, only 480p. Plus, since the rear pro was stuffed, and not wishing to use it to play video games anymore (apparently it’s not good for the tv) I decided to get an LCD screen.

I did my research for 2 weeks and it wasn’t easy making a decision. There are loads of options out there, and some have features that others don’t have. I narrowed the list down to a Sony Bravia KLVS26A10 and the Samsung LA32M61B. Why the Bravia “S” Series? The better “V” Series was far too expensive.

A 26 inch screen was big enough, but the Samsung was a new model and didn’t come in any size smaller than a 32 inch. It had HDMI, 5000:1 contrast ratio, 8ms response time, was HDTV ready and came with a 3 year manufacturer warranty. Basically, more future proof compared to the Sony, and boy did it look pretty sharp too!

Went to a couple of shops but eventually bought it at Bing Lees Moore Park for $2100, and that included a 5 year extended warranty. I didn’t have to pay with cash to get that price, so ended up earning a couple of Visa rewards points at the same time.

For your reference, best price I got for the Sony was at Retravision World Square. For just slightly less than $1600, they offered the tv with a 5 year extended warranty. As you can tell, I’m big on extended warranties.

Playing games on a non HD screen doesn’t do the XBox 360 any justice. You really need a high definition tv, else it’ll just be like playing the old XBox.